I spent much of the spring and early summer in Europe, and now I’m back – and in shock. It’s so hot! Isn’t this supposed to be for August, 77 degrees at 6 am, above 90 during the day?

Today’s entry is a plea for help. I am looking for a sorbet recipe, something simple and low on sugar. I made some watermelon sorbet two days ago, and it doesn’t taste at all. It has the wrong consistency, like steel, nothing creamy or soft about it. I should admit that I never made sorbet in my life, don’t have great equipment (no ice-cream maker), and didn’t even look up a recipe. So I probably shouldn’t complain. But how much can go wrong with such a simple dish? I’d be most grateful for advice (perhaps watermelon isn’t the right fruit?).

Most of the offerings come in sizable packages, suitable for restaurants or a dinner with lots of friends. One of the few things that could plausibly be bought by a solitary architect-chef like me was a small package with two pieces of guinea fowl, imported from France (“pintarde,” for those who prefer French).

The quality of the meat was outstanding. One didn’t need any skill or tricks to make it into a perfect dish. I just put it into a pan with hot olive oil, added a couple of scallions, and once it had a nice crust, I added some white wine and tomato. People who live in Berlin must have their freezers filled with supplies from Frischeparadies! It gets my highest recommendation, five stars. *****

I should follow up on last week’s grocery store experience in Berlin with a more cheerful piece. Jens and I discovered a lovely, tiny café, Café Bondi, at the corner of Schlegelstrasse and Eichendorffstrasse. It doesn’t invoke these stars of German Romanticism (Schlegel and Eichendorff, that is). Too clean and modern for that. Instead, it is a white-and-blue, airy room with only one table inside, and a couple of tables outside. Two young people run it, a German-speaking woman who cooks, and a guy, apparently from the US or Australia, who does the rest. Everything is organic in the best sense. Salad comes with kernels on top of it, but not, as it were, moralizing kernels, but friendly, tasty-nutty ones. They also serve fair trade soft drinks in nicely designed bottles from Charitea. I didn’t try any, but I liked the look of them. Five stars for what must be one of the newest among the zillions of Berlin cafés. *****

I’m in Berlin right now, for the first time in many years, for a quick visit with Jens. While I’m here, I want to research the grocery stores of the city. There are some large-scale markets that sell Mediterranean food to restaurants and ordinary people, and obviously, this interests me. So, yesterday I went to Mitte Meer at Invalidenstrasse. It is a useful store, and I really mean useful. It’s not inspiring, and many of their offerings are rather generic: the to-be-expected items from Spain, Italy, France, and so on. I searched for wine from my region, the Northern Italian Alps, and they didn’t have any. That’s just an example: they specialize in the things that the greatest number of tourists is likely to have encountered.

That being said, it is certainly nice to be able to buy proper pasta, olive oil, mozzarella, Mulino Bianco cookies, and so on, for reasonable prizes in the middle of Berlin. But on the whole, it all leaves me a bit depressed: Berlin Mitte seems to cater, quite generally, to tourists, in each and every way, be it tourists in Berlin, or Berliners in their nature as Mediterranean tourists. Two stars. **

Rifugio Vallandro is perfect for those who need a break from serious hiking. But before you enjoy effortless walking along a lovely high-altitude path, you need to venture into lonely territory, following a street to “Prato Piazza.” The last bit of the street is one-way, regulated by traffic lights, which, however, not everyone attends to. As a result, it is possible to encounter other cars in a rather narrow and steep, icy and snow-covered lane, as well as poor souls on foot, who didn’t dare to drive up the street. The ones we met were so exhausted that their reactions to approaching cars were deplorably erratic. Anyway, it’s advisable to take on the habits of Mediterranean lorry drivers: honk every time you see the sign “tornante,” which indicates the next sharp turn of the street.

Once you’ve made it up to the parking lot, you’re done with the adventurous part of the tour. For now you are almost alone (pretty much everybody is deterred by the many signs that indicate that the streets call for special equipment…). And you walk through an absolutely stunning high-altitude meadow. That’s what “prato” means, meadow. And it’s true. There’s an atmosphere of loveliness, quiet, and ease. Even though the meadow was still covered with snow, one could almost sense how the flowers would come out only a few weeks from now.

