Intro

Ciao, cari amici,

I am now in Italy for the third week, which, as many of you realise, would not be worth a message, let alone an email with this distribution list.

The fact that I’ll be here until autumn might be. Especially when I’m not bragging about a businessman’s relaxed time off, but rather telling you that I’ve signed a contract in an Italian restaurant as a commis di cucina. If you think you’ve missed out on an important point in my CV so far, then it should be mentioned that I am in fact absolutely not a trained chef and apart from my small reverential role at Nobelhart&Schmutzig in Berlin (#17 of the Worlds Best Restaurants), cooking with friends at hausgemachtes.berlin and the 2023 intermezzo at Hanover’s boca, I also have no professional expertise or experience whatsoever.

Now, from my life so far, I have a certain need for communication. Many of you will be able to understand that. This transformation (buzzword alert) is accompanied by many insights, foresights and anecdotes that I would like to share and that would probably be worth sharing with you. I now resist the desire to hang this on the big social media bell very easily and almost completely, and that’s why something came to mind again that I’ve been carrying around with me for a while. The good thing about all the social media hubbub is that we can also “stay in touch” with people with whom regular exchange does not take place, is not possible or is not necessary, but we still enjoy knowing where people who are, were or should be close to us for whatever reason are right now, what they are doing and what they are thinking.

My distribution list (which is intentionally visible to all, because you know each other or should know each other anyway, be it through me or I through you) is my, of course incomplete, selection of these people. Whoever is surprised to have been addressed here is simply happy about the affection expressed. You know that, with each and every one of you, I could immediately set off on a holiday together without a second thought.

The whole thing works as an opt-in (buzzword alert again), that’s in a roundabout (unnecessarily complicated) way for you to reply to this email if you want to read about my adventures at irregular intervals. A simple yes, si or “on any” will do, though of course I’ll be happy to receive detailed updates and gee-whizs. Everyone else just keep quiet and it will never be talked about again ; )

And then you’ll soon read here how I made the Nobelhart laugh because of my calculation of 30,000 handles per day, what really matters in such a restaurant kitchen and …cosa significa lavorare come commis di cucina in un ristorante italiano.

Tutto l’amore dei miei cari

frank

PS: 1. no great expectations, please. I have discarded the doubts as to whether this is a grandiose idea at all. Still, I don’t know (yet) how often, what and how sprawling I will write. Not to mention how entertaining. 2. if you don’t read countless other newsletters, you won’t read this one either. So don’t.

#1 Was ist da los

Ciao, cari amici,

Originally, my plan, if I ever had one, was to proceed chronologically. That is, to start at the very beginning and end up in a wide arc of tension in the here and now. Right at the front would be my dishwasher’s job in a Berlin star restaurant or the even earlier idealistic moment that made me feel for the first time that cooking and I could be a match. On the other hand, this is not a Netflix series and tension building is at best sufficiently necessary. You are all here voluntarily and intrinsically motivated (no, there is nothing to win).

Most of your answers to my first message revolved around the question of what’s going on. You want to know the hard facts. You asked for clarification and now I would like to comply with this request. Since 18 April, now in my third week, I have been working in the Bellavita restaurant in the Monte Baldo Hotel on Italy’s largest lake, Lake Garda. Even though the name is not very original, it is true. A beautiful life for the guests and a view of the wonderful Monte Baldo on the shore opposite. The hotel also includes the very chic Villa Aquarone and the whole ensemble is located in Gardone Riviera on the west side of the lake. Everything has, in an invariably good way, the charm of earlier times. The architecture, the furnishings and also the service staff in black bow ties and waistcoats. The head waiter is a small wiry man who has certainly served generations of guests, but whose white and black suit jackets are so many sizes too big. 

Last week I signed the contract as a young chef without reading it, because it was Italian, and at first both things about this designation seem fundamentally wrong. Neither young, nor a cook, but I am still flattered. My salary doesn’t reach a level without effort that I usually earn with a half-hour lecture on artificial intelligence or the future without money. So it’s not the money. 

The fact that it’s a hotel has a significant advantage, but also a disadvantage. Since all the tables are directly on the lake in the front row and the evening peace of the guests should not be disturbed, the restaurant closes at 9 p.m., which means that after extensive cleaning of the kitchen, I arrive home at 10 p.m. and thus have a kind of remaining evening. A disadvantage is the fact that the restaurant will now be open all day until the end of the season in October.The day in the kitchen starts at 8:30 am and ends for the time being after the lunch service around 2:30 pm. It continues at 5:30 p.m. and, as already mentioned, ends at 9:30 p.m. for good. That makes a total of 10 hours per day with one, yes one, day off per week, which could possibly be supplemented by another half day here and there. The latter is an achievement of this year’s chef’s negotiations. How relaxed the now 4-day week at Nobelhart&Schmutzig in Berlin seems to me. Every day feels like two days in one and that’s why I’ve often thought that we did something yesterday even though it only happened in the morning. Such a regular, marmot-like daily routine with the prospect of sheer endless repetition until autumn has been completely alien to my professional life until now.Let’s talk a little about the people involved. The hotel is apparently family-owned. An elderly couple roams around daily, exuding a cuddly charm and relaxed composure, having already handed over the business to their son, who seems to have inherited the friendliness and cheerfulness from them. He invented the embarrassed giggle himself and shows in a likeable way what a nice guy he is. Having just become a father, he sometimes can’t hide his tiredness, but is still happy about people like me who can give him hope, not only in terms of lack of sleep. His first message to me, which included a request for a phone call, I still had to carefully counter with the hint that my knowledge of Italian would in no way stand up to an oral conversation. When using translation programmes, a certain amount of caution must be exercised if one does not want to fall into such a trap. How relieved I was when he offered me the English and immediately followed it up with the hint that the chef was not only super relaxed but, without direct reference to it, German. Jackpot, I thought. And that’s exactly what happened.Apart from him and now me, there is a sous chef, his substitute so to speak, and another cook. The former is a cooking and baking machine and displays such high speed in everything that I seriously wonder how he would peel the extremely fragile quail eggs that regularly take me several minutes each. He is an Italian as you would imagine him to be. His favourite word is basta and even when I don’t understand him (he talks high speed, of course) he never tires of talking to me.

The kitchen is completely new, has everything you could possibly need and is set up like a classic Italian menu. While I prepare the beginning and the end, the antipasti and dolci, there are two other items, one for primi (pasta, risotto…) and one for secondi (fish, meat…). The list of things I prepare and cook so far is already endless. I cook sauces, pick bones, prepare desserts up and down, chop every kind of vegetable, bake and deep-fry it, stuff and deep-fry courgette flowers, clean prawns, clean asparagus, vacuum-pack everything that needs to be, prepare countless salads, cook ratatouille, make various oils, make pesto and correct the German and English menus. I own three chef’s jackets (although I had to smear the only white one black on the luggage rack of my bike today. Doesn’t come out at 60°. Tips welcome) put full profi-like pens in the pocket on my arm and have my own drawer with my knives and irreplaceable Micro Blade. The rings are gone, the nail polish too. And the beard is, no, not off, but very short. Every day at 11.30 am and 5.30 pm there is a staff meal that exceeds all the limits I have ever known, both in terms of choice and abundance. Surprisingly, even the highest-quality, ergo expensive foods such as meat and fish are offered. I will definitely not starve and the fridge at home will remain empty. Speaking of home. Another lucky coincidence is that our home, which we have called our own for the past two years, is only 10 minutes away by bike.Ciao, my dears.PS: Quite long. Too long? Never mind, I talk a lot and you should take your time.

#2 Hände, beine, Kopf

Ciao ragazzi,

did you miss me? I’m still here, so right here. 

Every day is the same. Did I say that already? I did, didn’t I? Groundhog days. I told you. If not, every day is the same. There’s never been anything like it : ) 

And I’m happy to say I still enjoy it. Standing and working with my hands for 10 hours a day, 6 days (sometimes 5.5) a week is of course exhausting. When I have time off, I try to sit a lot and do nothing with my hands. Although I do actually cook for myself on such a day. So there seems to be something to it.

Anyway, the hands. When I started working at Nobelhart in Berlin, or rather, when I slowly made my way from dishwasher to kitchen, the first thing I noticed was the hands. In probably every other profession, you use your feet to walk to the next meeting or your brain to just think about something. You listen to someone for a while, watch a presentation, make ( mostly too long) phone calls or commute somewhere. In between, there is also idle time, either quite obviously or secretly. It’s different in the kitchen. There, almost every single second is divided into 1-3 hand movements. Everything I do has to do with my hands. Nothing else can be used. Of course, I also think about what I’m doing. Only extremely rarely, however, do the hands stay still. There is relatively little moving around, so I’m not at all angry if I’ve already forgotten what I actually wanted to get in the freezer or magazine. To be honest, this happens half the time (I recently read that this is proof of the existence of alien life. It means that there was an extraterrestrial being in the room, who then flashes us men-in-black-like, which is why we forget what we actually wanted there. But that’s only in passing, or rather in the margin of the brackets).

My enthusiasm for this discovery with my hands made me calculate to the astonished people at Nobelhart that they more or less make 54,000 hand movements per day. I received blank stares.

The result is that, quite unjustifiably, the left hand suffers. In my case, the right hand wields the knife and passes on the clumsiness here and there, mostly unfiltered, to the fingers of the left hand. At first I was pleased that the knife never actually slipped. More and much more mini-annoying are the little slips and slides when opening these fucking shitty packaging or plastic containers. Ergo, it’s a lot of little, rather than single big, nicks that I inflict on my hands and that cause equally mini-annoying pain when I drag 8 limes across the grater for the cheesecake to squeeze out afterwards. Autschn.

