The House of Small Wonder

Because everyday life is not about the big wonders, its about the small wonders that make things just a little more pleasant" is the slogan of this hidden gem in a corner of Mitte.

The House of small wonder is hidden on the first floor of a, on the outside, cheerless building. It’s easy to pass by, even if you know it must be there somewhere. Once you’ve passed the heavy front door you know you’re at the right place, just by seeing the fairytale staircase at the end of the hallway. On the top of the stairs awaits a wonderful decorated place full of green and blue tints, wallpaper with birds and tons of plants.

We ordered one of the sandwiches with, a perfectly proportioned corn soup and a salad, and a Japanese rice breakfast with miso soup. The food is simple but tasty, a good start of a new day, and the service is friendly.

It’s a doggy day

It’s a special day today: seven years ago our Sjakie was born in Rotterdam. Those past seven years he has grown from a little puppy with a handicap to be a full grown, somewhat headstrong, happy dog. It feels like yesterday somebody at the Vondelpark funnily asked me if I had forgotten his battery, for he wasn’t able to control his hind legs. This funnyman should see him now running through Volkspark.

The girls couldn’t imagine their lives without him, so on this very special day we decorate the birthday boy and bake him salt free chicken cookies. He loves us for it. By that I mean the cookies, not the decorating.

Breakfast

Since we live in Berlin and I don’t see my grandmothers on a regular base anymore – they live a good two hour drive away from Amsterdam -, we wanted to take it slowly this time and decided to spend the night in Zeeland at our favorite B&B: Frankrijk Noord. I have written about this place before, but can’t let this visit go by without mentioning. If only to show you this delicious breakfast, served in their wonderful common room. Daughter number two was sleeping in, that’s what the brine sea air will do to you.

Domburg Beach

Just because the prettiest beaches are to be found in Zeeland, even on the windiest days.

Grandmother

Both my grandmothers are still there and in good health. Today we visited my mother’s mother, who will be 100 years of age in 2017.

It’s always pretty special to visit her with my own children, showing them the places I used to play when I was little. They hardly changed since then. My grandma’s beautiful garden, with the little house in the back we always pretended to be our home. The old apple and pear trees, of course without fruits right now, but there were daisies to pick and we did. She still partly maintains her big kitchen garden herself, eating from her own harvest almost every day: Fresh from the tree or plant in summer and autumn, from her freezer in the winter and spring.  Of course my grandma has gotten older, but her spirit hasn’t and we still drink tea from the same mugs we did 30 years ago.

One of the things my grandmother learned me was to value the nature around you, to look at it and be grateful for all it has to offer. If you take care of the world around you, it will take care of you. Oh and: start your day with a lukewarm glass of water with lemon, it will help you keep your skin young.

 

Cevicheria

Today is my 35^th birthday. Five years after the birthday I unsuccessfully tried to skip. I didn’t see it coming, me hating turning 30 as much as I did, but it hit me in the face a week before the big day and progressively got worse from there. On the day itself I started telling people I was turning 29. Most of them reacting with “oooo, one year left till the big 3-0” made me feel even more depressed, so I just went on joking around that it’s inappropriate to ask a lady her age. 

It luckily only took me a week to get over it and accepting my new age. I decided to join the trend and make myself a bucket list, so I won’t be as grumpy when I turn forty. My bucket list only contains 2 items:

1. Finding myself the perfect hairdo that will make me look more nature in a sophisticated ladylike kind of way
2. Writing my own cookbook

I still have five years to accomplice both, so today is just about celebrating my birthday by spending a day with my husband doing one of the things I love the most: strolling around and eating. We went to have lunch at one of the places on my wish list: the Cevicheria in Kreuzberg.

Ever since I ate the Peruvian fish dish for the first time at Gordon Ramsey’s Bread Street Kitchen in London it is one of my favorite things to eat. Curing the fish in citrus fruits optimizes taste and structure, making the fish briny and tender with a sour twist. I’ve made ceviche several times back in Amsterdam, mostly with salmon or scallops. Since Berlin is not really that close to the sea I’ve never prepared it here, for I don’t know if the available fish is fresh enough to eat it raw. Today I will finally have a plate of ceviche again, and the Cevicheria far from disappointed me!

If only for the entourage it would be worth visiting this place. The light blue interior, the friendly people and last but not least the South American music make you feel you’re in another country, leaving the busy city behind for a moment.

