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Cotswolds Random

Aspect Ratio

Posted on November 4, 2011

Last night we partook in one of our cherished Cotswold rituals for the last time (for now), a film in the private cinema at Barnsley House. We narrowed our selection down to two respectable classics, the original Italian Job or A Streetcar Named Desire. Only when the concierge could find neither did husband suggest we indulge in a reprisal of Notting Hill. Two glasses of wine and Hugh Grant at his floppiest were promptly sourced, and a few minutes later we had taken our places on the cinema’s candy pink loveseats.

Of course this ritual would be incomplete without husband deciding about five minutes into the film that there was something sub-optimal about the quality of our viewing experience. It didn’t matter we were watching a nineties romcom instead of some Blu-ray sci-fi extravaganza; husband has his standards.  Hugh Grant had hardly made his way to work in his travel bookstore before husband was shoving past me to go into the projector room.  A minute later he had managed to totally disable the picture and we were listening to Hugh’s amiable patter to the accompaniment of a black screen. Husband declared there was obviously something wrong with the projector and brought the lights up.  I stayed seated, closed my eyes and sighed a silent sigh before offering to call down to reception to see if they could help.  More flapping ensued, and before long Hugh and Julia were back, this time at the proper aspect ratio as husband took pleasure in pointing out to me.

You see husband has a full-blown obsession with aspect ratios. We are not allowed to watch anything on television or at the cinema, never mind if it is our television or cinema, without husband tinkering with the aspect ratio to ensure the image is being projected as the creator intended: strictly no stretched faces, cut off pictures, or fuzzy edges allowed.  At worst this is a symptom of control freakdom; at best a sincere respect for the crafts of television and film. Most the time I can’t tell the difference, or, if I can, don’t care. A slightly distorted Hugh and Julia are good enough for me.

This is, of course, emblematic of how we both approach life. Husband is fussy and precise and under the illusion that the more he frets the more he can control.  I am, well, a little sloppy and prone to let things happen to me rather than trying to ‘make things happen.’ (In my defense, the things that happen to me have worked out pretty ok so far.)  Of course the truth is there are times and places more suited to one approach over the other, those times when the aspect ratio in life really does matter.  And credit where credit is due: husband is the one who pushed me to force the issue of moving back to the U.S. when I was offered a new job within my current company, and it worked.  I’m not so sure husband has yet taken any laissez-faire cues from me, but at least I can leave England knowing I’ve seen Notting Hill as it was meant to be.

Boston Cotswolds

Countdown to Boston

Posted on October 22, 2011

With only two weeks to go in the Cotswolds, the move to Boston is starting to feel very real. The cottage has been rented, our temporary housing in Cambridge arranged, and all but five items on my thirty-five item strong “to do” list have been crossed off.  (I am starting to find new ones though, like buying that box of mini-mince pies at Waitrose yesterday so we can have a bit of England in Boston come Christmas time.)

What remains ahead are movers and farewells. I have meetings in London on Tuesday, so we will say our goodbyes to the city then. I should be doing those things I somehow never got around to doing, like visiting the Soane Museum and walking around the dome of St. Paul’s, but instead I am pretty sure we will just have a coffee at Bar Italia, a glass of prosecco at Negozio Classica, and dinner at the Electric, all things we have done tens of times before. It is, after all, the routines that you miss.

In the Cotswolds I will say my goodbyes this way.  I will ride my bike to Burford one more time, stopping for awhile at the point that looks like a Turner landscape painting right by the Windrush in Sherborne. I will get irritated at how long the line is at the Abbey Home Farm café near Ciren, but wait anyway for one more delicious vegetarian lunch. We will buy drinks for the regulars at the wine bar next Saturday and the next morning we will go to church, where I will join Dorothy in asking for good health for the queen in the prayers of penitence and, if I am lucky, we will sing a rousing rendition of Christ Triumphant Ever Reigning to the tune of Guiting Power. And then, on our very last day, we will partake in the British institution of Sunday roast with close friends.  Like I said, it’s the routines you miss.

