Katie’s Blue Cat, Pan-English Cafe, Kreuzkölln*

October 25, 2011 6 Comments

Do you know a good thing when you see one? I do.  Katie’s Blue Cat is one of those good things.

Even though it’s only just opened, it feels like it’s been around for a while maybe because of how coherent their offering is or how together their staff is.  Which is in stark contrast to a lot of the independent start-ups that open up around the city which have a habit of  putting the cart before the horse. In other words, they open a café, they know they are going to do coffee and something sweet (good margins on those babies) then they stumble through a motley crew of baked goods from around the world, a sunken cake here, a cupcake there, a hodge podge of stuff that doesn’t compel me to buy (why should I when I know at home I’ve got something better which inevitably uses superior ingredients, most of them organic and fair-trade). K.B.C.’s is clear: a “pan-English” inspired baked goods shop, with excellent coffee.

They do three things, which got me: the milk, the biscuits and their clear positioning. They use organic regional milk to make their cappuccinos, which is a huge deal because why boast about good beans (they use Bonanza here) then serve it up with bland long life milk? My cappuccino was smooth, so smooth that I was caught entirely unaware when a huge caffeine induced bout of euphoria hit me a mere half hour later, masked in the creaminess of the milk, I hadn’t had any indication of the bite that shot of coffee was going to take.

On to the biscuits, I like cake, I do, but I find it difficult to commit to a whole slice, that and more often than not, it’s too sweet for me. K.B.C.’s serves up a selection of about 6. Mostly doing away with the usual suspects in favor of cowboy cookies and Earl Grey shortbread biscuits.May I have a word with you about those Earl Grey biscuits? I ate an entire biscuit. Which may seem like I’m stating the obvious except that I rarely eat and entire anything or even half a thing I order (mostly because since leaving my 20s and a good chunk of my 30s behind me, I also seem to have misplaced my lightning speed metabolism but also because life is too short to eat just okay tasting stuff). These biscuits were tremendous, the Earl Grey gave them a chewiness and the flakes of salt I came upon every now kept the sweetness in check. Let’s just say, I’m a big fan. Read more of this post

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Peking Ente, Chinese Food, Mitte

October 24, 2011 11 Comments

Chinese restaurant = chopsticks - right?

Well not necessarily.

Go the cheap Chinese take away route and you get plenty of them.  Even if the only vaguely Chinese thing about the food is a splash of soy sauce and bean sprouts. Visit one of the hipster pan asian restaurants instead (Kuchi, Dudu or Transit, say) and you are free to help yourself to the chopsticks huddled in a pot on the table.  Actual Chinese restaurant, where the titles of the dishes don’t read like a possible contender for the name of the next Kung Fu Panda, not a chopstick in sight.  Nor any dinky miniature bowls which you can bring up to your mouth to snarfle up that rice with minimum droppage.  You get a flat plate so that your piping hot food is arctic and congealed within a matter of minutes.

Chinese food eaten off the tines of a metal fork isn’t the same.  In the same way that Arabic food eaten with cutlery is just wrong (and no you don’t stick your fingers in your mouth and then in the food, you use flat bread as a scooping device and put that into your mouth or else use the flatbread as an edible handkerchief to remove big pieces of food).  Dealing with Chinese food in Berlin, the lack of chopsticks is almost besides the point.  It just doesn’t taste like Chinese food.  Or rather, the Westernized version of Chinese food that I’ve become accustomed to over 13 years of living in London.  It mostly tastes like something that would come out of a jar, overly sweet, too much cornflour.  I almost hear the thwak of the suction going as they open the jar, the bloop bloop bloop as the gloopy contents spill out into the pan.  I can’t.  Seriously? Just can’t.  Not worth it, just hand over the sausage and the bratkartoffeln and leave me to my memories.Still, I break down because  I need Chinese food even more than I need Arabic food (although someone please tell me where I can get some good humus and labneh around here? Turkish supermarkets don’t seem to carry it.  Are there no Arabs in Berlin?).

