Kategorie: Kitchen Rants

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Kitchen Rants Whatever

Planning a New Kitchen

It’s been awfully quiet here for some time. I know it has been awfully quiet here before, but this time there’s actually a reason. My cooking adventures have come to a halt for the time being. I do cook every now and then, but when I do, it’s more or less out of necessity than out of true inspiration.

But don’t worry, everything is fine. The reason I’m never in the right mood to cook up something really inspirational is because we’re moving. Yes, you’ve heard right. Peter and I started looking for apartments in Düsseldorf in June and we actually got lucky very fast. For some reason when it comes to apartments, the third one’s always the charm with me. Or at least it has been that way for the only three times I actually had to find one.

We’re insanely happy with what we found and we sealed the deal after we came back from Kraków. Did I mention we bought the place? So naturally I’m still freaking out about that from time to time, but most of time I’m just looking forward to finally moving there. We already brought most of our books over, plus some shelves and a new big dining table we got from IKEA.

Well, anyway that’s why it’s been so quiet here. I don’t really have the energy to make anything special for dinner these days, since all I can think of is how awesome life is going to be once we are at the new place, which – have I told you this? – has a 40 square meter roof terrace, by the way. If you hate me right now, I’d totally understand.

Now of course there’s a kitchen to plan. In Germany kitchen’s are not a part of an apartment. Sometimes you are lucky and you’ll get an apartment or house with a nice kitchen already built in. Sometimes you’re not so lucky and the kitchen is really ugly or there’s no kitchen at all. Although I can’t decide which is worse… a really ugly kitchen or none at all?

Well, we have none at all. So after going to three different kitchen stores and have someone plan a kitchen and tell us how much it’s going to cost and one crazy trip to Osnabrück about which I will write no more, because I just don’t have the words to properly write about it, we finally settled on what we want to have and who we want to do it. So the deal goes to…. my uncle, who happens to be a cabinetmaker and therefore we get all the customized furniture we need.

There are so many ways to plan a kitchen. I know it’s modern these days to put the oven a bit higher so that you don’t need to crouch down to get anything out. But alas, we’ll have nothing of that. We’re just having a U-shaped kitchen with a beautiful wooden countertop and no freaking kitchen cupboards hanging on any wall. I hate these things. Plus, I’m very accident prone, so I know if some cupboard hangs at forehead level, I’m just going to hit my forehead there again and again, and does that hurt or not?

I don’t know how long it’s going to be until I can dive head first into my first kitchen adventures in the new kitchen and I’m trying to steer my thoughts away from how much it’s going to cost, because I like to stick to happy thoughts these days. But I’m sure it’s going to be great and then – naturally – I’m going to take pictures right away to make you all even more jealous. Because that’s the kind of nice girl that I am.

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Kitchen Rants Not-the-Kitchen

Bread Therapy

Germans are crazy about bread. A typical German bakery will have lots of different breads, made with regular flour, rye flour, whole wheat flour, you name it. There will be very dense, moist types of breads, with sunflower seeds, pumpkin seeds, bread made with potato flour, various kinds of rolls, pastry with or without fruit, cakes and more.

While we don’t have any arguments about it, Peter and I have different tastes when it comes to bread. I prefer a very plain Graubrot („grey bread“), one with a dark and crunchy crust and a very soft inside. It’s a very humble bread, one that doesn’t stand out in taste from the line of breads on the counter, but which will be incredibly good with just a bit of butter. On the downside this type of bread does lose is greatness after a very short time, so it’s best bought fresh and immediately devoured, though unfortunately this will never happen in a two-person household. He prefers breads with a high percentage of rye flour. Those are usually a lot darker and quite moist and their taste is not that subtle, but still not overwhelming. I usually let Peter decide what to get, because he is home more often than me and therefore more responsible for eating all the bread we buy.