Berlin

The Last Supper

Posted on October 15, 2011

Barring being called back for any emergency meetings, I have now officially left Berlin. Wednesday was my last night, spent in the hotel where we first stayed back in December on our “decision” visit.  Earlier that day I had handed over the keys to the apartment to Francesco, our dashing Milanese landlord, who happily informed me a German movie star was moving in on Monday. I was not surprised.  It is a great apartment, and yet I hadn’t felt emotional when packing it up the previous week.

As I left the red front door of 52 Fehrbelliner Strasse for the last time, I considered if I should stop for a glass of wine at corner wine bar or dinner at one of our old neighborhood haunts. But with husband already back in the UK the idea had little appeal. I had done those things with him, many times, and it felt like just going through the motions to do them again on my own. Instead I took a cab back across Mitte to Rutz, a wine bar and restaurant just down the street from the hotel. Husband and I had drank a glass of wine there occasionally, but the food is fussy sounding and expensive and not his kind of thing. On my own, fueled by a feeling of glamour by association from the news of the German movie star, it seemed like a good choice for my last supper in Berlin.

Once seated, the waitress informed me the three-course set menu was what the chef cooked for the pope when he was in Berlin a few weeks ago. I am not Catholic, but I was tired from all the logistics of the move out of Berlin and the move-in-progress to Boston, and I figured what was good enough for the pope was good enough for me. Soon my glass of Riesling arrived, accompanied by a basket of bread and a small dish of what the waitress called schmalz. It was whipped lard sprinkled with bacon bits, and it was so delicious I didn’t even open the bottle of olive oil that had also be placed on the table. Next came a hunk of raw char sprinkled with ground almonds, followed by a plate of fork-tender beef, and rounded off with a chocolate souffle accompanied by a quenelle of sorrel ice cream on a bed of plum compote. I can confirm that like me, the pope had eaten well in Berlin.

The next evening as a taxi ferried me to Tegel, an amber full moon shone over the Spree.  This time the emotion came: nothing schmalzy mind you, just a pang of sadness leavened by the satisfaction of having reacquainted myself with Berlin.

England

Ask and You Shall Receive

Posted on October 11, 2011

All is redeemed at the Eltermere Inn. On our last morning I noticed the small print on the breakfast menu imploring me to enquire if I desired something not listed. And so it was that this golden treat arrived on my table.  (Still no foil packets of Robertson’s Silver Shred though.)

One of the things that will be hardest about going back to the States is giving up my laissez faire attitude towards food. I can hardly remember those pre-European days when a croissant was considered a treat rather than a staple, to say nothing of bread fried in lard (admittedly still considered a treat). I know before long I will be back in the land of skinny lattes and calories listed on menus. For now, pass the fried bread.

England

Elegy to Eltermere

Posted on October 9, 2011

We are back in the Lake District for a farewell visit, although husband has forbade me from using words like goodbye, last, farewell, and final in the run up to our November departure for Boston.  Call it what you will, but the the truth is I am busy soaking up my favorite experiences in England while it is still convenient, i.e., the Atlantic Ocean does not lie between them and me.

We are staying in the same hotel where we have stayed most years since before we even lived in England, the Eltermere Inn.  I wrote last year of its gentrification, which has continued unabated in the thirteen months since we were last here.  There is more glass-encased taxidermy and our favorite room has been collapsed into the room behind it to form a suite with, what else, a claw foot bathtub in the center of the rear room.  Shame there isn’t a hot water tank at the hotel large enough to supply two consecutive baths in it (guess who got the first bath?).  Never mind, I still had my Lakes breakfast featuring fried bread and marmalade to look forward to.  But no, as I found this morning the fried bread is gone from the menu, leaving me to nibble on a delicate eggs Florentine.