Let’s not just talk about hands. Let’s talk about legs. They’re essentially standing. And standing and standing and standing. For a runner like me, torture. Luckily, I invented the rule that I go running every other day. Every third at the latest. It takes a moment for the knees to get into a round movement. I’m so glad that I have this compensation. Of course, I chose the wrong country for it. Recently I was listening to an Italian learning podcast while running and 30 sports were listed in English and Italian. Guess where running came in? None, even though water polo and polo made it to the list.

What also changes after 6 (is it 6?) weeks in the kitchen is the sense of time. Wow, 5 minutes is really long. For the bruschetta mista or the insalata polpo e calamari, the bread has to be in the oven for 5 minutes for the former and in the water bath for the latter. It’s amazing what can be done in that time. In the morning, I allow myself 60 minutes between the first blink of an eye and the moment when I get my knives out of the drawer in the kitchen and tie up my apron. Preparing and brewing coffee with the Bialetti takes 9 minutes (to all those who thought that this could be done in the evening and thus reduce the time needed… That’s too convenient for me). With coffee in hand, I sit in bed and, yes, waste time pointlessly on the internet. I always have to sit on the far left, towards the stairs, because that’s where our neighbour’s wifi is best. We also have our own, but it has to be topped up with data volume, which disappears all too quickly thanks to the background update massacre. At some point I go downstairs with my shirt and trousers over my arm (that’s all I need, I’ll take them off in a minute anyway) and into the bathroom. There I do what is none of your business, before I put on my shoes and run down to my bike. 10 minutes later I’m standing in front of my locker, 3 minutes after that I’m in the kitchen. Unless my boss is there, which is actually always the case when he doesn’t have his day off. Because he’s a bit of a dawdler. He asked me if I used to be a model because I always change so quickly. What reason would there be to do it slowly, I replied. The dressing room really isn’t that nice? So when we get downstairs just after half past eight, he gets coffee for us. My greatest achievement so far. I said I didn’t dare barge in there like that yet. Which is true, true. But hey, why give up that privilege.

So that I don’t repeat myself in the interest of my readers (i.e. you) (here, every day is repeated again and again. Every day the same rhythm. Every day is the same as the next) I thought it would be clever to have a theme for each day. Well, that didn’t work today, because I actually wanted to write about why I ended up here. Well, not here, but on this path, cooking. What Alfred Biolek and my jobs as a business clown have to do with it, why there is no alternative, so to speak, why Billy Wagner’s Instagram call at the time (He: “Looking for people with two hands, two legs and a head” I: “Here’s one”) made me a dishwasher and why cooking is my late career as a pianist.

All that was missing today. But hey, hands are a beautiful subject too.

Speaking of beautiful,, I have very beautiful hands.

Let’s not get you riled up.

I’m glad you’re here.

Non dimenticate che vorrei andare subito in vacanza con tutti voi.

#3 Laufen + Kochen

Ciao ragazzi,

I’ve wanted to let you know for a while now why I do all this in the first place, where the origins lie, what has driven me to this point and ultimately ensured that I ended up in Italy as a chef. A fact, by the way, that continues to surprise me even after so many weeks, here and there. How could it not? 

Every now and then, I’m standing in the kitchen and a thought connected to the why crosses my mind. You might think that there are many opportunities for this, as peeling asparagus, pulling bones and stuffing courgette flowers is not really mental work. But most of the time there is actually idle time. I just stay in the moment, which is almost meditative.

Anyway, to take you on the journey (aka suspense) from the beginning, it actually starts with Alfred Biolek, whose probably first cooking show on German television entertained me well at the time. I was in my 20s and not at all overly interested in either the content or the result of his cooking. Just the process and watching the likeable little man and his celebrity guests gave me pleasure. For those who don’t know him, the first thing that comes to mind is a comparison with Woody Allen. Just as busy, clever, shrewd and rather short. Both also wear funny glasses. For Alfred Biolek, wine, mostly white, was one of the most important ingredients in cooking. Rarely, however, in a sauce or to deglaze sweated onions. Back then and even much later, my culinary skills were limited to fried eggs, salad and the preparation of our undisputed family tradition, the spaghetti casserole, consisting solely of spaghetti, sautéed minced meat and ketchup, layered, 20 minutes in the oven, done. Children’s food at its best, with which even today all family adults can be made happy. When my big daughter once wrote down this recipe, let’s call it that, as a little girl, she actually managed to forget one of the ingredients, minced meat, which threatened to degrade the tradition to noodles with ketchup. Fortunately, she corrected the faux pas on the following page.

Vanessa was the one who pushed open more doors to this world for me some time later. She wanted to host a private dinner for family and friends, and I’m not sure if this was the continuation of an old tradition or the birth of a new one. I found myself in the role of the kitchen help, which she promoted to sous chef out of sheer affection. In all restraint, I must also admit that I am taking it rather easy on myself with my late career as a chef, if it becomes one. Vanessa, like so many mothers and certainly some fathers, had to cook so that there was something on the table when the children stormed the flat or the house after school. There was no hope of great culinary openness there, nor was there enough time for sophisticated experiments or upmarket demands. The fact that at some point we also began to prepare our quite normal lunches or dinners on the plate in the kitchen beforehand really says it all. To a good extent, these are unfair starting conditions, of which I am well aware. Let’s call it the grace of late passion.

Vanessa and I hosted these dinners fairly regularly once a year. And slowly I crawled my way forward, no longer just doing what Vanessa had printed on the gold-bordered menu cards or told me to do, but found and took over my part. That was, is and will remain with the vegetables (that much can already be said about my culinary future), which at first looks like a profitable solution, since Vanessa’s field is roast lamb, saddle of venison or steak with the accompanying endlessly simmering sauces. The only thing the increasingly self-confident newcomer was reluctant to do was to be just the side dish. A cruel word that speaks volumes. Who wants to be just a pretty, necessary but not sufficient garnish in the long run. This is as true in the kitchen as it is in life.

So at first everything took its course. We watched cooking shows together on TV and I alone watched many more online. I don’t have a clear explanation, but just watching people chopping vegetables, sautéing onions or mixing a vinaigrette always has a relaxing and beautiful effect on me, as it did in Alfred Biolek’s day. Above all, we saw Chefs Table, Kitchen Impossible (chefs fly somewhere in the world, are presented with a plate and have to recreate it as best they can in the original kitchen with the ingredients they bought themselves. A jury of regular guests awards points) and The Taste, although this format was all too clearly bored and lost because of the always the same and mostly too male jurors.

The job for a Swiss watch and lifestyle brand brought their team and two filmmakers from London to me in Berlin to produce features with interesting people who had made it in an unconventional way. Two of Berlin’s most unusual restaurateurs, Micha Schäfer and Billy Wagner from Nobelhart&Schmutzig (the evening starts posh, then gets down to business, finally ending dirty), not only ended up on the shortlist, but consequently in front of my microphone. I was remembered and was to get my chance, which I didn’t even know I was looking for. Billy, on the other hand, was already looking for people with two hands, legs and a head, as already mentioned. First I was asked if I was the one who could be found via google. 

Yes, my answer. 

Then what are you doing here, the counter-question. 

I just feel like it, my reply. No one has ever lost all experience and status faster. What followed was first a temporary job as a dishwasher, then as a cook for the online shop (for the wonderful Judith and with the equally wonderful Simeon) and, on top of that, all kinds of seemingly trivial jobs. The best example of this is probably sticking the labels on the jars and stamping the date of manufacture. I enjoyed finding the best process for me for the most beautiful result. Sticking the label on as straight as possible, balancing both its elasticity and the millimetre inaccuracies of the glass; a dream task. Likewise, to press the tiny date stamp onto the paper in such a way that the result was legible. Wonderful. I just enjoyed the moment, no yesterday and no tomorrow, just the simple joy of successfully applying one label out of hundreds to follow. The learning curve pointed steeply upwards.

What I am also experiencing now, here in the kitchen of the Italian restaurant, is the complete disappearance, no, the total disappearance of my previous experience and any potential status I had or thought I had. That is the sure sign of complete transformation. Standing there in the kitchen plucking thyme, every project I’ve ever done, every stage I’ve ever stood on and every hand I’ve ever shaken at anyone important is completely irrelevant. The only thing that counts is the plate that goes out in the evening and the dishes that have been washed. Even in Nobelhart, I noticed how incredibly important the job of the person standing in the sink getting all the heavy pots, caked-on pans and carefully handled plates clean again is. This task is also essential. Everything breaks down if work is done too sloppily or slowly here. Ergo, every single hand in these long fragmented processes is essential and extremely important.

As I am sure I will come back to this many times, I will conclude with the most important answer to the question of why. In a nutshell. In all intensity. 

There is probably more in this paragraph than in everything else so far. 

My private life, neglected for too long, led to a separation at the time and, as a result, to the fact that, after 14 years, I probably saw with my own eyes that I was withdrawing all energy from my company. The relationship, a marriage and my family had failed and with it, of course, myself. My subsequent time in New York with my wonderful daughter, just 18, was an escape, as it seems to be my own. The business arguments I made for it were contrived, indifferent, or both. And to stretch (overstretch?) the bows even further, with the pandemic, the climate crisis and all that is wrong with our society, the question remained for me, what even makes sense now? What can I do? What should I do? Do I have to do something? How appropriate is it still, as an independent consultant, to tell others what they should do? Do I want to design and implement the umpteenth concept for a tech conference somewhere for someone? I didn’t know and don’t know the answer. Luckily for me, there remained two things that always go and absolutely never go wrong. And that’s why I became a running coach and a chef. 

