In my kitchen: November 2019

I have been on the road since last month's IMK! What a journey it has been.

First, I flew to Shanghai to visit my grandma who is still in hospital with her broken leg. It was a short stopover but of course my father threw a huge party and we ate these absolutely delightful fried dumplings.

There's something so anticipatory about rising dough and making little plump pockets to be fried.

My dad grows baby bok choy everywhere so he can add a bit of green to soups. Here it is doing very well in Shanghai.

We also had these 菱角 - apparently a type of water chestnut which come in a gorgeous star shape. The texture is a little like chestnut, soft and floury once they are boiled in a stock.

Then it was off to Paris to play music with Emily and her Italian friend who lives in such a trendy area - the Latin Quartier of Paris.

The fresh produce at the market on Place Monge was incredible. Everything had such vibrant colours and smelled like the real deal.

For some reason I am drawn to artichokes and our little trio rebranded ourselves Le Trio de Artichauts. We particularly enjoyed playing the rare combination of 2 violins + viola trio - Dvorak's Terzetto (a really wonderful and rich piece, rarely played), and his Miniatures (even less played!); and the string trio by Taneyev, a little known Russian composers.
 

How I adore the rustic baguettes in Paris, burnished with a crackly crust, but meltingly soft on the inside.

We had a selection of four cheeses from the market also, a fresh soft cheese, a small goat cheese and two orange smelly cheeses. We also met another friend's son to play string quartets and for his inaugural string quartet debut we rather bit off more than we could chew with a little Haydn, then Mozart's Dissonance, the Beethoven Razumovsky 1st quartet, and a little of the first Brahms string quartet.

Then it was off to Essaouira, a little town by the sea where we loved the fresh food market.

Look at all this glorious mint!

Beautiful orange pomegranates with tendrils that fall straight off and seeds that are so soft they are digestible.

We loved the fresh fruit & vegetables, all reminiscent of the earth.

Of course we ate so much tagine. I never knew it was so easy to cook in one - just layer the bottom with onions, a splash of oil and the spices, then arrange the vegetables on top to cook slowly.

We had a wonderful piano in our airbnb so we played lots of piano duets this time, including my old favourite Schubert's Fantasie in F minor. Other highlights included Chaminade's Romantic pieces, Arensky's 6 pieces enfantines, and a few great transcriptions (Beethoven's 7th symphony, the Raz 1 that we played in Paris, the Brahms piano quintet, the Mendelssohn Octet).

Traditional Khobz bread dusted with a coarse bran or semolina, eaten with every meal.

A lavish breakfast including Moroccan pancakes and the best freshest orange juice.

Then it was off to Berlin, where we attended the concert of a lifetime - three megastars Daniel Barenboim, Anne-Sophie Mutter and Yo-yo Ma playing the Beethoven triple concerto along with the East-West divan orchestra. What an experience that was!

We also ate some excellent baked products including this cherry streusel. My favourite bakery (possibly ever) was Brot ist Gold, a new bakery in the Schonberg area featuring some of the best bread I've ever eaten.

A breakfast of rye bread and cheese, with fruit and Speisequark, a thick extra creamy yoghurt. In Berlin we explored the music of Robert Fuchs, a basically unknown composer who was apparently respected by Brahms but hated the public eye. We played his string duets for violin & viola which were great fun then even discovered his super difficult viola sonata

So much bread in Germany. I wonder how they got this nutty loaf into this peculiar shape?

I stopped briefly in Paris on the way home, enough time to have a magnificent croissant from Le Maison d'Isabelle, which had won the best croissant in Paris award of 2018 - a pretty spectacular award!

Second stopover in Shanghai with my viola and baguette. Who knew that the baguette fits perfectly into the straps of the viola?

So much cooking in foreign kitchens this month. I'm sending this to Sherry who hosts IMK, thanks Sherry!

Brot ist Gold

In Berlin, we came across a wonderful sourdough bakery.

Brot ist Gold (Bread is Gold) is a newly opened bakery in the trendy area of Schönberg near the Winterfeldmarkt. We were walking down the street when the bread display caught my eye and we stopped to admire the beautiful bread.

At that very moment a lady, coming out of the shop stopped to tell us how much she loved the bread, and how it had quickly become the neighbourhood favourite. And hence we decided to go in.

The shop is tiny with a single display shelf of loaves, each one handmade and unique.

The first day, we got the plain wheat loaf Weizenbrot which is a long fermentation (40 hours) high hydration sourdough.

No words can convey how spectacular this loaf was. The crust was a burnished gold, perfectly caramelised and bubbly. Slicing it was like music to the ears. The crumb was tender and moist, full of open holes. The aroma was deeply earthy and reminiscent of man's connection to earth via bread. It was a truly memorable experience!

Here is our simple lunch that day in Berlin. A salad of rocket, radish and tomatoes (so fresh and juicy), and the delightful sourdough with a peppery cheese and garlic wurst.

The second day, we went back to try the rye bread Roggenbrot, which is baked in the afternoon. We were so lucky to get the last loaf around 2pm!

The crust is so heavy on this loaf that the crackle pattern is an artwork in itself. The rye itself is very dark and melancholic, as if it was dug out of the ground.

Even though rye is a traditionally dense bread, they still managed to produce am incredible crumb.

On this day we had the same salad and a simple stir fry of Swiss brown and forest mushrooms with the same garlic wurst. Washed down with a glass of apple wine.

The third day, we returned to get a loaf for our music friends in Berlin. This loaf we ate with cheeses and a Riesling from the Rhine region, after we had played some great string quartets (Bach's Art of the Fugue, Beethoven Op 18 No.4 and Mendelssohn Op.12).

We met all 3 members of staff in the bakery, all of whom were friendly and welcoming. We adored their passion for sourdough and hoped that the bakery would thrive in the modern age of too much commercialised yeast bread.

Sourdough used to be the standard bread in Europe, each family having a sourdough starter that was passed down through the generations. We learned this time that this is called Hermann in German (as in, can I borrow some of your Hermann?) What a sweet name! The art of sourdough is lost now, though it's making a comeback all over the world. We loved this bakery's commitment to the locality as well, all their ingredients being sourced from within a 100km radius.

The first two days we were there, we also saw an older lady hanging out in the shop. She looked real cosy on an armchair that the guys put out for her. I couldn't help but ask on the last day who she was - she's an older lady who's lived in the neighborhood for four decades and decided to be friends with the bakery because they were nice! She hangs out there and enjoys their company. She even crocheted some little breads to put in the window display, because she says the window is sad when the bread is sold out!

Sometimes one feels a strange connection to things that are not explainable with simple logic. Of course we were drawn to this bakery because the bread was wonderful, but also there was a warmth and human-ness to the place that was greatly attractive. Given the strong competition of bakeries in Berlin, we really, really hope it thrives!