My time in Italy is almost over and my next stop in Germany is Berlin. I would like to take this occasion to share an article with you that I wrote for a journalism class the other day. It’s in memory to the time I worked on the Saturdays Farmers Market in Osnabrück.

Saturdays Market

Do you know Osnabrück somewhere in northwestern Germany? Right! This city that you pass on about half way from Amsterdam to Berlin. Well, what about stopping there next time and I take you on a trip to the Saturday farmer’s market. The only one from the markets I visited so far that I’m really missing since I moved away. In the last five years of living in Osnabrück a Saturday morning was not a Saturday morning without the weekly grocery shopping and a breakfast at the market.

Let me invite you to my favorite: “Linde’s Cafe” a mobile coffee shop, where I worked for three years. A box-like trailer with five smiling servers squeezed behind the bar that couldn’t be more then 70 by 250 centimeters and which is definitely not suitable for claustrophobic people. Well it’s not less crowded in front of the counter, when the clock just strikes eleven, opening the “coffee rush hour” and one open sandwich with a hot drink after another is passing over the counter. As much as I loved to be part of preparing these treats I’m glad to be on this side today and just enjoy. While waiting in the crush I will give you an idea of my former boss who inspired me in the way of looking on food and its aesthetics.

Linde, is a woman in her 60s with a colorful life who has experienced and supported the organic movement in Germany from its beginning. She started this cafe ten years ago as an autodidact with a strong idealism and the mission to spread her concept of good food with no compromise. Every one of her carefully selected ingredients has a story she loves to tell, sometimes even if you haven’t asked. There are the tomatoes that listen to classical music while growing which she exchanges with her farmer friends for buns plus coffee. Or what about the walnuts that she cracks by hand one by one for her “Engadiner Nut Tarte” with caramelized cream and the organic whole milk in brown glass bottles that clicks when you first open it, with a thick layer of cream settling on the surface of the milk (you can barely find this in any other cafe). Maybe she will tell you about the vegetables grown by her partner that she uses for the daily soup representing the mood and season she is in, paired with the passionate tale about the freshly baked buns from one of the last artisan bakeries in town, which were baked at three in the morning.

I learned a lot about life and business while working with her side by side in the last years. For example, how to give your products a personality through stories and that gossiping or little life-advice if well dosed can lead to regular customers as well as a simple talk about the weather at 6 in the morning is very stimulating for your relationship with your stand neighbors. This is all part of this Saturday experience as alike the slightly chaotic management that sometimes leads to waiting times that the guests just accept because they know what they miss when giving up.

Finally I made it. I’m standing in front of the showcase full of open faced sandwiches layered with cheeses, cold cuts or cured meats accurately decorated. Each one a little artwork and arranged in harmonic composition also taking care of not mixing cheese and meat in respect for vegetarians. Here you see buns with finely sliced bright orange cheddar crossed by two dark green chives and right next the creamy blue cheese ones, topped with musical tomato slices. On the meat side there is the filmy fennel salami curled up with a quarter artichoke heart nestled in, or imagine the juniper affined cooked ham with a drop of thick aioli and a caper fruit. And if you can’t find your favorite sandwich, Linde will not hesitate to freshly prepare it for you.

As I do. I order a whole grain bun with “Merlin” and a hot chocolate. “Merlin” is a fresh french goat cheese covered with Mediterranean herbs and a light layer of fine molds. A dash of homemade dressing with fig mustard and honey drizzled on the snow white cheese. Taking the first bite the crumbly dry consistency tends to stick to the palate. But soon it melts and mingles with the fruity, spicy flavor of the dressing which accompanies the light sour and “goaty” taste. You don’t like the “goaty” taste? “No worries…” Linde would tell you “..it’s really light and even people who were not used to like goats cheese, loved this one. Believe me, taste it, and if you don’t like it. Bring it back and choose something else.” The next bite there’s a scent of mushroom and slightly fermented herbs evaporating from the piece of rind captured in the mouth. The wholemeal bun in its rough, nourishing texture contrasts with this smooth sensation and gives you the satisfaction of filling your body. Not as those empty white sticky baps whose none taste represents the exhaustive travel they made from the thousands kilometers distant baking factory in cheap labor land.

Next I order the hot chocolate. Linde scoops slightly sweetened pure cocoa powder – that just melts properly with hot milk – in the cup. Slowly she intermixes a little milk with a tiny whisk until the pale brown de-oiled dust turns into a thick dark chocolate mud enhanced by 3,8% milk-fat. From this base she fills up the cup with foamed milk constantly stirring and bursing the bubbles. It’s just the right amount of milk to keep the fruity roasted flavor and the slightly bitter-sour taste of real cocoa. Every once in a while there are these poor people – who are used to instant over sweetened hot chocolate drinks – complaining about the milk that might gone sour. But there’s nothing wrong with the milk. They just don’t remember or never experienced how real cocoa without artificial vanilla flavor tastes like. However I don’t need to worry about it, I can be sure Linde will take care of them.

The steaming chocolate in front of her, Linde sweetly asks: “With cream?”. In the second it takes me to consider this optionshe already starts explaining to me why I shouldn’t refuse the cream. She doesn’t use artificial canned whipped cream that by the way you can’t even call cream. Hers is real, full fat, like in good old times, it comes from a biodynamic producer with the cows that still have their horns. Listening to her I smile into myself knowing that there’s nothing to consider than to take the whole thing. Not that I ever really wanted something else. Quickly I start spooning the cream. There’s nothing better than plain whipped cream, but nothing worse than when that cream melts entirely into the hot chocolate and dilutesits dark sensation. With every spoonful I’m grateful for all the guests Linde will convince to not give a damn abouta lite diet.