Peking Ente was recommended to me by a friend from Hong Kong, the same one that took me Tian Fu.  And I’ve been there about 5 times now.  I even celebrated my birthday there.  I wanted somewhere laid back and Chinese food is so congenial and promotive to good times and easy laughs.  But also, I wanted to know what they thought.  Because having been here a year, I wasn’t at all sure whether Peking Ente had become my regular weekend haunt out of desperation or because it’s good. Read more of this post

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Slow Braised Chicory with Orange & Juniper (Happy Birthday to Me! And dark kitchen secrets)

October 18, 2011 11 Comments

I have these oven gloves.  They came free with Easy Living magazine (which I don’t normally read you understand, it was just that one time….).  They were obviously, cheap and thin (even though the tag optimistically announced they were Laura Ashley).  There was one novel thing about them: they were my size.  I wear a size 36 shoe, accordingly, my hands are little and finding oven gloves that fit is challenging.  In fact I’ve never managed to do it.  Which is why the Easy Living, Laura Ashley gloves survived and even thrived in my kitchen for many years, too many.  Plenty of essential kitchen items got culled but not these gloves.  They didn’t age well, their dubious quality ensured that I routinely sustained minor burns.  I did go out and try to find a replacement.  I even considered splashing out and buying myself a pair of Marimekko gloves and they don’t sell those babies as a pair, no, it’s per glove.  They were enormous though, I could have worn them on my head like some kind of a statement hat.All this to say that I have these gloves which are the kitchen equivalent to the gray granny underwear we all have, the one with the broken elastic, that look hideous but you can rely on never to ride up your bum, or leave imprints on your body (how could they with their malfunctioning elastic?).  You wouldn’t part with those for good money at the same time, you would never let anyone see them!  Same deal with these gloves, when I have friends over, I tuck them away in a corner and rely on kitchen towels.  Except last week, when I threw a dinner party for a few girlfriends and had enlisted the help of my friend Luisa.  I was off schedule to the point that the cold starter that was supposed to be served from the fridge, thereby allowing me to natter on with my guests, was not even started.  Luisa caught me off guard when she asked for the oven gloves, I nonchalantly surrendered their hiding place.  Then I realized and froze.Her eyes crinkled as she smiled and held them up to the light. “What are these?”
“My oven gloves.”
“Sooooo when you serve people, they get crumbled bits of oven glove in their food?” she teased.
“Umm, ya well, you see, I have small…” blah blah blah, all the stuff I said before but really in that moment I was BUSTED.She knew.
I knew.
She knew, I knew, she knew. (Say that fast 5 times)
“Well that’s what you can buy me for my birthday.” I tried to recover. But let’s be honest, there really is no way to recover from that.  All I could do was hope that she would find it endearing, a little like Daniel Cleaver when confronted with Bridget Jones’s ‘stomach holding underpants’. Read more of this post

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Melt, Galettes & Crêpes, Friedrichshain

October 17, 2011 4 Comments

You know how when you are waiting for a bus, nothing comes for an hour, then out of nowhere 5 of them appear? Berlin’s got the “no bus - Op! too many buses’ syndrome.  I’m not talking about obvious things, like curry wurst or burgers, rather more fringe snacks like bubble tea.  These days I can’t walk down a street without seeing a shop announce “New! Bubble Tea!” (oh and I totally own up to the fact that as I type this, I have a Bubble’s Tea loyalty card in my wallet. What can I say?  It keeps me young, to behave like the young.).  Crepes is another one, most neighborhood markets will have one guy doing crepes.  Given that reality, it’s hard to get motivated to go have a crepe. To go to Friedrichshain and have a crepe.  Twice. Because the first time I went they were closed.  As was Factory Girl and I really wanted to know what this whole Magnolia thing they keep going on about is? Say Magnolia to me and I think of Tom Cruise, it’s raining frogs or red armadillo wedding cake and Julia Roberts looking fresh and happy, like a bright yellow daffodil (obviously less so by the end of the movie).  But neither of those two images come into play, at Factory Girl, Magnolias are a riff on tiramisu but with flavours like apple crumble or cookies and cream.  They come dolloped on top of bespoke ceramic square plates.  I was served by a very friendly man, who kept plying me with free samples of Magnolia in a bid to get me to commit to one, which I couldn’t because although they are pleasant, they don’t have much texture, like Eton Mess without the meringue and I am always going on about how I’m a texture girl.  I ordered a coffee to go.  It wasn’t stellar.

