ben's chili bowl -- a dc institution

that's what people call a hopping place. but ben's chili bowl is more than that. it is a dc institution, soaked with history of its u-street location.

Obama made a point of stopping by places with Washington street credibility such Five Guys, a popular fast-food chain that started in the region where the -- full -- is the menu: Five Guys, Burger & Fries, and as president-elect at Ben’s Chili Bowl, a DC institution providing late-night hangover cures in the form of half-smokes, a local sausage similar to a hot dog, and chili cheese fries.

he's not the only one who payed tribute to ben's since it was founded by ben and ali virginia ali on august 22, 1958:

"It was not uncommon to see such luminaries as Duke Ellington, Miles, Davis, Ella Fitzgerald, Cab Calloway, Nat King Cole, Redd Foxx, Dick Gregory, Martin Luther King Jr., Donny Hathaway, Roy Ayers or Bill Cosby at 'The Bowl". [ ...] And on January 10, 2009, Barack Obama visited and ate lunch at Ben’s just 10 days before his inauguration. Just recently, President Sarkozy of France and his family had lunch at Ben’s."

ostpakete -- care packages from the east

one of the benefits of living abroad is the joyous feeling regularly induced by packages on the doorstep.














it must be similar to how people felt in the former german democratic republic (gdr) when they got a Westpaket, a care package from relatives or friends on the Western side of the iron curtain.

we never got any of these packages for a lack of knowing people on in the West.

but oh joy! when rare items arrive wherever that maybe. i can buy some of my favorite german products in specialty stores, which has become a hobby horse to locate. but not everything to my desire shows up there.

see the big golden package on the right of the photo labelled Zetti and Knusperflocken? well, they are a staple sweet for me. yet, as an eastern product (manufactured in my hometown) the crispy chocolate flakes never make it across the ocean in a commercial way. the same goes for the dark chocolate version seen in the middle of the photo. or Bambina chocolate bars. or Herzstärke, a sugary pink-white colored peppermint flavored fudge.

other items that are most frequently sent in my Ostpaket include bread and Kinderschokolade, which some u.s. americans around me have developed a liking to. nutella used to be a staple but i think i finally got the message across that nutella is pretty wide-spread in the united states. also hollow chocolate items were a standard until most of them arrived in sad shards. sometimes small books and clippings from my home town paper are among the contents, post cards of familiar places, brochures of local sights. whatever an Ostpaket brings, it makes me think again in german immediately.

as people around me frequently ask what else i miss in terms of food or products, here's a run down of items that are harder to find (or to ship):

• pudding powder (Ruf brand only)
  
• Rote Grütze with Sago (a kind of red jello with tapioca pearls)
• scharfer Senf (hot mustard) and herb mustard
  
• organic vegetarian Apfel-Zwiebel-Schmalz (a kind of apple-onion bread spread)
• Milchreis (rice to be boiled with milk and served with sugar and cinnamon or a chunky fruity sauce of cherries or raspberries)
• Salzgurken (salty cucumber pickles)
• Senfgurken (mustardy cucumber pickles)
• Quark (a kind of Greek yoghurt)
• Back-Camembert with Preiselbeeren (pre-deep fried breaded baked Camembert cheese with lingonberry sauce)
• Kloßmasse (potato dumpling dough)
• kohlrabi (similar to a big turnip or radish, coming in purple and green)
• celery root for soups
• Pflaumenmus (dark plum marmelade)
• Sonja and Marina (a margerine for baking)
  

well, the longer i think about it, the more i will find.

at one place or another i ran into almost all of them or items that come pretty close. and i have found allies. my favorite u.s. american has joined my hunt for german things; he proudly presents new discoveries and comes up with creative solutions to diminish my yearnings.

indeed, he located a german Kühne brand mustard at big lots a few days ago, has cooked pudding from scratch and found out that old pickles are in fact german salty pickled cucumbers. his home-made potato dumplings beat my pitiful dumpling attempts by far and are probably better than using pre-prepared german potato dumpling dough anyway. he long has learned to say Krumpel -- say krrroom-pell --, the small cube of toasted bread fried in butter and salt that is pressed into the center of each dumpling. and was a favorite snack of mine as a child to be snatched away in the kitchen of my grandmother.

because when it comes to homeyness, you just want exactly the thing you ate before, not a substitute, not something similar. at least sometimes. my care packages from the east, my Ostpakete, send a dose of home, of memory, i guess, in some way even of identification.

the hardest part: preserving the precious products instead of giving in to greedy hunger. after all, Ostpakete don't come every day.

reversed immigration -- "zur strafe ab nach deutschland"