I’m glad you’re here.

All the love

f

#4 Roter Teppich und Gesang

Ciao, cari amici,

At the beginning I would like to take up my last sentence and tell you again how happy I am that you are with me. All of you, without exception. This communication knows no wastage and is fortunately not entirely one-sided. So thank you for your kind feedback. Everything is fine the way it is. And I am actually still happy with this decision. Not at all self-evident. What did I know about the adventure that awaited me?

To be honest, there wasn’t much to think about, which made the decision very easy. It almost seems inevitable. Things were only going so-so with my self-employment as a speaker and moderator. At the beginning of the year, I went knee-deep into self-marketing again, built and optimised websites, placed Google ads and smelled a weak but slightly stale morning air. Even though the curves were pointing steeply upwards – two customer contacts are twice as many as one, and Google knows how to emphasise the avoidable progress in a very positive way – nothing happened as a result. So I had no further plans for 2023. 

After a 30-year break, I started sending out applications. Admittedly, only for jobs that really interested me and had a certain level of ambition. Falling Walls Foundation, European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights or the German Film and Television Academy, for example. I wrote to them as it came into my head. My curriculum vitae, which I also sent along, was not classic either. I thought they should know right away where they stood. In other words, I didn’t want to work for or with someone who didn’t understand or respect such individuality. I read the cover letters again and again and my feeling was good. However, nothing happened as a result. 

I wrote to selected old companions and, completely against my nature, dropped the covers and almost all linguistic camouflage and became quite clear in my request. Here, too, nothing happened as a result. 

But there was still the matter of cooking. I hadn’t been that stupid at Nobelhart&Schmutzig. And the three-month intermezzo at the boca was somehow promising. So I wrote a one-pager, added a friendly and (consequently?) boring photo with a not too long beard and asked our Italian neighbour Marcella for help. She forgot about it at first, I, in my reticence, shied away from remembering, but at some point my written expression of will ended up with some quite excellent restaurants in the vicinity of our flat on Lake Garda. Then exactly one (!) thing happened as a result. The hotel manager of the Hotel Monte Baldo in a neighbouring village of Saló contacted me. I didn’t notice it right away, of course, but after the first Whatsapp conversation with Davide and his father in the background, everything seemed clear. When I spoke to the chef two days later, I was surprised that everything sounded so settled. In keeping with my nature, I naturally remained reserved (between the lines I read and you read here about an obvious trait of my nature), but was already packing a little more when Vanessa and I set off on our long-planned holiday to Italy. I didn’t realise that I wouldn’t be returning to Berlin for 6 months. Life had somehow rolled out the carpet for me. Decisions I basically hardly had to make, no alternatives to weigh up or what-if scenarios to think through.

After so many big bows I had to take, something more mundane from the life of a commis de cuisine. What is also remarkable for me is the experience of understanding one’s surroundings almost entirely without the help of language. Me, of all people. Since I don’t understand most of the kitchen conversation or can block it out due to my beginner’s knowledge of Italian, my perception takes place on the levels that otherwise only accompany linguistic communication. So everything non-verbal, the frequency of laughter, the tonalities of the voices, how much is spoken at all and the mood that seems to hang in the air. In addition, there seems to be an urge to sing or at least hum melodies in gastronomic cuisine that I have not yet been able to fully explain. The accumulation is at least striking, if not immanent. I, for one, prefer to leave that to the professionals, that is, Spotify and a Bluetooth running speaker. The boss sometimes starts it when, but it’s not entirely to do with whether the sous chef has time off. Relatively soon, I have to take over, because it’s slow for him and I simply have the better playlists.

Said sous chef then also sings most steadfastly, usually only one or two lines of a song, mostly different ones one after the other, and I consider us all very lucky that his taste in music is unexpectedly good, very retro, but good. To use the slogan of boring German music stations: 80s, 90s and the best of today. It’s hard to imagine him liking Italian or any Schlager at all. Sometimes it pleases the temporarily homeless Berliner to actually listen to a few techno beats in between. No nonsense, its its its. 

But this singing, whistling or humming while working seems to me to have other motives and facets. Sometimes it seems to me like a self-soothing agent, an attempt to concentrate or the most effective way to keep the constant abundance of mini-thoughts in check (what’s coming in, is the timer beeping for me there, didn’t I have something on the cooker, in the oven or is my cream overflowing in the patisserie, what was I doing here). I need to fathom this out further, because the explanations don’t seem complete to me yet. It also has a somewhat creepy component somewhere. In the military or in the prison yard, after all, there is also singing and humming. It also fits in with the surprisingly regular silliness of some people. So they really talk nonsense and fool around. You may consider for a moment whether this is exactly my thing. No. Even if it ever was, I’m too old for that nonsense now. What’s the point?

I’m glad you’re with me.

Tutti l’amore

frank

#5 Gefühle in Zwischenzeiten

Ciao, mia cara

things are changing. Once again. And that brings with it both anticipation and reflection. I’ve been in Italy for over three months and at least the time when I’m completely alone will soon come to an end. I have my own experience with being alone. I’m also quite good at it in and of itself. I like the silence and the slightly dark undertone it has when I’m alone. It’s just that I shouldn’t like it too much. There are a few reasons why I don’t run away from it, which are a bit too far to go here. I guess it started when I was 21. 

What will change concretely in a few days is that I won’t be alone here anymore. Vanessa and her children are coming. Before that, a long-time friend of Vanessa’s is coming to our flat for a week’s holiday and I will be staying with Matthias, the chef, during that time. Unfortunately, my two boys won’t be coming. Because if they were here, I would hardly see them. That was not such a good prospect for them and even less for my guilty conscience. I really miss them a lot. My daughter can’t travel for another reason. It’s the same reason why I’ll probably travel head over heels to Berlin for 48 hours sometime in August. I’m going to be a grandpa : )

These are all very nice changes and yet a different, more oppressive mood is also spreading through me. Even for a professional at being alone, this is a bit too much in the long run. I’m glad that I have you and that shows that I’m not a hermit. Being alone in combination with a marmot-like rhythm (let’s see how DeepL translates that) is a whole other story. On top of that, my job here seems to have been told for the time being. There is a lot of routine and, I would almost say, underchallenge. I can undoubtedly still learn a lot, but hand movements, routines and recipes are naturally the same (even if I fail at whipping up the mousse) and don’t challenge me creatively or intellectually. Apropos: I notice that I am flying very low intellectually and am extremely underchallenged. This is probably the reason why, in the little free time I have, I built a recipe database with its own app and had the restaurant’s new menu, which will be valid sometime next week, automatically corrected and translated. Well, working on the computer has always been relaxing for me, too. Such a nice Excel spreadsheet with complicated formulas, wonderful (although I can’t really explain this passion).

Officially, my contract ends on 10 September, although they would probably already extend it. Maybe until the end of September or even the end of October. The question that crept into my head didn’t have to wait long for an answer. Without any active intervention, it was virtually there in the room. I would not prolong it. Then, in a way, everything is done, experienced and understood. The only reason to stay longer would be to continue earning money.

Even if it is still a long way off, this potential end has an effect. But I shouldn’t get too caught up in it, because even 8 weeks is still a long way to go. Even 8 weeks with the most pleasant distraction and becoming a grandfather are still a long way to go. And it remains a need for me to walk this path straight and responsibly to its end. Another thing I don’t fully understand about myself. I am responsible to the last fibre in terms of my commitments. I have never been late or absent a day. Would it never occur to me? Why? Non lo so.

Quite unexpectedly and perhaps much too late, I was finally overcome by homesickness a few days ago. I held back the tears. The trigger was insignificant, which is why I forgot about it. Not that I miss my family and friends. That’s the way it is anyway. Something else hit me in the heart. This feeling cannot be described in any other way than homesick. All-encompassing and deep inside. For everything. I can’t describe it any better than that right now. Even as I write and read this, tears come to my eyes. For me, they are still good emotions. Maybe I told Vanessa once too often that true longing can only develop and missing can only be felt when we can’t have each other.

Now something has to brighten up the day. I thought you might like to see something of what you are reading about. So here are a few pictures with the usual detailed discussion of what can be seen. At this point I must express my amazement at how inconvenient it is in photographically ubiquitous times to create a simple photo site. That is, without a pointless subscription or a complete construction kit. Therefore handmade on my website.

Neither the photos nor this text have been edited excessively. Somehow it finally wanted to come out.

So forgive me for bad shots and orthographic mistakes. By the way, I can explain this characteristic of mine. Unlike the others mentioned above.