Cruelly I am at once entirely addicted to coffee (seriously, I wake up in the morning thinking ‘coffeeeeee!’) while being simultaneously very sensitive to the effects of caffeine, meaning I am dead tired yet hyperventilating lying down.  Not fun.  Therefore, if I’m going to mess up precious R.E.M time (not the shiny happy people kind) then it’s gotta be - outstanding!  I won’t go so far as to say ‘God in a Cup‘ level but let’s say, I’m discerning.I take my Factory Girl coffee for a walk around Friedrichshain.  It’s keeping my hands warm but I’m not drinking it, which is making me feel guilty about having spent 2 Euros whatever and then not drinking it (Sometimes I think  I could run circles around Woody Allen’s racing thoughts).

I see Melt.  I walk in.  I set my cup on the counter.  The young French man who owns the shop comes over to me and says hello (auf Deutsch).  ’Hi!” I chirp (in American), it comes out a little loud, perhaps a bit black labrador seeing it’s about to be taken out for a walk.  There’s a split second where he realizes I don’t know what I want yet, there is a flicker of annoyance, perhaps it’s his nostrils that flare.  All of a sudden I am back in Paris, where this kind of subtle jousting between customer and shop owner is a given.  It’s not rudeness, no it’s more elusive.  It’s a weighing up that takes place in a matter of - well in a second, where they decide how they will interact with you.  Possible categories include, like a piece of gum lodged in the grooves of their shoe, like an imbecile, like you are a C. Deneuve - although it goes without saying that the last one almost never happens.  I take a few moments to reminisce about my University days in Paris.  He tidies.  He has that clipped walk that I remember so well.

I get his attention and order in French.  A galette with Emmental, ham and egg.  And I ask him to throw away my cappuccino and order a cappuccino.
“It’s full?” he inquires.
“Yes.”
“You didn’t like it?”
“No.”  I throw down my gauntlet.
“You will like ours.’ he picks it up, dusts it off and hands it back with chin held high.Alrighty then, how I miss the psychological finesses of Paris.  Well, sometimes, when I’m being romantic about it and because I don’t live there anymore. Read more of this post

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Alpenstueck, Bäckerai & Manufaktur, Alpine Inspired Food, Mitte

October 13, 2011 1 Comment

The Alpenstueck group have carved themselves out a neat little corner in this quiet pocket of Mitte.  (Interesting article on Iris Schmeid, owner of the group here.) If this group were a haircut, they would be buzzed up nice and neat in the back, with a plummeting horizontal fringe.  Black, of course and very very straight.  In other words, in control, high maintenance and stylish.

It started off with just Alpenstueck on an attractive corner site.  With a large wall of stacked up logs, gray leather banquettes, large wicker baskets, antlers (lamps, coat hangers or just piled up in a corner), with pale gingham lampshades.  During peak traffic times in Berlin (like the fashion shows or the Berlinale) getting a table is impossible.  Probably because Alpenstueck is the kind of place that visually impresses and because the staff have enough pedigree that you can count on them to be polite, spot your empty glass and even smile now and again.The food is a combination of 2 kitchens you will encounter often in Berlin: Swabian & Viennese (which all places here refer to as Alpine - but I ask you, where is the rösti and the fondue then?).  Meaning you can expect schnitzel, maultaschen, the vinegared potato salad, the wilted cucumber ribbons, goulash, kässpätzle, sauerbraten and so on.  I prefer the goulash at Meierei, the maultaschen at Manufactum and the schnitzel at Ottenthal.  But Meierei is a deli with limited seating that is closed for dinner; Manufactum is also a deli with annoying bar stools serving food on huge plates and tiny tables; and Ottenthal is almost too grown up (when being grown up meant boring and stuffy) and you always need a reservation. I guess if I had a friend in town that I wanted to impress, I would probably take them to Alpenstueck too. The added charm of Alpenstueck is that the streets around it feel abandoned and dark, probably cold because let’s remember we are in Berlin, then you see the warm glow of the restaurant, the smiling guests inside and you think, ‘Oo, I bet it’s nice in there.’ Read more of this post