-- the story of two americans at heart who got deported to germany, their official home

gary is brave and you can't help liking him by the end of this half-hour documentary produced by the german public station hessischer rundfunk.

but before rousing your interest, be aware, the documentary is only in german. so i apologize to my english readers beforehand. yet, i wanted to share this interesting slice of immigration tales which affects 150 people caught between the united states and germany every year according to the report.

as children brought into the united states by german mothers, gary and alexander never formally became u.s. citizens. now gary in his twenties and alexander who is married in his forties offended u.s. law and got kicked out.

gary stole a couple of pairs of boots, alexander dealt with drugs. any criminal offense, the documentary tells, that warrants more than one year in a u.s. jail results in deportation for anyone who is illegally in the united states. both never bothered to apply for regular citizenship because they had permanent residency, meaning, they could do what every u.s. citizens can do except to vote.

now they are banned from returning to the united states where they lived since early childhood for ten years. they were forced back to germany, their official home country feeling as a friend of alexander likens it as if they landed on the moon.

while the drug offender alexander doesn't speak german and struggles heavily to use the subway system in frankfurt, where both of them live, gary picked up his mother tongue again and copes as best as possible to start a new life.

both arrived with nothing more than the clothes on their back.

and it is the rather big optimistic gary that arouses great sympathy with the viewer. he works as a janitor in a home for disabled children, keeps up hope to find an apartment to escape the bureaucratically assigned dormitory even after the eighth rejection, and hunts for his older brother given up for adoption in germany before gary was born.

the documentary reminded me of a key issue for any immigrant: being allowed to be where you are. it sounds strange and simple. but your legal status is like a twin sister or brother. it is with you and be better in lock-step with where you are any time. it often has an expiration date or deadline to be aware of and planned for. also, being allowed to reside in a country state doesn't mean you can leave and re-enter it at whim.

but traveling is no option for alexander in the documentary at the moment anyway. he is fighting to even visit back in his u.s. american home at the pacific coast in case his mother dies during his ten-year absence. she is fighting cancer having gone through five surgeries already. maybe a visitation permit for humanitarian reasons can be successful, recommend lawyers without borders. but as the city is a maze for alexander, so is u.s. immigration law. after all, he lived in the u.s. since age two.

but, before spoiling the complete story for my german-understanding readers, see for yourself the curious case of two american-germans caught between transatlantic bureaucracy. by the way, at present overall about 400,000 people are detained in u.s. prisons destined for deportation.

"zur strafe ab nach deutschland"

-- eine reportage von götz schauder (hessischer rundfunk)
http://www.ardmediathek.de/ard/servlet/content/3517136?documentId=4161916

being a cilantrophobist

until i came to ohio i didn't know that i was a cilantrophobist.

cilantro as in german "Koriander", is a green herb that looks pretty similar to the flat leafed version of parsley. but only the sight is similar. as soon as you approach the plant the fragrance will reveal the difference. parsley smells lovely fresh to me, cilantro stings my odor cells like a chemical. it smells soapy and pungent telling me to stay away.

but cilantro is a core ingredients in many foods u.s. americans love and consume without thinking. it's in salsa, it's in salads, it's in tabbouleh (a lebanese dish with bulgur, cucumber, tomatoes, and lemon juice), it's in burritos. [addendum: a friend from bangladesh pointed out i missed to mention south east asian use of the herb. of course, cilantro chutney or cilantro mint chutney is served in any indian restaurant. also my friend writes cilantro paste as a side is common in bangladesh or its use in salad.] it's everywhere. maybe just sprinkled on top for good looks. latin american and middle eastern cuisine are omnipresent in the united states. so is cilantro.












omnipresently disturbing: a few green leaves ruining the biggest dish.

but alas, even the most finely chopped tiniest amount of the evil green ruins the tasties dish for me. no wonder with my german taste buds. a new york times article of april 4, 2010 details understandably why maybe europeans especially struggle with embracing this flavor.

"The coriander plant is native to the eastern Mediterranean, and European cooks used both seeds and leaves well into medieval times. Helen Leach, an anthropologist at the University of Otago in New Zealand, has traced unflattering remarks about cilantro flavor and the bug etymology — not endorsed by modern dictionaries — back to English garden books and French farming books from around 1600, when medieval dishes had fallen out of fashion. She suggests that cilantro was disparaged as part of a general effort to define the new European table against the flavors of the old."

and it stayed like that at least in germany to this day. cilantro leaves are not part of most of what i know as german cuisine. parsley is the decorative green leave of choice. fresh chives and garden cress are other ones -- which by they way are by far not as popular in the united states as in germany.

so tasty alternatives have gotten germans off the cilantro track.