I am so happy to have you guys with me.

f

Ich auf meiner morgendlichen Fahrt zur Arbeit. Es dauert ziemlich genau 10 Minuten. Auch wenn ich die Klamotten nur sehr kurz trage, ziehe ich immer andere Sachen an. Und das Ganze zweimal am Tag /// Me on my morning drive to work. It takes pretty much exactly 10 minutes. Even though I only wear the clothes for a very short time, I always put on different clothes. And the whole thing twice a day
Mein erster Lieblingsblick auf den See. Ich stelle mir immer vor, dass ich dort auf der Mauer sitze und meinem Morgenkaffee trinke. Oder ich fahr einfach weiter zur Arbeit. /// My first favourite view of the lake. I always imagine myself sitting there on the wall drinking my morning coffee. Or just driving on to work
Mein morgendlicher Weg, raus aus Saló. /// My morning commute, out of Saló.
Andere Version vom Tatar. Diese Anrichterei ist sehr wichtig und macht mir besonders Spaß. Oben drauf liegt ein in Salz und Zucker eingelegtes rohes Eigelb. Innendrin ist es noch flüssig /// Another version of the tartare. The plating is very important and I particularly enjoy it. On top is a raw egg yolk soaked in salt and sugar. Inside it is still liquid
Blaubeersoße. Aber alles in allem ist mir äusserst wenig runtergefallen oder kaputt gegangen. /// Blueberry sauce. But all in all, I dropped or broke extremely little.
Rindfleisch-Tatar mit Burrata, Spargel (oh my gosh, den Spargel gibts hier bis in den Juli) und einem Wachtelei. Bald gibt es ein neues Tatar mit dem neuen Menü /// Beef tartare with burrata, asparagus (oh my gosh, they have asparagus here until July) and a quail egg. Soon there will be a new tartare with the new menu
Eine neuer Version von Rindfleisch-Tartar. Mit Rucola, selbst geräuchtertem Büffelmozarelle, Pfifferlingen, einem Wachtelei und Kartoffelstroh. Hat es nicht auf die neue Karte geschafft. /// A new version of beef tartare. With rocket, home-smoked buffalo mozzarelle, chanterelles, a quail egg and potato straw. Didn’t make it onto the new menu.
Das ist ein exzellentes Beispiel zum Thema Lernkurve. Links oben fing ich an. Erster Erfolg, direkt gefolgt von zwei Misserfolgen. Dann läuft es ganz gut weiter. Am Ende der dritten Reihe wird der Hochmut bestraft, weshalb ich dann sehr vorsichtig bis zum Ende weitermachte. /// This is an excellent example of the learning curve. I started at the top left. First success, immediately followed by two failures. Then it goes on quite well. At the end of the third row, pride is punished, which is why I then continued very carefully to the end.
Am Anfang dachte ich gar nicht, mir etwas aufschreiben zu müssen. Sehr witzig. Hier sind meine ersten Notizen. Noch sehr ordentlich und unbefleckt. Das sollte sich schnell ändern. /// At the beginning I didn’t think I would have to write anything down. Very funny. Here are my first notes. Still very neat and unsullied. That should change quickly.
Ziegenkäse, Spinat, Radicchio und Nüssen in dünnem Teig gebacken. Fagottino heißt das. Dazu gibts bittere Orangenmarmelade, in der ich auch die Schalen verwendet habe /// Goat cheese, spinach, radicchio and nuts baked in thin dough. It’s called fagottino. Served with bitter orange marmalade, in which I also used the peels
Insalata di polpo e calamari con Topinambur e avocado.
Hier habe ich Samen angesetzt. Ein paar Tage später waren es schöne Sprossen für den Salat. /// Here I planted seeds. A few days later they were beautiful sprouts for the salad.
Tiramisu mit Datum. Des Weiteren gibt es Pana Cotta, Creme Caramel, Mouse di Mele/Ciocolata/Passione/Giuanduia, Semifreddo Grappa/Amaretto/Lime/Frutta secca/Passione und sicher noch einige, die ich grad vergessen habe. Alle von mir gemacht. /// Tiramisu with date. There is also Pana Cotta, Creme Caramel, Mouse di Mele/Ciocolata/Passione/Giuanduia, Semifreddo Grappa/Amaretto/Lime/Frutta secca/Passione and I’m sure there are a few more I’ve forgotten. All made by me.
Was ihr draußen, da am Wasser seht, das war bislang eigentlich mein Platz. Das Hotel ist genau so eines, wo Vanessa und ich oft genug genächtigt und das Dinner genossen haben. Ich sehe dort manchmal Paare vorbeilaufen, die wie wir sind. Nur bin ich jetzt auf der anderen Seite. Ein sehr eigenartiges Gefühl. /// What you see outside, there by the water, that was actually my place until now. The hotel is just such a place, where Vanessa and I have stayed and dined often enough. I sometimes see couples walking past there who are like us. Only now I’m on the other side. A very strange feeling.
Bei uns kommen jede Menge frische Fische an, wobei das Adjektiv irgendiwe immer albern klingt. Das hier sind die kleinsten. Andere sind schon mal 80 cm lang. /// We have lots of fresh fish arriving, although the adjective always sounds silly. These are the smallest. Others are as long as 80 cm.
Saure Zucchini Nudeln, eines meiner Favorites /// Sour courgette noodles, one of my favourites
Mein Arbeitsplatz zu einem beliebigen Zeitpunkt. Das ändert sich alles im Sekundentakt. Hier bereite ich offensichtlich gerade ein paar Antipasti für den Mittagsservice zu und nebenbei wiege ich irgendwas für eine Nachspeise ab, die ich nebenbei mache. Dort hinten steht eine Schale mit Kaffee, also wird es wahrscheinlich Tiramisu /// My workplace at any given moment. It all changes every second. Here I’m obviously preparing some antipasti for the lunch service and on the side I’m weighing something for a dessert I’m making on the side. There’s a bowl of coffee back there, so it’s probably going to be tiramisu
Prociutto crudo in allen möglichen Varianten. Mit Melone, Burratina oder wie hier mit den Zucchini Spaghetti. /// Prociutto crudo in all possible variations. With melon, burratina or, as here, with courgette spaghetti.
So oder so ähnlich sieht zweimal pro Tag das Mitarbeiteressen aus. Im Anrichten sicherlich nicht die erste Wahl. Aber von der Auswahl, Üppigkeit und Qualität kann es auf jeden Fall mithalten. Ich mag dieses ewige Frittierte nicht. Aber sonst ist echt für jeden was dabei. Und nein, zugenommen habe ich nicht. Das andere. /// This or something similar is what the staff lunch looks like twice a day. It’s certainly not the first choice when it comes to serving. But in terms of choice, abundance and quality, it can definitely hold its own. I don’t like the fried food. But otherwise there’s something for everyone. And no, I haven’t put on weight. The other one.
Meine erste Torte Martelda. Außen knusprig und innen noch fast flüssig. Ihr wisst, was ich meine. /// My first Martelda cake. Crispy on the outside and still almost liquid on the inside. You know what I mean.
Der glücklichste Papa der Welt, als ich es einmal schaffte, für 44 weg zu sein und meine Kinder in Hannover zu sehen. /// The happiest dad in the world, once I managed to be away for 48 and see my children in Hanover.
Es fängt mit einer Mayonaise an. Der Brandy und das Ketchup, dass sich hinter dem Bimbi versteckt hält, weist allerdings darauf hin, dass es eine Salsa Rosa wird. Es gibt einige äusserst traditionelle Gerichte. Und dazu gehört der beliebte Krabbencocktail. Toast Hawaii fehlt. /// It starts with a mayonnaise. The brandy and ketchup hiding behind the bimbi, however, indicates that it will be a salsa rosa. There are some extremely traditional dishes. And these include the popular shrimp cocktail. Toast Hawaii is missing.
Die Italiener beanspruchen ja für sich, noch bürokratischer zu sein als wir in Deutschland. Ein großes Thema ist daher die Beschriftung der Produkte. Irgendwann schrieb ich einfach wild drauf los. Fantasieitalienisch. /// The Italians claim to be even more bureaucratic than we are in Germany. A big topic is therefore the labelling of the products. At some point I just started writing wildly. Fantasy Italian.
Womöglich klingt es albern, aber als ich in den ersten Tagen Tüten beschriftete und anschliessend gekonnt den Stift zurück in meine Kochjacke steckte, das war schon ein tolles Gefühl. /// It might sound a bit silly, but when I labelled bags in the first few days and then skilfully put the pen back into my chef’s jacket, that was a great feeling.
Eine beliebige Seite unseres Menüs. Außer a la carte, was wir gerade ändern, gibt es noch ein Menü für die Gäste mit Halbpension. Dieses ändert sich täglich und wiederholt sich erst nach 14 Tagen. Grob überschlagen kommen wir damit bei allen drei Gängen auf rund 140, vielleicht 150 Gerichte. Ohne Nachspeisen. /// Any page of our menu. Apart from a la carte, which we are currently changing, there is also a menu for half-board guests. This changes daily and only repeats after 14 days. Roughly speaking, this gives us around 140, maybe 150 dishes for all three courses. Without desserts.
Bärlauch gibts nur ganz kurz im Jahr. Deswegen haben wir ihn direkt im April gepflückt und ein Pesto draus gemacht /// Wild garlic is only available for a short time each year. That’s why we picked it directly in April and made a pesto out of it
Wie oft und lange habe ich durch dieses Fenster geglotzt, um zu sehen, ob die Mascarpone cremig wird oder die Sahne zu wenig respektive zu viel aufgeschlagen ist. Oder zu Butter wurde. Oft ist wichtig, dass etwas schief geht, damit man weißt, was das heißt. /// How often and for how long did I stare through this window to see if the mascarpone was creamy or if the cream had been whipped too little or too much. Or became too buttery. Often it’s important that something goes wrong so you know what that means.
Es hat eher lange gedauert, bis ich mich mit meinem Kaffeewunsch verständlich machen konnte. Selbst ein Americano war immer nur so eine kleine Pfütze. Aber ich habe es geschafft /// It took rather a long time before I could make myself understood with my coffee request. Even an Americano was always just such a small puddle. But I managed
Ohne diese Zettel läuft im Grunde nichts. Ihr könnt euch vorstellen, wie anachronistisch ich das finde und wieviele Versionen einer technischen Lösung ich schon durchdachte. Aber es ist sehr traditionell, nicht nur hier. Ich bekam diese Zettelwirtschaft nicht wirklich erklärt, vielmehr ist es die Aufgabe, sich alles selbst zusammen zu reimen. /// Basically, nothing works without these pieces of paper. You can imagine how anachronistic I find this and how many versions of a technical solution I have thought through. But it is very traditional, not only here. I wasn’t really explained this note system, rather it’s the task of making it all up yourself.
Die Zettel, die unten liegen, sind als nächstes dran. Dann gilt es weder zu früh (dann welkt der Schinken) noch zu spät (dann wird zunehmend lauter danach verlangt) vorn anzukommen./// The slips of paper at the bottom are next. Then it is important to arrive neither too early (then the ham wilts) nor too late (then the demand for it becomes increasingly louder).
Meine Schublade. Mittlerweile sind ein paar mehr Dinge dazu gekommen. /// My drawer. In the meantime, a few more things have been added.
POV. Von meinem Posten in den Rest der Küche. Hinter mir ist die Patisserie. Direkt vor mir Primi (Pasta, Risotto etc.) und auf der anderen Seite Secondi (Fleisch, Fisch etc.). Hinter der Wand die Spüle. Rechts der Pass, die kleine Luke zum Restaurant. /// POV. From my post to the rest of the kitchen. Behind me is the patisserie. Directly in front of me Primi (pasta, risotto etc.) and on the other side Secondi (meat, fish etc.). Behind the wall is the sink. On the right is the pass, the little hatch to the restaurant.
Es sieht aus wie ein Unfall, sind aber perfekt geglückte Brownies. /// It looks like an accident, but it’s perfectly made brownies.
Testreihe Wachtelspiegeleier. Da geht noch mehr. /// Test series quail eggs. There’s more.
Cheesecakes. Wird in Italien auch so genannt. Allerdings sprechen sie es aus, wie es geschrieben ist. Sehr lustig. Übrigens auch bei Muffin /// Cheesecakes. It’s also called that in Italy. However, they pronounce it the way it’s spelled. Very funny. Muffin, too, by the way
Die Bestellungen genauso wie die Abrufe werden laut verkündet. Ich habe es ein, zwei mal versucht, war aber zu leise und hab es gleich wieder gelassen. Das alles richtig mit zu bekommen ist eine weitere Herausforderung. Nicht umsonst laufe ich mehrfach nach vorn um zu sehen, was da wirklich steht. Dann zähle ich zusammen und versuche alles rechtzeitig am Start zu haben. Ich habe es bislang kein einziges mal geschafft, nachzurechnen, wie viel an einem Abend geht. Ich vermute irgendwas zwischen 30 und 50 Antipasti in 90 Minuten. Plus die ganzen Dolci. /// The orders as well as the call-offs are being called up. Keeping up with this is another challenge. Not for nothing do I run to the front several times to see what is really there. Then I count up and try to have everything at the start in time. So far, I haven’t managed to calculate how much is going in one evening. I guess between 30 and 50 antipasti in 90 minutes. Plus all the desserts.
Hat es als Teil eines Fisch-Trios auf die neue Karte geschafft. In rote Bete eingelegter Gardasee-Lachs. /// Made it onto the new menu as part of a trio of fish. Garda salmon marinated in beetroot.
Darunter versteckt sich ein Fisch, genauer eine Lachsforelle, trota di Salmone. /// A fish is hiding underneath, a salmon trout to be precise.
Nach ca. 24 Stunden sind die Eigelbe außen fest und innen noch weich. Ein bisschen wie Nimm2. Bleiben sie für 5 bis 6 Tage in der Salz-Zucker-Mischung dannist alles vollständig fest und lässt sich über eine Reibe ziehen. /// After about 24 hours, the yolks are firm on the outside and still soft on the inside. A bit like “Nimm2”. If they remain in the salt-sugar mixture for 5 to 6 days, everything is completely solid and can be pulled over a grater.
Mich würde interessieren, was diese blaue Folie für eine Aufgabe hat. Meine Theorie: Sonne, die darauf scheint erzeugt bei den Tomaten eine Spontanreifung. Andere Ideen? /// I would be interested to know what this blue film does. My theory is that the sun shining on it causes the tomatoes to ripen spontaneously. Any other ideas?
In so einer Küche, mit a la carte und Halbpension wird natürlich ganz anders vorbereitet. Viel vakumiert, teilweise vorher schon gegart und dann eingefroren oder auch nur im Kühlraum aufbewahrt. /// In a kitchen like this, with a la carte and half board, the preparation is of course very different. A lot of food is vacuumed, sometimes cooked beforehand and then frozen or just kept in the refrigerator.
Egal, wie wild es zwischendrin in der Küche aussieht, am Ende ist alles immer wieder sauber. Großer Luxus gegenüber einer Privatküche ist natürlich, dass die benutzten Töpfe und Pfannen einfach in die Spüle gebracht werden. Und auch den Boden muss man nicht sauber machen. /// No matter how wild it looks in the kitchen in between, everything is always clean again in the end. A great luxury compared to a private kitchen is, of course, that the used pots and pans are simply taken to the sink. And you don’t have to clean the floor either.
Das ist unser Salat mit Pulpo und Calamari auf einem Topinambur Püree (total unterschätzt) getopt mit ebensolchen Chips. /// This is our salad with pulpo and calamari on a Jerusalem artichoke puree (totally underrated) topped with the same kind of chips
Ravioli mit rote Beete Püree. /// Ravioli with beetroot puree.
Das ist kein Thermomix. Das ist ein Bimbi. Denn so heißt das Gerät hier in Italien. Wobei diese antike Exemplar stammt von der Mutti meines Küchenchefs, ist also dann doch ein deutscher Thermomix. Die italienische Bezeichnung klingt dann auch eher nach der Zubereitung von Babybrei. /// This is not a Thermomix. This is a Bimbi. That’s the name of the appliance here in Italy. But this antique model came from my chef’s mum, so it is a German Thermomix after all. The Italian name sounds more like the preparation of baby food.
So sieht das Ende eines Abendservices aus. Der große Zettel mit den vermeidlichen Kritzeleien ist unsere einzige Orientierung. Links stehen die reservierten Gäste, die Halbpension gebucht haben. Die bekommen jeden Abend etwas anderes. Das wiederholt sich erst nach 14 Tagen. Rechts stehen die A la carte Gäste. Im Einzelnen steht dort die Zimmernummer, die Anzahl der Personen und unlesbarer Rest. An diesem Abend waren es 48 Halbpension und 24 A la carte Gäste. Viel mehr geht im Grunde nicht. In der Box oben rechts landen alle Bons, die erledigt sind. Puh. /// This is what the end of an evening service looks like. The large piece of paper with the avoidable scribbles is our only orientation. On the left are the half-board booked guests. They get something different every evening. This only repeats itself after 14 days. On the right are the a la carte guests. The room number, the number of people and the rest are unreadable. On this evening there were 48 half-board and 24 a la carte guests. Basically, not much more is possible. In the box at the top right are all the receipts that have been processed. Phew.
Diese fast völlige Abwesenheit von Mode in meinem Leben ist fatal. Oft fahr ich komplett overdressed die 10 Minuten zur Arbeit. Nur um dann die langweiligen Kochklamotten anzuziehen. Immerhin hab ich diese schicken Schuhe gefunden, die sogleich Aufmerksamkeit erregten. Fotos wurden gemacht. Ach herrje. /// This almost complete absence of fashion in my life is fatal. I often drive the 10 minutes to work completely overdressed. Only to put on the boring cooking clothes. At least I found these chic shoes, which immediately attracted attention. Photos were taken. Oh dear.
Das ist der Stapel meines Trinkgeldes der letzen Monate. Fein säuberlich aufgestapelt. Ich hab nicht nachgezählt und keine Ahnung, was ich damit mache. Außer stapeln. /// This is the pile of my tipping money from the last few months. Neatly stacked up. I haven’t counted and have no idea what I’m doing with. Except stack.

