Ackerplatz market, Däri - Milk Workshop, The Circus of the Cycling Spoons and loving Berlin right now

You know how when you fall in love with someone?  You are utterly goo goo ga ga over how great they are? Exciting, unpredictable (in a good way), friendly. Then you suddenly find them reckless, unpredictable (in a bad way), and what you took to be friendliness, is actually horniness (and they hit on all your girlfriends, all the time)*. Most times that’s when you expedite them to the nearest exit.  Except on the very rare occasion where you see them stripped down and you think, yep, I get you and I still love you (yeah, close your mouth dear, I’m as surprised as you are).My guess is that this is probably why almost 95% of love stories are about an unrequited / misunderstood love that is requited / understood for a blink before one or both of them dies. Romeo & Juliet? Had they lived, he would have probably become a shoe salesman and she would sport a bouffant red hair do.

Because it’s complicated, intangible even to express what it is, how it works, why it works? (Oh and if you ask me, the characters of  Miracle Max and his wife run circles around all the afore-mentioned lovers.)It’s easy to be in love with someone before all the dots have been connected but once they have, well then you find yourself thinking - “That’s just a stupid drawing of a couple of kittens playing with a ball of yarn. How kitsch, how dull, I was expecting something else, I saw myself with someone better…” dump.It’s sort of the same with cities, you visit once and you think ‘Ah, to live here, I would be the happiest person in the world.’ Then you do and discover that actually you can’t put up with all the dog poop (Paris); all the over 70s (Geneva); can’t afford it (London); all the Hogans sports shoes (Munich); all the motorcycles without mufflers…oh, oh…and the imminent financial collapse (Athens) - you get my drift.But Berlin, Berlin.  Well yes: the bureaucrats are exceedingly good at telling you, you haven’t filled in the right form; receiving a flyer that says I must go collect my parcel at the post office leaves me shaking with fear (they’re mean to me); and my eyes roll so far into their sockets every time the supermarket counter girls get up from their seat to make sure I am not wheeling out a lifetime supply of diapers, that I have to pull out my compact mirror to help roll the back into their place. Buuuuuuttttt……The rest of Berlin is fantastic.

You just need to step out of your door and let things happen to you.  No plan, necessary, no money even (although that certainly helps). Read more of this post

Market at Karl August Platz & Warm Cauliflower Salad

I am trying to make it to most of the markets in Berlin.  So I can (one day soon) write up the definitive guide and put it out there into w.w.w land so when a future me-like person, looking for a list of markets, moves to Berlin it’s out there.  My friend Misterrios pointed out that such a list already exists, here but like most lists about things to eat in Berlin, it doesn’t tell you which ones are winners, which ones are losers and there are no pictures.I remember when I first moved here, trotting up to the concierge at the Adlon Kempinski (thinking he of all people must know) and asking where the best farmers markets are

“There are no farmers markets here.” he replied.

“How can there be no markets?” I asked, “Every city has markets.”

“Ok, yes, there are markets but they sell the same stuff as the supermarkets but for a lot more money.” He answered.

I smiled and thanked him and thought, wow, what a tool?!Having been to a fair few now, I get what he means.

Markets in Berlin are made up primarily of wholesalers selling similar if not the same stuff you will find in Rewe, Kaisers, Lidl and so on, often more expensive because the big supermarkets have higher spending power and can push down the prices on the suppliers.  In between those wholesalers, there are a few stands that sell food they have grown.  Unfortunately, they tend to grow the same varieties that you find in the supermarket, so they do a bog standard broccoli, no purple sprouting broccoli or broccoli rabe.

You don’t go to a market here to get something similar to the Mexican sour gherkins you read about in Bon Appetit, or some picked crab.  You go with more sensible expectations, like buying some garlic that has not been grown with China (what is up with that by the way?) or some sweet onions or just some locally grown things that still have dirt on and maybe a few dead gnats bearing testament that it grew in the ground and not in some futuristic polytunnel in a galaxy far far away. Read more of this post

Winterfeldtplatz Market - Schöneberg


I have been looking for a Borough Market type set up here in Berlin, with the cool stands and the great food.  It’s true that Borough Market in London is eye waterlingly expensive and jammed full of people but I loved to go down on a saturday, get in a great breakfast at Brindisa, a coffee at Monmouth and then hit all my favorite stands and spend way too much money!  Ach, old London life…  How I miss you some days!

This is the Timeout Berlin’s Market Critique Choice and I am inclined to agree with them!  I still have loads of markets to visit, in fact this weeks Tip Berlin has a listing of notable Berlin markets (By the way, if there is anyone out there that feels like translating those pages for me, just holler!).  So far my forays into Berlin markets has been a bit of a let down so I was pleased to finally come across one that I would bother to come back to. Read more of this post

To Market - Wittenbergplatz Market


I have been looking for a market for a month now. I am becoming familiar with the many fruit and vegetable stands on the outside of Turkish supermarkets but I wanted German products, preferably grown close to Berlin. You know the spiel, seasonal, local - all those virtuous words. It’s August, so now is the time to buy seasonal. I found a great website called Hungry in Berlin, that sadly seems defunct since their last post was in December 2009, that makes reference to this market. Read more of this post

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