And so against all better judgement I offer up the ode to fried bread that this hotel’s breakfast first inspired me to put on this blog some years ago:

Fried Bread & Silver Shred

As a Yank I cannot abide
Beans in morning, even on the side
But when staying in the Lakes
Fried bread for breakfast I embrace

Transforms mere grain to food divine
Layering of fat and tart
‘Tis a culinary art
Echoed in things much esteemed:
Fruit compote and foie gras terinne

Golden toast and tangy ‘lade
Coin in which I’m gladly paid
For my labour up fell and crag
Richly fed I shall not lag

Berlin

Bye Bye Bertha

Posted on September 28, 2011

I am a bit ashamed of the last month of silence on the blog, but in my defense I am in the middle of planning another international move.  The company I worked for offered me a job in Boston, and I’ve accepted. The delights of September also included a week-long debacle with the US embassy in an eventually successful attempt to secure husband’s immigrant visa, the stress from which shaved several years off each of our lives. Oh and did I mention that despite the fact I have lived in Europe for more than six years, my mother decided last week was the right time to visit?

Having survived US Citizen and Immigration Services and my mother, I now find myself with a moment to reflect on my imminent departure from Berlin. There will be many farewells, but today I said goodbye to Bertha das Benz, who was my first and quite possibly last Mercedes. Our time together was brief but tumultuous, like the best kind of love affair. In her eight months under husband’s and my stewardship, Bertha received six speeding tickets (don’t let anyone tell you there’s no speed limit on the autobahn), two parking tickets, a three-inch key mark along her derrière, had her badge nicked twice, and, just once, was towed away. Nobody ever said we were easy to live with.

But the truth was this love affair was mostly with husband. I only drove Bertha three times (our final voyage was to take my mother to eat crepes at the KaDaWe last week). Husband said this was because I am a bad driver and my driving made him nervous. This is crap, but Bertha is big and a little stressful to maneuver around a city so I didn’t mind leaving what little driving was required in Berlin to husband.  I am not really a car person anyway, as proven by the fact that my last car was a Prius.

Bertha may not be making the journey across the Atlantic, but Poppy the Pashley will. (No, I don’t give all my modes of transportation names.  Poppy just happens to be the name of the model of my periwinkle blue Pashley bicycle.) She was made in Stratford-upon-Avon, about forty miles north of our home in the Cotswolds, but I bought her here in Berlin. And so by bringing Poppy to Boston, I take a little bit of both places with me. I’ve even put the keys to her bicycle lock on the mini-Mercedes badge key ring I kept as a souvenir of Bertha.

Berlin

Exorcising Europe

Posted on August 28, 2011

This last year in Europe has been like a long embrace of a friend whom I don’t know when I will see again. Husband on the other hand has been distancing himself, yearning to return to America. And on Thursday night he officially exorcised Europe.

It happened at a sidewalk table at Bandol, a tiny, casual, and esteemed French restaurant here in Berlin. It had been on my Berlin bucket list for awhile, and husband was in an obliging mood what with prospect of a return to America looming. I figured it couldn’t go too badly; husband can always find a steak on a Paris menu, even if he does risk saliva-seasoning by asking for it bien cuit. But this menu was challenging even for me. The salads came with deer meat or veal tongue strewn amongst the radishes, the Burgundian snails with calves’ head. I had finally settled on a traditional fish soup and husband on—what else?—a steak when we hit a problem. The entrecôte was too fatty, the chump (veal) too cruel, and the braised beef suggested by the increasingly desperate waitress came topped with steak tartare. After demurely asking for the bill for our already ordered drinks, husband piped up with a declaration: “That’s it. I am officially over Europe.  I am buying a pickup truck when we move back.”

When we left Bandol I decided to let him pick where to eat dinner. He chose Gorki Park, a trusty standby in our neighborhood and, as the name implies, Russian. And not just any Russian: throwback to USSR, super-kitsch Russian decorated with murals of red-tied Young Pioneers undertaking earnest-faced athletic pursuits. So much for his Yankee yearnings. The only thing American about his dinner was the fact that his meat-filled pastry appetizer was exactly the same shape and size as a McDonalds apple pie.