Maybe the focus on supposedly healthy grains and dark breads is what makes us Germans so suspicious when it comes to the varieties of very white bread that are so popular in a lot of other countries. Take the French baguette, the Italian ciabatta or any English toast. They are so white, so soft and full of air. Surely there must be something wrong with it.

But of course there’s not. Okay, I still have problems getting used to the concept of not using any salt when making bread like we experienced in Tuscany. But apart from that, I love a French baguette or a soft white American toast just as much as the next (French and/or American) girl. Both the baguette and the toast have a special place in my little food-loving heart. The toast because it is the very essential ingredient for making wonderful sandwiches. The baguette because of how it feels, tastes and smells when you buy it still warm and break the crunchy crust for the first time and just inhale.

Today it might have been just one ordinary (German-made) baguette that saved me from going insane or at least from getting very whiny and annoying the hell out of Peter. After an exhausting shopping trip to Cologne we went to a computer store in the outer suburbs to get Peter’s computer back from a trip to the computer doctor. When we got there we tried to go grocery shopping as well, but the supermarket was so big and scary that I just couldn’t bring myself to buy a single peach, let alone do all my weekend shopping there. So, exhausted and cranky as I was, I just bought a baguette and the moment I held it to my nose and sniffed the very comforting smell of fresh white bread, I immediately got better. I didn’t complain a moment when the supposed short trip to the computer store turned into a much longer stay. Whenever I got bored or mildly impatient I just held the bread up to my nose once again and sniffed. That did the trick.

Sure, it wasn’t as fantastic as the smell of a real French baguette coming right from the oven, still warm, but it was good enough. And now I believe very much that, yes, bread cannot only still your hunger, it can also save you from insanity.

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Baking Kitchen Rants

Adventures With Yeast

Somehow I refuse to believe that yeast and I are not meant for each other. I always come back and try again. There’s a good relationship in there somewhere, we just haven’t found it yet. At least we respect each other, or at least I respect The Yeast. A lot. I believe yeast is a very powerful and versatile being and that once we get to know each other better we will be able to achieve a lot of culinary goals together.

For now though, there’s a lot of struggle and misunderstandings. Most of the times we make a compromise, like yesterday when I wanted to make bialys which, for those who just like me, have never heard of those things before, are kind of like bagels, only they don’t get boiled first and they don’t have a hole but are rather punched down in the middle, leaving a depression which is then sprinkled with a mixture of finely chopped onions and poppy seeds. They seem to be a pretty New Yorkish thing and since I consider myself pretty up to date with all things edible, I was a bit confused wondering why I had never heard of bialys before.

So, naturally, once I learned that bialys exist, I had to make some myself. It’s a simple yeast dough, which usually means that I spend all evening in the kitchen either tearing my hair out in despair or leaving dough traces all around. I swear there were little bits of yeast dough everywhere. I don’t know how this always happens, it just does, as Peter never tires of pointing out.

In my own defense I would like to add that I only had two recipes and they both were Americans one, meaning that I had to deal with converting all the measurements, which added to the hair-tearing-out part of this specific cooking experience.

On the plus side I’d like to say that the dough rose perfectly. I used a trick I had read somewhere and put it in the oven with the lights on. Apparently that’s a damn good place for yeast dough to rise and practically climb out of its bowl.

The next struggle came when I had to punch in that depression which is practically what makes a bialy a bialy. Yeast dough has its own will when it comes to shapes and stuff, so convincing it to please, PLEASE stay flat in the middle is not as easy as it sounds. Then came the onion mixture, then came the oven. I had the bialys in the oven for about 30 minutes until they were brown and crispy on top and then set them on the counter to cool down. Two were eaten right away and considered tasty, the rest was packed in freezer bags and then put in the freezer.

In the end, I felt like this was one more step towards a wonderful and enriching relationship. We’re not there yet, though. But I’m confident that one day we have learned so much from each other that baking with yeast will just be easy-breezy for me. That day will come. I am sure.