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Friedrichshain: Aunt Benny’s, Cafe; Kinkibox, sewing cafe; La Récréation, Ceramics; Hops & Barley, micro-brewery; Olivia, Chocolate & Cafe; Goldschmiede, jewellery

October 8, 2011 2 Comments

At this juncture, I would say that I know Mitte inside out; Prenzlauerberg very well; I am surprisingly well-informed on where to eat in Kreuzberg; Charlottenburg is pretty shaky; Schöneberg, vaguer still; Friedrichshain had been blank (with the exception of Cupcake which I visited only once); don’t even get me started on places like Wilmersdorf it might as well be a different city, in fact from what I hear - it kind of is.While the weather was ‘Fa la la la la, la, la, la, laaaaaa‘ glorious, I took out my new copy of Tip’s Speisekarte (in which I got a mention on a special they did on food bloggers - Yay!) and plotted out a few addresses to try out. Then I printed out the google map and off I went with a girlfriend to explore.Yes, I’m a geek of epic proportions. Something it’s taken me a long time to embrace but now that I have, you know what? Geeks have much more fun.Annoyingly, two of the places I had been looking forward to trying were closed on Tuesday (Factory Girl! and Melt) but Aunt Benny’s was open. It has a similar aesthetic to places like The Barn or Bäckerei from the Alpentstueck group, namely, black painted walls, designer bare bulbs, good staff / service. I was still full from tasting a lot of mediocre food along our tour (places I won’t name because they were unoriginal even in their shortcomings) but I couldn’t resist the chickpea and kidney bean salad with rocket in a large weck jar.At that point the tour was over and it had been disappointing. The extraordinary number of young Europeans on the streets told me that there was more to Friedrichshain. Layla nodded off in her pram which gave me ample time to follow my nose.

(Note to self: always rely on the nose!)

I turned up some truffles, not all culinary but you don’t mind if I go off brief every now and again?

First up: La Récréation, a ceramic workshop with dishes so pretty they made me think of pastel coloured, Pierre Hermé macaroons. I wanted to buy a set then and there and thankfully was impeded from doing so by a man who actually was buying an entire dinner set.

Read more of this post

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Buchholz: Gusthof Britz, Refined Simple Food, Neukölln

October 4, 2011 5 Comments

UPDATE (OCT 10, 2011) I went back to Buchholz this weekend and found a few changes I wanted to share with you. The Bratwurst plate had changed from 1 large sausage to 2 small ones, that could have just been a supplier issue. More irksome was that the pear and chocolate dessert I had lauded so vehemently in my last post had been struck off, replaced instead by a very ordinary (in comparison to the pear dessert you understand) plum compote, topped with cream and crumble, in a glass. *yawn*

Mysterious things continued to happen when I went upstairs to visit the loo and found a door ajar, leading to a beautiful dining room with some beautiful books by Oscar Marti in the bookshelves and an entirely different menu from downstairs.  I scratched my head, returned to our downstairs table and instructed my husband to quiz the waiter.

“Where had the wonderful dessert gone?”
“It’s been taken off.”
“What’s upstairs?”
“A restaurant.”
“Is it a different menu from this one?”
“Yes.” (also about 30% to 40% more expensive upstairs)
“When is it open?”
“Thursday through Saturday.”