Cotswolds

A Real Englishwoman

Posted on August 23, 2011

Summer in the Cotswolds happened on Sunday. After a week of decidedly undecided weather, the sun finally took control. It shone down all afternoon, including on the little garden party in Ablington where I spent a couple of pleasant hours. There were sausages on sticks and pink wine, although, since I was driving, I stuck mostly to water scented with elderflower cordial and served in a little green glass. The lawn was littered with the usual suspects, including A., who grows increasingly eccentric looking each time I see him what with the cloth Mao jacket and his ring-bedecked fingers. Waving the eccentric banner for the women was J., who is always good for a leopard-skin print accessory.  This time it came in the form of her booties which had nothing to do, least of all matching, with the bright red jeans and flower print blouse she was also wearing.

The whole event was one of those quintessential English experiences, like a Sunday roast in a cozy pub or a candelabra-lit picnic on the grounds of a grand old country house. And as I notch each one up, I feel like I am having my own personal Velveteen Rabbit experience, getting closer and closer to becoming a “real” Englishwoman. Maybe one day soon the Nursery Magic Fairy will show up and make me “real” to everyone else. For now, I am pretty sure that to most of my fellow Cotswoldians I remain the loud American.

Cotswolds

The Witches’ Table

Posted on August 18, 2011

To get to the barn that houses the main retail area of the wine bar you have to cross the courtyard out back. When the weather is mild, the courtyard is also a pleasant place to sit and enjoy a glass of wine.  In the far corner of the courtyard there is a large table fashioned out of an old French door painted blue and mounted on rod iron trestle legs.  It is large enough to seat ten comfortably.  In fact it may seat ten too comfortably, which would at least partially explain its evil influence.  For when one sits at the recently christened Witches’ Table, one rarely leaves the wine bar sober.

Husband and I fell under the spell of the Witches’ Table earlier in the summer at the sardine bbq.  This is the only explanation I have for the ten strips of raffle tickets (charity unknown, but I can safely assume it was for a good cause) and the small cut above my eyebrow that were in my possession when I awoke the next morning.  I do recall that the occupants of the Witches’ Table that afternoon came up with an excellent outline for a panto we intended to stage at the village hall in winter: a mash-up of “Sin”-derella and Priscilla Queen of the Desert of the Cotswolds in which the struggle is to get Cinders to Pippa and Prince Harry’s wedding at the local inn (at which there was no room according to husband’s diligent BlackBerry notes and in an apparent misguided effort to weave in the Christmas story).  I believe this falls safely into the category of it-seemed-like-a-good-idea-at-the-time.  More recently the Witches’ Table cast its evil influence on one half of doppelgänger couple when, after an evening of wine and a misjudged shot of absinthe, he forcibly ejected the contents of his digestive tract via his mouth into the adjacent well.  Thus forth it has been known as Crispin’s well.

On Tuesday evening we decided to brave another session at the Witches’ Table with the fairer half of doppelgänger couple (Crispin was still hanging his head in shame from the well incident).  We had dinner reservations in half an hour and so, we assumed, there was no time for anything to go too far off the rails.  The table was already in session when we joined, populated by seven of the usual suspects.  Things got off to a safe start with a vigorous debate about the proper use of semi-colons that swiftly moved into a vigorous debate over the etiquette of turning an empty wine bottle upside down in its ice bucket.  (In the end we agreed it was ok, as long as it wasn’t in somebody’s house.)  Things generally proceeded in this vein of polite banter, with the small exception of when our local Roger Moore lookalike stood up to pour some wine and I complimented his arrowhead belt buckle, causing the entire table to look in the general direction of his crotch.  In the end we had an unintended second bottle of wine and were an hour late for our table, which on balance is an excellent outcome for an evening at the Witches’ Table.