#6 Nonno

cari amici

recently it had become quiet. That’s the sound of routine and habit. What’s more, I’m no longer alone since the beginning of August. No more being a hermit. First came Lena and her boyfriend Tom followed by Vanessa and Emil. Sometimes I say I have three new and two second-hand children, Lena and Emil. Have I developed any eremitic traits as a result of being alone? I don’t think so. The social reintegration went off without a hitch?

I had to preface this by saying that before I can finally get to the absolute essentials. It’s hard not to say it for a whole paragraph: Lotta’s here! She is the sweetest baby imaginable. On 11.8 I received the news of my daughter Tilda, who is one of the new children, but old enough to be a mum herself now. She is now a year older than I was when she was born. In any case, the two parents have handled it with such incredible sovereignty, responsibility and love that I am completely justified in bragging about it here. That made me very enthusiastic and proud and they can now turn bright red when they read these lines. 

Tomorrow, Nonno (because of the total of 6 grandmas and grandpas, this differentiation by name is sensible and desirable) will interrupt his stay in Italy (“working where others go on holiday”) for the second time in more than 5 months to see this wonderful little miracle in person with Vanessa. At the moment I am still dependent on clearly posed and endlessly photoshopped photos of Lotta. ; )

A human being, especially one so tiny, cannot possibly be as impossibly cute as it appears photographically.

Even after my visit to Berlin, it will be hard to grasp for a while that my baby has now had a baby. My children will have to continue to come to terms with the fact that they will always be my babies. The mum, on the other hand, changed sides seemingly without a transition. When I tried to write here this morning to ask if she had this one photo of herself as a baby handy, it took three attempts on my part before she understood that I didn’t mean a photo of Lotta, but one of her as a baby. That’s what I call instant transformation.