The conversation didn’t exactly flow. But what I surmise from that is that there are two distinct restaurants: a more upscale and pricey one on the first floor and a simple, rustic, cheaper one on the ground floor. You may find some gems in the rustic ones or you might not. It’s slightly frustrating, especially that I was so enthusiastic about my first experience there and am feeling considerably subdued after my second visit.

I feel the two places need to be more clearly delineated, nothing worse than a confused brand. Maybe they aren’t clear themselves what they are going for. I still like it enough to keep an eye on it.
So will go ahead and report any further changes back here.
After just one visit, Buchholz’s Gusthof Britz hurtles to a prominent position on my ‘Berlin: Favourites’ page.Mainly because it’s the closest approximation to the British gastropub I’ve found here (albeit the German version of one). Unexpected, because it seems to me, most chefs cooking at this level are chasing the golden ladle at the end of the rainbow, they want the big dining room and the blockbuster menus. (I think two notable exceptions to this are restaurant ETA Hoffmann and Renger Patzsch.)

In an admirable act of restraint, the menu lists only 9 dishes, 3 each of starters, main courses and desserts (I read online somewhere that the menus will change often). I sidestepped the starters because I was going to a special El Celler de Can Roca evening at Aqua; I didn’t want to run up the bill; but also because, in this city, starters can often resemble main courses, I imagined the celeriac soup would be served in a bucket, that the veal roll would be the size of Layla’s thighs. Undeterred by portion sizes and un-hampered by future dinner reservations, my husband ordered the veal (€14) and it turned out to be a perfectly manageable 6 slices, with firm lentils - delicious.

We were lucky with the weather and were able to eat in the gorgeous courtyard, with gravel scrunching under foot and a pert box hedge dividing the space into 4 rectangles, the chairs set on red herringbone flagstones. The tables were set simply with green disposable table mats, potted flowers in the middle and a handful of chestnuts scattered on each table: which I found to be a pretty, almost feminine approach, something I would expect to find if I went round to a friend’s house for lunch. I ordered the bratwurst with potato puree and sauerkraut (€7.50) it came with a side dish of pungent mustard. Hrabi had the talioligni with rocket pesto, I appreciated the inclusion of oven dried tomato and the bright runny pesto but that pasta shape is not a favourite, there are often pockets of raw dough at the twists and simultaneously overcooked extremities. (I should mention that a friend went the next day and had the crispy pork with potato cucumber salad and found it to be on the dry side).

I am not knocking it down, just trying to give you and indication of where to set your expectations so you can love it as much as I did. I’m planning to go back every weekend that the weather allows us to sit outside (I’m hoping there will be heat lamps in the subsequent cooler autumn months?).

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

September 30, 2011 6 Comments

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

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Kushinoya, Japanese Fried Food, Charlottenburg

September 25, 2011 11 Comments

Don’t think I am unaware that I am not fulfilling my self-declared duty of being a Foodie in Berlin, I am.  (Truthfully, I was made aware by my husband who said. “What’s up with your blog, you haven’t posted much about Berlin lately.”)

I have plenty of new places that I have been eating at and want to share.  It’s just that I’ve been travelling a lot.   Then, when I returned to Berlin, it was like someone spiked (is spiking as I type) the weather god’s drink.  It’s glorious, opera glorious (as in, am inspired to burst into song).  That godawful humidity that plagued us all summer is gone to be replaced with honey hued sunshine and baby blue skies.  It’s hard to stay in doors with weather like that and walking around Berlin the last week or so, it seems everyone agrees.Kushinoya was a tip from a Japanese girl I met at a wedding in the Cotswalds a couple of weekends ago.  It was one of those rare occasions where instead of squirming in vain for a conversation topic which would then fizzle out and die in a matter of seconds, we found ourselves gushing animatedly within minutes.  The common thread, food.  She is Japanese, lived in London for a while , then moved to Köln with her husband.  She misses great food, I miss great food.

