When I started food blogging, I knew I was way behind the curve–both in longevity and experience. So most of my time in the food world has been behind the scenes, oooh-ing and ahh-ing over other people’s beautiful blogs. One that I’ve had my eye on was The Wednesday Chef (I mean, look at that banner: you try telling me you wouldn’t be instantly sucked in). I asked Luisa if she would be interested in chatting with me–and she obliged! So I share with you dear readers, the start of what will hopefully be a weekly exclusive “Authors in the Kitchen” segment.
How did growing up in Berlin, with American and Italian parents, shape how you cook and eat?
In Berlin, my mother was in charge of dinner, so at home we ate a lot of spaghetti, roast chicken with a lemon up its bum, tomato salads with oregano, and – not often, but oddly enough – chicken wings in barbecue sauce. My mother did not like to cook, but she was very dedicated about getting dinner on the table. I’m so grateful to her for that. To me it’s one of the most important moments of the day: when you sit down together to eat with your family.
The kitchen in Berlin was my favorite room in the apartment: big windows, herbs on the sills, a botanical print by the stove, a lovely square table. Sometimes when I’m in Berlin I drive past the old apartment and look up into the windows and wish I was back there again. The botanical print lives on in my friend’s apartment and I love sitting in his kitchen just for that reason alone. My school had a fantastic lunch program, so there I ate things like Kohlrouladen (stuffed cabbage), Sauerbraten, Milchreis (rice pudding! for lunch!), potato pancakes, and cevapcici (ground meat kebab-type things from Yugoslavia). I found them all quite delicious. I don’t have German citizenship, but Berlin is my birthplace and quite literally the place of my heart. I’m on a one-woman campaign for the glories of Germany: food, language, people.
How did your family treat food? How did that influence you?
My father, who I lived with until I was ten, was pretty strict about not allowing sweets, sodas or other kinds of junk food. And no fast food, EVER. My mother wasn’t as restrictive about chocolate or a cookie now and then (Italians eat them for breakfast!), but junk food was just not ever part of her world. As a result, I tasted my first Cheetos at the age of 31 (cross my heart and, MAN, are they delicious) and drink a Coke about once a year. (I was a very obedient child, can you tell?) Home cooking or sleuthing for a hidden ethnic joint is my idea of a good time.
What is your earliest memory of being in the kitchen?
One of my earliest memories is at breakfast. I’m sitting at the table in the kitchen in Berlin. Am I in a high-chair? Not sure. I can hear the church bells ringing. The sun’s streaming through the open windows: it must be springtime. There’s a bowl of plain yogurt in front of me and my mother’s at the cabinet (the one with the green door that we got rid of a few years later when she updated the kitchen), pulling out a block of bittersweet chocolate wrapped in wax paper. She comes back to the bowl in front of me and grates chocolate into the yogurt: little shreds falling this way and that. I eat the yogurt – am I holding the spoon myself? or is she feeding me? I can’t remember – and it tastes sour and deep and delicious.
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