Oh, how wonderful! I think I am writing in the spirit of all of you, when the proud grandpa takes every opportunity, including this one, to wish all the love in the world to the sugar-sweet parents of the (what is sweeter than sugar) sweet baby. You can be sure that I am only writing the truth, so no proof is needed. Because of that and for privacy reasons, there is unfortunately no photo here. Mum and Dad are, of course, free to share one with this fine little group of my friends. 

Now I have to bring the excitement back down a bit. Not that there won’t be anything left tomorrow, no, but I can’t see anything when I’m writing if the tears of joy keep coming. So let’s talk about work, or at least what’s new to say about it. Not too much, see routine and habit. It’s not just days and weeks, recipes and ingredients or out-and-back trips that repeat, but also the thoughts in my head. Believe me, no one can annoy or bore me more with the perpetually repetitive thought loops than I can myself. It’s hard to reproduce that here without annoying and boring you. But I assume that some of you sometimes feel the same way, which is why I can refer to the understanding that has arisen. 

Whereby, one of these thoughts about the doing and being of the people around me is well worth sharing. We all know our own lack of understanding about what other people say or do. Often this is then commented on extensively and also carried on endlessly. He said that, she did that and so on and so forth. For a long time now, I have tried not to subject such things to constant evaluation. Because I am convinced that every single person tries to do his or her best throughout life. If we perceive something that doesn’t look like it to us, then perhaps it is a reaction of the person in question that even he or she would consider wrong. Or we simply don’t understand it from our point of view. Of course, it gets complicated in group contexts, but that’s another topic. Hey, I didn’t say it was an overwhelming wisdom.

The end of my time here for the time being is now actually in sight. Mid-September is not too far away and I won’t be extending. Next time I’ll write you something about what came out of this experience for me. What I liked, what I didn’t like and what will or won’t have a place in my culinary future. We still can’t say what that future will be. That something will remain, however, can.

I often imagined what I would say if someone asked me if I was also on holiday here. That I would say, no, I work here. As a cook. Recently I was out with the chef’s 11-year-old daughter, we were actually going to Wingfoil*. She tells someone that I work for her dad. That I’m the head of antipasti and dolci there. Believe it or not, at that moment I realised it myself for the first time. Commis di Cuisine Antipasti e Dolci. Written in the contract, too. 

By the way, no one has asked the question yet. But somehow I already have the nice feeling of the answer.

I’m glad you’re with me.

Frank

*The page with the photos keeps growing. So feel free to visit it again.

#7 Zurück

My dear friends,

It’s time to write to you again.

Of course, I have thought about it several times. But my unwritten rule is that I don’t see it as a duty, but let it come. Whenever that is. I wanted to write about what I have learned, experienced and understood. Only I’m not there yet. The big summary will have to wait a little longer. Probably also because what is happening in the world at the moment is simply close to me. No happy moment, of which I have had a few in the last few weeks, remains without a shadow. How could it be? It’s all just unbearable and makes me think and sad. You too, I’m sure, somehow.

So where do I start? Perhaps with an update. That’s not too much for you or me. So on 10 September was my last day in the kitchen at the Bella Vita restaurant in the Monte Baldo Hotel. Both, as already mentioned, not the most creative name choices. As the day drew nearer, I asked myself (yes, that is the correct tense) what I could do to say goodbye. To be honest, I was thinking more about how I could disappear inconspicuously. Because I’m not at all comfortable with that kind of thing. I know that it is proper to say goodbye with a friendly gesture. Just as it is appropriate to bring something with you when you visit. When I was travelling with Christoph in the South of France, we never went through a door without him bringing something with him. Wine, of course, or cheese, just like a huge steak when we were allowed to visit a winemaker at home, where it was promptly grilled in the fireplace.

The people at Monte Baldo definitely deserved that too. My time there was a great stroke of luck and I am extremely grateful to everyone who contributed to it. Nevertheless, big goodbyes like exuberant gestures just don’t suit me. For someone who stands on stages and does podcasts, that might seem surprising. But these are all business and content contexts. As soon as it becomes private, there’s a reflex in little Frank that makes too much attention to his person seem inappropriate. I admire other people for their wonderful mastery of the gestures of the big welcome and goodbye. I would prefer the back door.

Still, I try to learn. So I vacillated between buying Italian tarts at the bakery and inviting them for a beer in the evening. None of these really appealed to me, so I was delighted when the saving idea came to me. I wanted to bake doughnuts. Now the Berliner, to which I think I belong, may be married by marriage, so to speak, but the Berliner doesn’t like that. Like a pastry to be called, because that’s not what it’s called here. Pancakes instead. Ignoring this fact, I made my first doughnuts, put them on the table at lunchtime and actually received praise for them in the end. So it all came together in a wonderful way.

After the very last shift, the attention for the German’s farewell rose to a wonderfully unbearable level and I was (and am) very touched by it. The maitre’d bought four beers for the cooks (yes, one of them was me). The Pakistani crew from the sink read out a congratulation in German from their mobile phone and the sous chef scrambled together the meagre knowledge of German and thus said goodbye to me. Wow, I still get teary-eyed when I think back on it. Before that, the hotel director and his father, the secret hotel director, had already said an extremely friendly goodbye to me. And the entire service crew was also effusive, which touched (and overwhelmed) me beyond measure.

So that was it. Over 5 months, endless 10-hour workdays, countless antipasti and dolci lay behind me. My return trip to Germany was planned with 5 days to spare. I wanted to sleep in a few more times. A few times to just sit around and do nothing. Just fritter away time without it being wantonly interrupted at any point. And after these 5 days I was ready. I wanted nothing more than to go home. To my most important people, whom I hadn’t been able to see for so long, or only very briefly. To Berlin.

Vanessa, who just knows how to organise the right big thing at the right time when a really big thing is needed, had invited exactly the people I needed to see most urgently (and still need to see) to breakfast. And there she was: Lotta. With her parents, who until recently were my wonderful daughter and her boyfriend. It couldn’t have started any better.

Then, a fortnight ago, I went for a short visit to my sister Heike to give her the key to the flat that had been my new Italian home for so long, for a short holiday. I told her in detail about the path I had taken. Even as I was doing so, I noticed how often I commented on what I had said by saying how fortunate the circumstances and coincidences were. Until she also said that I had said that remarkably often. That Vanessa and I had found this place, that she had set her mind on buying a flat there, that we had an extremely friendly and cheerful neighbour in Marcella, who sent my application, which was manageable in terms of content, to one or the other at the second attempt. That there was almost only one reaction. That the chef was German and already turned out to be incredibly nice on the phone, which he continued to prove throughout. That our flat was 10 minutes away by bike, so I didn’t have to stay in a hotel under the roof. All this was not just a lucky coincidence. Or to say it with Ingo: “Be careful what you wish for. It could come true”.

I’m glad you’re with me.

Frank

#8 orania

My dears,


It’s been far too long and therefore clearly overdue for me to get in touch. Not that I haven’t already written this letter to you many times in my mind. Different versions, which all began in one way or another, have already been written in my head. If I still didn’t write now, then two important phases of my new journey would already be missing. Because today I have already signed my second contract in Berlin Kreuzberg after my return from Italy. Better to start at the beginning, in autumn last year.


After six months in Italy, characterised by an unyielding rhythm and routine, nothing happened at first. I was happy to be back with my family and in Berlin. It’s often only then that you realise how much you’ve missed everything. I got my flat back fairly quickly, although I tended to spend the early days with Vanessa either way. I really like the hermit life, but by no means exclusively. Habits and routines creep in that are simply not always good.


During this time, I sent out one or two applications. Of course, there were a few searches online to find the jobs I was interested in. The idea of earning not the big, but at least the bigger money for a winter season in Switzerland from January onwards also played a role. But ultimately not seriously enough. As tempting as it would be to earn significantly more of the necessary money and ski during my lunch break, it wasn’t realistic in the end. When I actually thought about it, I kept realising that I couldn’t really imagine it. There was never a real picture in my mind. Do you know that? Apart from two recommendations from my Italian friend and chef, in the end it was more like poking around in the fog of the many adverts. With no results.


With one or two exceptions, I remained true to my conviction that I would only send my casually worded application to those who were really eligible for employment. It works quite simply. I imagined that they would invite me for an interview and eventually even hire me. If that didn’t give me a fulfilled feeling, but instead the thought of looking further, then it was nothing. One of these unnecessary letters was sent to the Waldorf Astoria. Blinded by my love of New York and possibly reinforced by the faint, albeit still present, idea that a classical path as a chef would be the right one to take, I realised within the first few minutes of the personal interview that it wasn’t right. It didn’t get any better in view of the frighteningly simple and downright unpretentious restaurant that this world-class hotel here in Berlin is home to. At least I liked the historical allusion to the eponymous Romanesque café, even if the rest of my marketing heart didn’t leap for joy at the word “Roca”. I finally realised that I had no place in such places. The only thing that suits me, my story and my transformation from entrepreneur to chef is something that, like me, somehow works differently. Not better or worse. Not brighter or darker. Simply different. I’ll leave it to your imagination and knowledge to fathom what this characterisation means.


