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foooood in germany

berry picking in berlin


berry farms are a thing in berlin (in germany?) – but i fear they’re the kind of thing that would never catch on in my home country. i can imagine the puzzled voices of my family members: you drive to a farm, pick your own fruit, and then have to pay in the end?! why would you go through all that trouble, when there are so many strawberries in the supermarket?


eheh, the portuguese are nothing if not practical. despite the imaginary raised eyebrows from my family members, we’ve gone berry picking twice now, in a nearby farm, and it was lovely. the first time strawberries were in season, and we brought home a few kilos which we ate and turned into rhubarb-strawberry jam (everyone at home raved about it!). the second time, a week ago, i was hoping to catch some raspberries, but they were all gone… so we brought blueberries instead.

we don’t eat fruit very often, so berries feel like a treat – and getting them from a farm makes them somehow even more special. plus, the advantage of picking the fruit at its ripest (and tasting it as you go along) is very nice. i don’t think i ever ate strawberries as delicious as the ones i picked there, in early june.

now that i am looking at this post, i realise that it berry picking doesn’t look that exciting – you probably wouldn’t do this if you were here on your holidays… but these little things are part of the reason why i like “living abroad” so much, versus “visiting a country”. it’s all in the details!

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foooood

tea swap, anyone?

organising a tea swap has been on my list forever… i really like discovering new teas, and am always on the look out for new flavours. i like almost all tastes, except maybe strong green teas… and i’m not even so sure about that, since i recently discovered that i quite like matcha. i’m definitely open to surprises!

lately i’ve been collecting them, setting some aside for the purpose of swapping. so, how’s up for some tea exchange? i’ll send you some, you send me some, everyone is happy! :) nothing fancy, just some sachets or loose tea that you like or find interesting. leave a comment below, if you’re up to it! i think i can take up to 5 people, all places full now! don’t worry, if all goes well, i’m up for a second edition!

Categories
foooood in germany

mogu mogu taiyaki

finally! after months on the prowl, we’ve tasted the elusive taiyaki! we’d been looking for this particular stall of fish-shaped cakes on the street markets for such a long time that i’d already given up hope of ever catching them… and then on a cloudy sunday, in the middle of nowkolln’s flohmarkt, there they were!


we couldn’t resist the red bean one… it was a good choice. the taste was so familiar and yet so hidden in the back of my mind… it was like being swept by this wave of asia-longing! can’t believe i used to get annoyed when i mistaked red bean for chocolate on croissants, and now look at me, reminiscing of it… *sigh*

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foooood in france

what we ate in paris

we love holidays because they are like cheat season chez nous… we eat what we want, when we want it, in order to fully appreciate the experience. paris was no exception… i even had a list prepared! here are the highlights of our 4 days:

crêpes de sarrasin, from the street. these had cheese, ham, mushrooms and egg, and were a steamy and deliciously stringy mess.


we had to try the croissants! they were ok, but my heart is loyal to their much fluffier portuguese version. the boy loves palmiers, so we gave those a shot too :)

ah… the croissants aux amandes are much more my style – oh the crème! and we tried the macarons, of course. we picked up some from ladurée, in their mini-version, and ate them in park nearby. they were surprisingly nice, and the small size was just right.


more galletes de sarrasin! we were staying in montparnasse, so we indulged in these quite a bit. with bacon and eggs, and with honey and goat cheese… mmm…


random sweets: tarte au citron and éclair!


oh, the omnipresent baguette! the french might not use the beret anymore, but true to stereotype, the ratio of baguettes/person is still surprisingly high. and rightly so, since they are heavenly. we treated ourselves to one every morning, slathered on with divine salty butter.


more baguettes with jam and cheeeeese! we had this cheese platter at the café des 2 moulins, while watching asian tourists smiling for the photo and cracking their tiny bowl of super-expensive crème brûlée.


ah! les escargots! my dad had delighted me with tales of snails from his years in france. so we went ahead and tried them too. and they were delicious, and tasted nothing like i thought they would. :) and we also tried fondue (finally!) and it was good as well.


one of the dinners was at breakfast in america, because by then we were feeling like less gourmet, more comfort food. and what better than a egg-filled burrito to satiate our hunger? :)


i’ve saved berthillon’s ice-cream for last. i wasn’t prepared for discovering this ice-cream, fully convinced no ice-cream could top our beloved vanille marille… boy, was i wrong. this… this was… magnificent. i have no words, and while i was eating it, i was delighted and furious at the same time. how dare they make this… this impossibly good ice-cream so far away from where we live?! oh the injustice!

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foooood

golden kiwis and yellow watermelons

when i entered the goal “taste 30 new fruits” on my list, I didn’t know it would be so hard for new fruits to come by… in retrospect, i think it was probably naïve of me to think that i’d have a huge variety available within reach – i mean europe isn’t exactly known for having a lot of native fruits…

so i’ve decided to change the goal to “taste 30 different fruits or vegetables”, which should be somewhat more feasible. i’ve been getting a lot of unknown vegetables on our ökokiste, and it’s been a pleasure to discover and try them out. now, they count too!

meanwhile, he’s a couple of fruits i’ve found, that i hadn’t tried before:

golden kiwis. they taste a lot like the normal kiwis, but i seem smoother than their green counterparts.

and yellow watermelons… well, if we were to do a blind taste test, i don’t think i would have been able to tell a yellow watermelon from a red one – they taste exactly the same to me!