“How’s Berlin?” She asked

“Amazing!”

“How is the food?”

“Meh.” (BTW Margue, I’ve totally stolen that expression from you, it is so great at expressing a disappointment so profound, you can’t even be bothered to extrapolate on the subject. Genius.)

“We have a restaurant in Berlin that we love!” she enthused.

“Hold on, let me get a pen…”

“It’s fried food on a stick.” she continued. 

Fried food on a stick?

Fried food son a stick! (Kushiage) Read more of this post

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The Fancy Nicoise Salad

September 22, 2011 7 Comments


I make two Niçoise salads. One for myself which doesn’t use up too many dishes. And another one, for guests. A show stopper. Where I treat all the ingredients right, dress a lot of them separately. Then layer and scatter the everything on a low plate so that they can really stand out against one another and arrest you visually.

This Niçoise relies on two principal things; good ingredients and prepping before everyone arrives. What you want to achieve is an outward and inward calmness and control; so that you can just nonchalantly drop, nudge, dollop your way into a salad, while being able to manage a conversation without suddenly saying “Oh No! My potatoes! Ach well, you guys don’t mind if it’s all a soggy mess!”

If all you’ve got in your cupboard are those abominable dyed black pit-free olives they sell at all the supermarkets here, then walk away from this recipe now!  (Great article on dyed olives in the Independent here).  Or just leave them out and definitely throw those nasty things out because there is no culinary use for them.  You are looking for those fingernail size niçoise olives or kalamata olives (they are expensive but good so shell out).

Then this is what you do:

Cherry tomatoes on the vine: drizzle with olive oil, salt and pepper.  Put in a low oven: 120 C and roast for 1 hour.  Then turn off the oven and let it cool down with the tomatoes inside.  They will look alarmingly shriveled but taste, sweeter than you could ever fathom.

Fennel: Halve and then slice through the core, as thin as you can go, retaining the core.  Trim the core leaving just enough to keep the fennel slices together.  Toss with olive oil and salt.  Add to the roasting tomatoes half way through and allow to dry up with the tomatoes.

Green Beans: top (and tail if you want) and halve into bite sized pieces.  Get a big pot of salted water to the boil.  Throw the beans in, put the lid on to get back up to the boil.  Boil from anywhere to 3 minutes to 10.  Depending on what it takes for the beans to give a little.  Take out and either put in a bowl of ice water (I never have enough ice myself) or put in a colander in the sink with cold water running over them.  To store for the salad.  Lay a Tupperware container with some paper towel.  Put in the beans and cover with another paper towel.  They will stay in the fridge like this happily for 12 hours.

Eggs: put room temperature eggs into simmering water, gently.  (If they are cold from the fridge, they will crack).  Lower the heat to a gentle simmer (a rolling boil makes the white tough) and cook for 6 minutes, the centers should still be soft and creamy.  Cool down, peel, store between paper towel in Tupperware in the fridge.

Potatoes: I am at a total loss when it comes to potatoes here, no matter which kind I get “Festkochend” - Waxy or “Mehlig Kochend” - Floury, once I cook them, they just taste…odd.  (Very good guide to potatoes in Germany here) So I usually flake out and go to Galleries Lafayette and pick up a bag there, which are waxy and creamy at the same time.  Scrub them, boil them in salted water with their skin on.  Peel while they are still warm, otherwise you will never get the skins of once they have been in the fridge.  Leave them whole, store them in the fridge.

Dressing:  Dijon mustard is what makes this salad pop!  So use lot’s of it.  Make double what your instinct is, with white wine vinegar and olive oil.

Tuna: I like to splash out on Oritz tuna, which they sell in Berlin at Mitte Meer (sadly the shop behind Hamburger Bahnhoff has now closed but there are still 3 other locations in Berlin)

Bring it together. The look you are going for by the way is cool nonchalance, like all these vegetables happened to be in the neighborhood and decided to have an impromptu soiree. : Read more of this post

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