We are already in the fifth paragraph of this letter and you still don’t know what happened next. Maybe I’ll become a series author in my fourth career path. So.I knew the BRLO from previous contexts. On the one hand as a satisfied guest on several occasions, and on the other from past meetings with the founding sisters. It was about a video podcast, a collaboration with a Swiss lifestyle brand and the like. Let’s just say I knew them from another life. So I knew it could be a good fit with them. Especially as they were opening a new restaurant less than five minutes’ walk from my home. I wrote to them, as always a little differently than you would expect from a letter of application, we met, liked each other, I went to a trial shift, signed a contract and started work. That was on the twentieth of November. The pay was subterranean, thanks to the minimum wage, but the joy and satisfaction was great. I had my second permanent job as a chef. Just to remind you, I’m neither a chef nor young, but I was employed as one. Admittedly, the lowest rung of the ladder, mind you, the rung of chefs who have at least two or three years of training behind them. 


Once again, I realised how quickly you can grow into such a role. I can’t say whether that’s what makes me tick or whether it’s just completely normal. In the many free spaces for thinking that are offered as a chef, I therefore very soon had a lot to think about. What I think of the concept, where the management’s weaknesses lie, what the overall strategy behind it might be, what it would take to be successful here in my neighbourhood in the long term, why, as always, communication is the Achilles’ heel and, yes, how quickly I would get bored with the whole thing and possibly have to move on. 

You shouldn’t take this to mean that BRLO – the name is derived from the old Slavic name for Berlin and is pronounced with an extra “e” – doesn’t interest or appeal to me enough. The main building at Gleisdreieck is famous for its fine dining concept and GRAFT architecture (38 used shipping containers and, typical for Berlin, a temporary use of 3 years, which expired 4 years ago) and the new restaurant on the site of a historic Irish pub in Charlottenburg focusses primarily on vegetables, ergo, exactly my thing. 

Nevertheless, I moved on. Depending on which religion you belong to, my path as a chef so far has been determined by coincidence, fate or destiny. There’s no other way to explain it. So be careful what you wish for, it could come true.There are few restaurants in Berlin that I have actively sought out. The beloved and appreciated Nobelhart&Schmutzig is of course one of them, although they have long known that I would come any time. Nevertheless, realistically speaking, I think I may be a little too reserved, i.e. just below realistic, and still (just) unsuitable for star cuisine and the 50 best restaurants in the world. This imaginary list of favourites also includes the Orania in Berlin Kreuzberg – a luxury boutique hotel, sister hotel of the famous G7-tested Schloss Elmau, which the common Kreuzberg public initially refused to acknowledge and therefore regularly broke the windows. Luxury, Kreuzberg, an equation that doesn’t work, especially in the immediate vicinity of Berlin’s most dreadful underground station, Kottbusser Tor. At some point, the damaged safety glass panes and the exterior façade adorned with paint bags were simply ignored.

Then there it was. The job advert for a staff chef. Well, staff chef. First of all, respect, they can afford a staff chef. Then, never mind, the main thing was to get in. I wrote to them, as always a little differently than you would expect from an application letter, we met, liked each other, I went to a trial shift, signed the contract today and start work on the first of March. The freshly signed contract says cook, which was important to me. In terms of level (and salary), I’m a demichef. Even more important. One level higher in the kitchen hierarchy, or to be more precise, deputy head chef, basically the head of department in the kitchen. Just a reminder, I’m not a chef. As a reminder to myself, apparently. To put it in the words of my daughter, finally you have a profession that you can explain in one word. (It helps to know that I often used to complain, half-jokingly, that I hadn’t become a bricklayer or roofer. Because every time I was asked at the beginning what I did for a living, there was only a choice between long-winded explanations, which inevitably led to too much unwanted attention, or a rude lie. The attention was unwanted in the sense that it simply doesn’t (just) feel good to tell anecdotes about your last trip to crazy Dubai or wicked Moscow to the astonished faces of the building inspector, primary school teacher or chairman of the voluntary fire brigade).

A lot of things are changing again now, which can only be a good thing.As I’m on the early shift for the time being, I have to get up early. Which is ultimately a good thing, because most of the cooking is done during the day. Not just the staff meals (11.30 a.m. and 4.30 p.m.), but also the preparations for the evening service. It’s actually just the right thing to help me develop. I have to deliver at the staff dinner (for 30-40 employees, it is a hotel after all), but I have a lot of freedom to do so, while I can work under professional conditions and with first-class ingredients and equipment. After all, the evening service, which I would like to switch to sooner or later if the opportunity arises, only leaves about two hours for preparation. Because after that, it’s just a case of, as the chefs say, “skilful”, i.e. serving it and getting it out. I think the tension that this creates is fantastic. But that’s another letter.

Oh, it’s so exciting.

With love

f

#9 Ancora Italia + HPY NY

My dears,

Now the reasons are finally piling up too steeply for me not to have to overcome my lethargy of writing. 

Not that I haven’t already formulated a new letter to you many times in my head. 

Not that the excuse of not having time is, as always, ridiculous. 

Not that there is nothing to report. 

Now we must finally move on, in many ways. 

The first and most obvious reason is to wish you all a healthy and confident New Year. On the whole, many things have not been pleasant for us over the past 12 months. It may therefore have elicited a thoughtless sigh from some of you that 2024 is finally over, even if I personally find this man-made time limit and its solemn celebration increasingly strange. However, this relief quickly gets stuck in our throats when we look at what is inevitably to come. Everything will get better – but it won’t. This makes the small circles and relationships in which we move and in which we at least have every opportunity to shape them in a loving, positive and optimistic way all the more important. From there, we can perhaps and hopefully achieve greater things.

So all the best to you from the bottom of my heart!

Reasons means there are more than two. I’m going to Italy again.

I’ve been working at Orania in Berlin Kreuzberg for almost a year now – I’m allowed to round up to over 10 months. And if my decision today has nothing to do with one fact, it has to do with the people and my work there. No matter what they tell you about what it’s like in the catering industry and especially in the kitchen – don’t believe it. If that were the case, as can be seen on Gordon Ramsay or in relevant documentary programmes, then I would have moved on long ago. One shout would be enough. Many chefs I have spoken to in the meantime have been able to tell me stories like this and far worse, which would have made me run away inside. Not at Orania. They are wonderful people in such a pleasant working environment that I wonder how it can or supposedly has to be any different. You can observe this very well – you know that this is my favourite pastime – with the boss himself. He and his wife, who manages the hotel, are both as positive, energetic and human as I can imagine in such a demanding industry and profession. And that’s where a good working atmosphere begins and ends. Absolutely marvellous. If you want to see Philip Vogel live, you can watch it on German television on Kitchen Impossible and Liefern ab on Vox. Then you’ll know exactly what I mean.

I’m a bit annoyed with myself that I’m always so reserved at first. Bulky, almost. It takes a few months for Mr Sonder to really thaw out and allow himself to integrate. That’s not entirely wrong, because I’m already of the opinion that I have to fulfil my task first and foremost before I become the nice small-talk partner. However, I often surprise myself with this diligence and correctness, as I see myself first and foremost as a creative person who, for example, has no problem being generous with punctuality. At Orania, on the other hand, I was punctual every day and have only missed one unavoidable day so far (and that alone bothers me). ‘Two souls dwell, alas! in my breast.’

Now it’s happened to me again. I’m going to throw out such far-reaching information, then write my head off and leave you waiting in surprise. So I’m going back to Italy. How did it come to this? The idea itself was never far from my mind and had already extended to a possible winter season in Switzerland. After looking through countless job adverts and the odd unsuccessful application, I decided that I wasn’t going to go it alone. I couldn’t imagine sitting in the Swiss Alps, staying in perhaps not-so-fancy accommodation and working in a restaurant that I didn’t know or couldn’t judge in advance. The fact that I even considered it was probably only due to the significantly higher pay and the prospect of plunging down the mountains at breakneck speed on skis or maybe even a snowboard. My healthy bones and my running career (Berlin Marathon 2025) will have thanked me for the latter. 

My friend and head chef at Monte Baldo in Italy would have tipped the scales. However, last summer Matthias decided to work there again and would rather do nothing in winter. My wait, which by now was not very hopeful, was to come to an end when I received his brief message that he was planning to work as head chef at Nicholas in Gardone next summer. And they needed another chef. How about me? So the news that I had been consciously and unconsciously longing for reached me in a very succinct way. Well, you have to realise that Matthias is like that and this calm and almost stoic reserve is what makes him and working with him so special. At a later point in the rapprochement and discussion, I couldn’t help but ask him how good he personally would find it if we worked together again. To make it easier for the sometimes taciturn man, I offered him possible answers ranging from We just need a cook to I think that’s really great. To my surprise, he rejected every option and uncharacteristically wrote something along the lines of ‘Megaaffentittenturbogeil’ (I apologise for this pronunciation). To quote him correctly, I’ve just scrolled through the chat history again and have to correct my previous memory log, not in essence, but in detail. His announcement that he would be hiring Nicholas was initially just a passing remark in a general exchange of words that literally ended with ‘we’re looking for a nice, nice chef! Are you up for it’. There are people. And how many times do I have to tell him that there is no space before a punctuation mark?

Of course, I immediately recognised the Nicholas restaurant. After all, it was on my way to work from our home in Saló to Gardone Riviera, right on the waterfront, and we had already eaten very well there on several occasions. The eponymous Nicholas, who is Swiss by origin, is also someone who is easy to ignore. Like a ping-pong ball, he bounces from one table to the next every evening, chatting with his guests in an uncharacteristically eloquent and fast-paced manner. I also knew from my last visit with Vanessa that he was only too keen to have Matthias as his head chef. I don’t know what influence it had that I gossiped about this to Matthias straight away.