Rifugio Vallandro is at the end of the meadow, and their strudel is a reflection of meadow-ness, translated into pastry. That is, it is light, fluffy, sweet, and sugary, and served by amazingly care-taking people who offer cushions and blankets, so that you can sit outside on the terrace, in spite of the winter temperatures. Five stars for the chef who was able to capture the spirit of the place to such perfection. *****

My visit with Jens in the Dolomites is not yet sufficiently documented on this blog. For my main interest, of course, was researching the food. I came with a particular plan: I wanted to walk from rifugio to rifugio, and taste their strudel di mele (that is, apple strudel). A kind of small competition. Since I visited only for two days, my procedure was highly unsystematic – I’m sure there are many more delicious versions out there. But for what it is worth, I want to report on two extraordinary incarnations. However, I have to do it in two installments, because there is reason to digress…

I begin with the Rifugio Tre Scarperi. The place reminded me of a Greek temple: everything is about location, perspective, light, sun, and the horizon. The rifugio is built into a kind of corner, high up in the mountains. When you sit in front of it, it’s like sitting in a theater, built for perfect vision of panoramic events. Also, you can sit outside even though it’s still winter, because the layout of the building provides unbelievably smart shelter against the wind.

Anyway, the strudel. Impressively different from anything one might find in Manhattan: practically no sugar, only a tiny bit on top. It didn’t really taste like cake, more like a kind of nutritious bread, with raisins, apples, and nuts. This is serious mountain food, perfect if you have a couple more hours of hiking to do. Five stars for its lovely flavor and total lack of pretension. And, of course, for location. *****

So here is a picture of Jens, with the monopod that, after last year’s accident (a broken elbow) now does double duty as hiking stick and photographic equipment.

[Update: The monopod is a Gitzo with a metal spike for the icy terrain, with a lightweight Manfrotto head. After three weeks of using this in harsh conditions, I find the Monopod with the spike excellent; the head is light (that's why I bought it) and, overall, does its job. JH]

I searched the web for recipes that resemble my own minestrone, but I didn’t really find anything. The only photo where the soup looks somewhat like my soup is from a Californian-French-Italian food blog, Citron & Vanille. But it’s so easy to get it right that detailed recipes seem somehow misguided. You just throw the vegetables in a pot and combine them with whatever you feel like, pasta, potato, dumplings, tortellini, and so on. Here’s a tip for vegetarians, or people like me who love vegetarian soups and accordingly use no meat, bacon, or anything of that kind for flavor. Heat some olive oil in the pot before you start, and slowly roast some raw slices of potato in it until they are slightly brown; then add boiling water and the vegetables. Add another shot of olive oil when the soup is done. Perfect!

While I thought about this entry for Jens’ blog, a word formed in my mind: reverse culture shock. I must admit that I had not encountered this expression before. But then I searched it, and a whole world opened up. There are web-sites that are entirely devoted to this topic. Australians, having lived in Europe where a trip between Tuscany and Paris is nothing, feel trapped when they move back home. Students counsel other students who return from a semester outside of the US. And so on.

Why did I think of this? I’m back in northern Italy, after a long time of absence and “naturalization” in Manhattan. Tonight, I was waiting for dinner with some relatives and aimlessly flipped through a fashion magazine. The editorial was devoted to a surprising topic: the X-ray diet. What is this? While the world wonders whether the newly introduced body scans at airports support our safety or affect our privacy, Italian culture takes a different perspective. Why discuss privacy rights, why take up the issues of security and freedom, when there are bigger worries? It is not enough, says the author, that ever thinner models and celebrities have imposed ever more rigid notions of thinness on us; now we have to go on a yet more grueling diet. While up to now we could hope to hide some imperfections under perfectly tailored clothes, we are finally visible in all our flaws. We have to become even thinner – this is what world politics and airport security do to us! We need to go on the X-ray diet.

I was shocked, and I knew, I’m home.

But now I have more. Today I met up with some friends at Sancho Panza, a tiny Spanish bar in Munich, the kind of place that is not on the web (sic! now it is…), and that lives from locals who are devoted customers. The name of the place, Sancho Panza, is a bit too predictable, as if the only thing one knew about Spain was Don Quixote. But otherwise, it is an absolute gem. The chef and owner, Mrs. Barrón, serves home-cooked Spanish tapas, little cakes and coffee, and she sells Spanish wine. There is also a small selection of especially good sweets, such as mazapanes de soto from Segura and chocolates from Alemany. But Sancho Panza’s most charming feature is the home-made food. Everything looks as if it just came out of an upscale family kitchen, and tastes entirely genuine. Today, we ate some kind of eggplant cakes, which were simply masterpieces.

What is more, Mrs. Barrón continues a tradition dear to the heart of my friends. They tell stories of their parents, having the same kind of bar food when the place was still owned by Mrs. Barrón’s predecessor, whom they all know by name, but whom I hesitate to name on the web. The small tapas bar has been a Bavarian incarnation of Spanish cuisine for decades. All the time, it was the kind of place where kids go with their parents, and where they would eventually take the person they hoped to marry. Not really cool enough for hanging out in the years in between, but part of the family, and a truly personal place. Sancho Panza gets my highest ranking, five stars *****.