Berlin

In Der ‘Hood

Posted on August 14, 2011

My street in Berlin, Fehrbelliner Straße, runs for the best part of a kilometer between Anklamer Straße at the top and Schönhauser Allee at the bottom. It is pronounced Fairbulleener Straw-suh, as if it was the street of fair Berliners, but alas this is not an accurate literal translation. There are some fine buildings, their windows adorned with columns and the various plaster accoutrements of old Europe — curlicues, bearded or wreathed heads, flowers — but there are more plain facades, although often in cheery sherbert shades. A few of the dun-colored, pebble dash boxes that scream East Berlin also remain, as does graffiti. I love the doors the most, especially the enormous double ones that open onto interior courtyards and close with a solid thunk.

Every weekday I walk the length of it twice, from home on one end to work on the other and back again. I also eat, drink, and shop on it. It is a far cry from the Cotswolds, but Fehrbelliner Straße is a village in its own way.

~

At the top end, half a block from our apartment and the on part of the street we frequent least, there is always an armed policeman standing guard outside one of the buildings. When we first moved in I approached him and asked in my most polite inquisitive voice if this was a police station.

“No,” the policeman answered and looked away, making it clear that no explanation for his presence would be offered.

Later at work a German colleague who lives nearby explained to me that the building was a Jewish school. I was taken aback that a school would have an armed police presence, but he explained that this was standard practice for Jewish schools and synagogues. I asked if there were specific threats, to which he replied, “No, but given our history it would just be really bad if something happened.”

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As far away from our flat as the Jewish school but in the opposite direction is Remshardt. It is the atelier of a wedding dressmaker, a man who sometimes sits at his desk drawing with his African Grey parrot perched on his shoulder. Each week he changes the dress featured in the window, lately favoring flowing Grecian things that remind me of Grace Kelly’s poolside cover-up in High Society. My favorite, though, was a bulbous heap of ivory taffeta adorned with an outsize beetle brooch.

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On the corner, at the busy intersection with Veteranstraße, is Weinerei Forum, known around my house simply as Corner Wine Bar. (Due to husband’s limited memory, most things around our house have a different, generic sounding shorthand, like “Frenchie” for Café Fleury.) I’ve written about Corner Wine Bar before here; suffice to say it continues to be an extension of our living room, as does the pizzeria, La Foccaceria, across the street.

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A little further down is ZweiTrad, a trio of bicycling boutiques that dominate the block. Berlin is a bicycle-crazy city, and this place is often as busy as a bustling bistro on a Saturday. This is where I bought my beloved Pashley from the elegant owner. He wears wire-rimmed specs and always has a scarf knotted around his throat, a Frenchman trapped in a German’s body. There is some small irony in my acquisition of the Pashley in Berlin given it was made in Stratford-upon-Avon, about forty miles north of our Cotswold town. But the Germans favor Dutch bikes with annoying pedal brakes, and so I reckon I had no choice but to go for the British-built beauty.

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Just beyond the cycle shop is Schwarze Pumpe (the black pump). It is one of the first places we ate dinner in our neighborhood and we continue to be regular guests for the käsespätzle and lack of pretension.

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This is our grocery store, Kaiser’s. I imagine I will leave Berlin without ever understanding why their logo looks like a genie’s lantern.

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Beyond the playground, two of the best coffee shops in Berlin have clustered together. Kristiania Espressobar, owned by a Norwegian, and Antipodes, owned by a couple from Wellington. The inside of Kristiania looks a little like a mid-century doctor’s waiting room, but on balance I favor Antipodes because of the passion fruit yo yos, an Oreo for grown-ups.

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Almost opposite the coffee cluster is the site of a former Jewish school. I’ve written about it before too, a reminder of a very sad chapter in Germany’s history. It is marked out by a subtle plexiglass plaque rather than a policeman; the only thing left to guard is the memory of the children and their teachers.