"If the flavor doesn’t fit a familiar food experience, and instead fits into a pattern that involves chemical cleaning agents and dirt, or crawly insects, then the brain highlights the mismatch and the potential threat to our safety. We react strongly and throw the offending ingredient on the floor where it belongs."

i can just repeat: where it belongs.

why hating cilantro is not your fault: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/14/dining/14curious.html

politically second class -- east germans and a discrimination law suit

browsing the english website of the german spiegel magazine -- one of the most important political weekly publications in the country -- i bumped into an interesting article concerning the distinction still being made between east germans and west germans. people who know me know that this a topic i like to follow.

here's the gist of the article published by spiegel online on friday, april 16, 2010:

"A Stuttgart labor-court ruled on Thursday that former East Germans -- often disparagingly nicknamed "Ossis" -- are not an ethnic group in a case involving a woman who claims she was turned down for a job because she came from the former sate. German commentators on Friday warn about the prevalance of negative stereotypes about people from the formerly communist state."

read the entire article: http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,689403,00.html

the article reminded me of an experience i had in a political science class i attended at ohio university. dividing the world into sections, the teacher insisted that still as of today, only west germans belong to the highest category of individuals in the world i.e. white western citizens. i reminded her of the twenty years that had passed since the german reunification. nevertheless, the teacher insisted. in the political hierarchy of the world east germans are not on top of the olympe but live a notch lower thanks to their communist history.

the fact that west and east germans are still paid differently working in the same jobs is a common place. one of my friends decided to become a teacher in west german rather than east germany partially because of that. higher unemployment, more troubles with right-wing groups, more exodus of young people are other topics in the catalogue of east west comparisons.

but overall, i think my generation of twenty-somethings (well, in the upper echelons of the twenties anyway) are the last generation to remember a distinction. the sister of a former acquaintances now in her early twenties once replied ten years ago already that she didn't know if she was an east or west german child.

my german friends come from east and west. traces of two different socializations still linger on. a couple of friends migrating west for jobs have told me that when they settled in their new home town they felt a more common understanding with other "ossis" or even eastern european immigrants before making friends with west germans.

in the united states there is little awareness overall between east and west germany. generally most u.s. americans i meet have visited west german towns because they were army brats, know someone stationed there or wanted to see the pretty rhine and southern regions. it remains an exception that people do know dresden or leipzig through a personal visit or a even a longer time of living there. in fact i just met one, a professor of german language, who knew what i was talking about when it came to east german culture.

so when people ask me where i come from i have developed a standard answer: from germany. so far so good. for the follow up of where exactly in germany it has boiled down to: geographically from the middle, politically from the east. whatever that means to different people.

the cupcakization of germany

-- or don't let mcdonald's define what your taste buds should feel

















almost simultaneously i and a friend found this new york times article detailing the attempt of mcdonald's to introduce cupcakes in berlin, germany since march 30, 2010.

"Although they are a staple of bake sales and birthday parties across America, cupcakes were all but unknown in Germany until recently."

so what's the secret recipe behind this new u.s. american oven product dumped on the german market? in fact, there is none. or more precisely, there are as many recipes as there are cakes and pies as the collection in the photo below illustrates.

these trays are lined up in a shop in washington dc solely dedicted to proliferating the baby cakes.

at e street and 7th street in northwest washington dc, the red velvet cupcakery offers you a slice of individuality in a paper cup. actually a friend made the connection of the often hailed u.s. american individuality and this bakery item. with a piece of their own special choice everyone feels special. a type of personal pizza (the size of a saucer), or baby bundt cake or a finger food to be dumped into the hungry mouth almost all at once. more of the same, individuality brand name usa.


















in fact, you can really individualize your cup cake before a chain lures you with commercially produced overprized faux symbols of individuality. asking an old friend and community cook book conributor for advice on home-made cup cakes the answer is as simple as it gets:

"You can put the batter from any cake recipe into the paper cups in a muffin tin, even a cake mix, just fill the little paper cup about 2/3 full, bake 18-22 minutes at 350 degrees [Fahrenheit]. Then cool them and frost with any frosting you wish to use. Easy!"

Easy!

stilettos and cobblestone: georgetown

an old university of harry potter quality founded by monks, posh store fronts luring passers-by into trendy vietnamese, indian and chinese restaurants, gas lamps with real flames, cobblestone, brimming young women in stilettos and men in polo shirts. that's georgetown, named for its prestigious university and the hardest to reach, most exclusive part of dc. walk with me along the canal, visit the baby harbor and inspect the old brick houses.