As for the food we ordered a pulpo salad and the white fish ceviche with prawns. The salad was a very well balanced combination of oil and herbs, freshened up with chopped tomatoes and cucumber. I could’ve easily eaten a whole plate of it. The ceviche was perfect as well, classically accompanied by sweet potato, corn, red onion and coriander. We enjoyed every bite of it.

Please go here if you have the opportunity! Even if you don’t like raw fish (they have grilled and baked dishes) or you don’t like fish at all (as befits a Berlin restaurant: the have vegetarian dishes)

For the both of us eating here felt like a mini vacation.

Pancake Cake

It’s a very special and important day today. My oldest daughter is turning four. A mile stone for us, since it in the Netherlands is the age a child goes to primary school. We can hardly imagine our little girl is growing up this fast.

After the success at the birthday of the twins, half a year ago, I decided to repeat the pancake cake we had for breakfast that day. I baked the pancakes the night before the big day, so the whipped cream wouldn’t melt this time. The only thing we had to do on the Birthday morning is whip up some unsweetened cream and layer the cake. We alternated layers of whipped cream and strawberries with banana – nut butter – maple syrup layers. On top a whole lot of whipped cream with raspberries, blueberries and pistachio nuts. And four candles of course.

When we visited my grandma for her 80^th birthday last year my daughter doubted her for really having her birthday. After all, no flags were hanging around. And a birthday cannot possibly be a birthday without the flags. So no flag shortage in our home today!

Pancake Recipe (for about 12 pancakes)

200 gr spelt flour

2 eggs

400 ml milk

Pinch of salt

Sunflower oil for baking

Sieve the flour into a bowl and make a little pit in the middle for breaking the eggs in. Stir in the eggs from the middle and slowly start adding the milk so you can stir the lumps away in the process. Add a pinch of salt in the end.

Heat a drip of oil in a frying pan and add a small ladle of batter while moving the pan so the batter will equally spread. Let it rest until the top is dry, then turn and bake the other side for another minute. Repeat this recipe until all the batter is gone and you have a nice pile of pancakes. Don’t forget to add a little drip of oil for each pancake; it’s needed in order to thicken the batter.

Tierpark Berlin

My dad is a big fan of amusements parks. He likes to regularly visit one, but doesn’t care too much about variety. When we lived in Zeeland (Province in the South West of the Netherlands) we always visited Diergaarde Blijdorp near Rotterdam. When we lived in Naarden we exchanged the animals for the fairytales of the Efteling. Since we live in Berlin we have been to the Berlin Zoo three times last year. Because I do like some change myself, my dad was eager to go to the Zoo again and Berlin has got no less than 2 zoos, I laboriously persuaded him to pay a visit to the Tierpark in the Eastern part of Berlin this time.

The reason Berlin has got two Zoos is that the original Zoo was situated in the West part of Berlin and impossible to reach for the people living in the old East-Berlin. So in 1955 the Tierpark was founded. This Zoo is beautifully located on an old estate in Lichtenberg. The animal enclosures are very spacious and widely spread through the area, which mainly consist of trees as if you’re walking in a forest, interspersed with flower beds. What also differentiates this Zoo from any other I’ve visited is the fact you’re allowed to take your dog with you. We didn’t today, but definitely will in the future once do so.

The space in the Tierpark and therewith the space the animals have, make this to be a very pleasant Zoo. Our favorites were, of course, the elephants, crocodiles and the ancient turtles in their little house in a corner of the premises. I’m curious which of the two Zoos my dad chooses next time he visits.

Easy Does it

Wednesday evening is German language course evening, which means I do not have a lot of time to cook. Mostly on Wednesdays we eat something I can prepare in advance, like this quiche we are eating tonight. I got the recipe from the Season to Season cookbook by Sophie Dahl and, as I always do when I'm trying a recipe for the first time, I followed the recipe to the letter.

The thing I normally love about quiches is that you can put in heaps of vegetables for the kids without having to pay special attention to them eating it. Unfortunately for me this quiche is all about bacon, eggs and a bit of onion. We cover the veg part by eating a green salad with oven baked tomatoes. 

The reason I nonetheless wanted to share this recipe is that it one of the best flan bases I have ever made before. And as long as the base is perfect, the rest will work out just fine and you can throw in as much veg as you’d like. 

For Sophie is sharing the full recipe on her own website, I won’t bother you be writing is down again myself. You can find it right HERE

Savoy

Kale is a cabbage that is very easily obtained fresh in the Netherlands. In Germany however it is available, but it needs a bit of luck finding it fresh instead of canned or frozen. Sometimes it’s there, mostly not. So when I asked the husband to bring me some kale from the market it wasn’t really a big surprise he brought back a huge savoy.

I do like savoy, used it quite often back in Amsterdam. It was a vegetable my organic box contained every now and then in winter. The problem for me with the savoy is the size, if you purchase a savoy you’ll most likely be eating it for three to four nights in a row. So that is what we’ll be doing this week: A week of savoy

First night: Green Kitchen Table 

Savoy leafs filled with a mixture of mango, canelli beans, avocado, and corn, seasoned with coriander, cumin, cayenne and paprika powder. I blanched the leaves a little bit, not enough though: they stayed a bit too crisp for my liking. It felt a bit rabbity to be honest. My four year old ate the whole thing, the twins didn’t like it. At all.  I could only get them to eat their avocado and some of the beetroot and goats cheese salad I made. Too bad. Maybe giving this one another go when summer is here again and mangos are a bit riper

Second Night: Jamie Oliver

Savoy as a side dish. Stir fried savoy with accompanying one of the best Chickens I ever made. The trick here is to add another kind of cabbage, in our case Brussels sprouts, bacon for the salt and green peas to sweeten it a bit. At the end adding a bit of butter makes it an easy to eat dish, also for the girls, but nothing innovatory here. 

The chicken we had, however, was one to remember. The new thing for me in this recipe was adding fresh herbs by stuffing them between the breast and the skin. Difficulty is carefully tearing the skin loose without damaging it, but once you succeed it really is delicious. I for one will always use this technique roasting chicken from now on.

Third Night: Yvette van Boven

With the leftovers of the savoy we made a colcannon from the Home Made Winter cookbook by Yvette van Boven. Like any other hotchpotch it’s potato mash mixed with 10 minutes cooked, sliced cabbage. What makes this one particularly tasty is adding sliced leek that has been boiled in milk fot a couple of minutes. It’s an easy but tasteful recipe and we accompany it tonight by vegetarian sausages, which actually are not tasty at all. If somebody knows where to get tasty, non-dry veg sausages, please let me know. I have not been successful finding those yet.

 

Carousel

There are playgrounds everywhere in our neighborhood – Swings, Sandpits, Slides, Climbing Frames, Seesaws – Everything – And then there is this small muddy playground around the corner – We pass it a few times per week on our way to school – Just a carousel with some big ropes – Some really big branches on the ground – And a whole lot of mud – But the girls – The girls love it there – Hanging in the ropes – They can easily hang in there for an hour or so – And having fun! – Laughs all around – More than in any other playground anywhere 

Teufelssee

We went for a visit to Ökowerk Berlin again . It was a beautiful sunshine day, sunglasses all around, winter suits as well. Sunny but cold

The middle of the forest is the perfect place to tell you have to pee. For our oldest at least, who somehow likes to pee outdoors. One more reason we hope for summer to start asap

First we took a walk around the lake, Teufelsberg in the background. There still is some ice on and around the lake. Afterwards of course a walk around the premises of the Ökowerk, concluding with some elderberry lemonade and seabuckthorn cheesecake

I Due Forni

We walked by this place for more than half a year, somehow thinking it wouldn’t be much. Until one day in summer. Walking back from the playground, end of the day, feeling all hungry and lazy. We decided to walk up those stairs and get us some take away pizza and it was good! We still have the average pizza they serve back in Amsterdam in mind. We keep forgetting that the average pizza in Berlin is similar to the best pizza in Amsterdam

This week I decided to take public appearances with the girls to the next level. It now is possible to take them out for coffee without tearing the place down, it no wis time to take them out for dinner. I Due Forni turned out to be the best place for this.It’s big enough, they’re quick enough and the food is more than tasty. The noise inside is loud enough to not let the girls be disturbing to others and the best feature of tonight: their delicious frute di mare salad. The girls loved it

Tip: Come in around six with kids. Enough place available and waiters are not as busy. After seven there’s a waiting line in front of the door and the waiters might be so busy running around that it’s hard to get their attention

Train

The grey days. Not always that bad. A good reason to stay in the whole day, playing with the train tracks all day long