Now time for a few facts. The restaurant, fortunately not a hotel for once, is located directly on the waterfront promenade and can seat 20-30 guests, depending on how far out the tables are pushed. This means that around 50-60 guests can be catered for each evening, perhaps even more. The kitchen is small, which is why there are only 3 chefs. You already know Matthias and me and at least Matthias always raved to me about Gone, who probably started out as a dishwasher in one of his previous places of work. So another career changer, that will be great. Although I don’t know if she hasn’t actually trained and therefore has a head start on me. The menu is, of course, classic Italian, Lake Garda, summer. Antipasti, primi, secondi, dolci. Not that there’s nothing more for me to learn. I’ve long been able to make pasta and the like myself. But perfection is always better. The fish, which are of course delivered whole, are interesting. I’ve already gutted them. However, the routine doesn’t come after one or two times. Ultimately, there will still be plenty of room for manoeuvre, for example for what interests me most personally, vegetables and what can be extracted from them. 

Mondays are rest days, so we work 6 days a week. Starting between 10 and 11 a.m. for lunch is a real blessing, and between 2 and 5 p.m. there is the familiar break before continuing with the evening service. I now know how the health insurance works and what additional payments I can expect at the end of the season. Together with the salary increase, this is quite satisfactory for the chef de partie. Yes, that’s right, post boss, the next level has been reached, even though I was officially already at Monte Baldo. Now I just feel it too. In such a small team, everyone will do everything anyway. So, no matter where the whole thing takes me, I’m on the right track.

Monday is a day off, so the restaurant works 6 days a week. It’s a real treat to start between 10 and 11 a.m. for lunch, with the familiar break between around 2 and 5 p.m. before continuing with the evening service. I now know how the health insurance works and what additional payments I can expect at the end of the season. Together with the salary increase, this is quite satisfactory for the chef de partie. Yes, that’s right, post boss, the next level has been reached, even though I was officially already at Monte Baldo. Now I just feel it too. In such a small team, everyone will do everything anyway. So, no matter where the whole thing takes me, I’m on the right track.

Last but not least, the story is over for me at Orania. Right at the beginning, the head chef and sous chef made it clear to me that they didn’t see me getting a job in evening service, at least in the first year and probably not in the second. In the meantime, various positions have become vacant and have been filled. Not with me. All my thinking couldn’t change the fact that I don’t really know what the reason for this is. Yes, I could have asked, but I didn’t. Maybe it’s basic principles that prevent them from making such a decision. It’s not to say that this wouldn’t change if I stayed longer. But I don’t have that much patience and I don’t want to be that patient. Because for me it’s still about getting as far as possible as quickly as possible. I’ve been cooking very good and varied meals for the staff for almost a year now. Every day for around 40 people. They are satisfied and let me know that often enough. I also produce all sorts of things for the evening service, things that are of lasting interest to me. But I’ve been doing everything for so long and so often that there’s always something new in it, but not enough. 

I don’t know where my goal is.

But I do know that I’m on the right track.

Whether it makes sense this way round doesn’t matter to me.

I’m glad you’re with me.

f

#10 Flugblätter

Ciao mio cari,

A note in advance: almost exactly two years ago, I was sick of social media and tried to gather a small group of people who are important to me around me with short letters like this one. This medium is not very interactive per se. Some of you ignored this and replied to me, often with your own stories. Thanks and encouragement to you all to do the same. Mi fa piacere.

Today the story starts with a much-loved dramaturgical twist and begins at the end, in the here and now. In other words, today. Further on in the text, I jump back in time by a good four weeks and tell you the really dirty truth. Spoiler: I (almost) threw my employment contract at the feet of my chef (and friend), but for non-melodramatic reasons, I only pressed it firmly into his hand. So stay tuned. (Cliffhanger).

Today it is exactly as I wanted it to be and as I had planned in the main features. Due to the various public holidays, the restaurant is now full to bursting. For lunch as well as for dinner. Easter Monday meant that the only day off in 12 consecutive working days disappeared. The supposed threat of a restaurant that was fully booked to the last seat was slowly, but more quickly than expected, losing its appeal. There are still a few extra chairs around the corner, but with 55 out of a possible maximum of 60 guests in the evening, it turns out that I can have my worrisome thoughts (omg, how am I supposed to manage this), but as soon as it happens, I almost don’t notice. We work between 8 and 10 hours a day, 6 days a week.

There are three of us in the kitchen. Gone, originally from Senegal, Matthias, who I already know from my job at Monte Baldo two years ago, and me. Gone’s teenage son Momo, who only recently arrived from Senegal, operates the sinks and the rickety dishwasher, which is only used for clean crockery. As it’s not a hotel, only we work together, which I see as a major advantage. This means that everyone can find their own area and keep it tidy without it being turned upside down during the day off. Michele at the Hotel Monte Baldo felt the urgent need to reorganise my fridges and drawers every time I had a day off. 

Little boys of all ages work in the service department, which is exactly what is meant as written. There is of course Nicholas, the owner, who is clearly too talkative and lively for a Swiss, and Fabian, whose cheerful nature is really refreshing and possibly enhanced by the occasional intake of unauthorised substances. They are joined by two or three other temporary staff, all in light beige trousers and light blue shirts that don’t always seem to be available in the right sizes. As a result, apart from Gone, it’s an all-male economy, which doesn’t really appeal to me personally. In my case, of course, this is not for the reason that makes the little big boys look after the women on the promenade, shall we say. Rather the fact that all-male groups have never been my world, either privately or professionally. The topics (DIY, football, women’s stories) don’t interest me, I don’t like the behaviour and I generally find men in exclusive groups quite uninspiring and simple-minded. It’s quite possible that it’s similar with women-only groups. Unfortunately, for logical reasons, it is impossible for me to judge this.

Now comes the announced time jump and we find ourselves at the beginning of April. The first 3 days were to be spent on production before the opening on 10 April. However, I spent the very first day between craftsmen in a rather small, rather scratched, rather dysfunctional kitchen. At some point, I started chopping vegetables for ratatouille in the chaos. However, nothing could hide the fact that the entire kitchen was in an extremely deplorable state. I was only spared an even more disastrous sight by the fact that Matthias had been working as a handyman, cleaner and painter for a good week. I don’t want to have seen that. Basically, none of the appliances really worked reliably. Neither the hob, oven, blast freezer nor vacuum cleaner did what they were there for. All this after I had worked in the kitchen of a luxury hotel for over a year and the young chef was used to much better. (I later learnt that the kitchen at Monte Baldo had been in an equally deplorable state a year before I arrived and it was only by the grace of my later arrival that I found a brand new kitchen).

Nevertheless, full of zest for action, I began to talk to Matthias about how to proceed. I had a thousand questions and one or two ideas, too many. I just wanted to understand what was happening now, what exactly the menu looked like, how the processes worked and what needed to be done and with what priority. Even if I am now a craftsman, I am still primarily a head and heart person. However, as has often happened to me in the kitchen, I have only been thrown small chunks. Do this, do that. I still want and need to understand connections. A super simple example: chop the spring onions is a useless instruction. Because how do I cut them? If I know how the process continues so that they end up in the Thermomix, chopping them is a completely different task to decorating a dish. Even such minor details can add up to such an extent that they have a significant impact on speed and results. 

A piece of paper was stuck to the door of a kitchen cupboard, on which the tasks were written in spidery Italian script, decorated with illegibility and unconventional abbreviations. Orders also had to be organised with the various (approx. 9) suppliers. The layout of the kitchen didn’t seem to be finalised either. 

Anyone who throws me balls like this must know that I naturally accept them on the fly (and don’t like football metaphors). To believe otherwise is negligent. As a result, the ideas and suggestions for improvement just bubbled out of me. How about making an overall list of all tasks, digitally of course, with corresponding priorities, so that everyone knows what needs to be done for what and we therefore always know where we stand? Is ordering from the many suppliers by text in WhatsApp really an efficient method? Couldn’t this table be there and that shelf there so that we don’t get in each other’s way so much?

Meanwhile, I chopped 20 bunches of spring onions, probably at a snail’s pace, as I was later told. The reward for all this came on the third day of preparation. Matthias pointed to another long, scribbly handwritten list and said that it had to be ready tonight. When I clearly pointed out that he had said a certain thing this way before and that way now, he became loud by his standards. The mood was completely ruined.

Now I feel I have to defend myself a little. Because it sounds as if it was all my responsibility or cause. But apart from my excessive eagerness, I can’t find anything wrong with my actions. You also need to know that Matthias speaks very little, and when he does, he speaks quietly and somewhat incomprehensibly, sometimes just to himself, so that it is unclear whether he is speaking for himself or for others. The self-realisation described above only came to me afterwards, because he didn’t say anything. A simple “Nice idea, but now do what needs to be done” would have been enough to shut me up. Or even an explanation of what was on the menu when it was finally ready, how it should be done and so on and so forth. Nothing. 

Now the opening was just around the corner and I kept my mouth shut. After a good 2 days, I’d had enough and I gave him a lecture at night after the restaurant had closed, which had been going through my head again and again for the previous 48 hours. If that was his idea of working together, then I could only tell him in no uncertain terms that it wouldn’t work like that. And if he were to get loud with me, as he had been hinting at, then it would be over anyway. Immediately.

Yes, it might be like that in the kitchen, but without me. I was more pissed off and angry than I’d been for a long time. To top it off, I held out my employment contract, which I had previously received from the owner, and told him that he could keep it. I briefly considered either throwing the pages at him or tearing them up. Dramaturgically, that would certainly have been a win. Still, it’s a good thing I didn’t. He was already flabbergasted enough to accept the contract and pocket it without a word. He finally opened his mouth and explained some of the things I had written above. He just couldn’t talk as well as I could, a distribution of skills that we had long been aware of and an accusation I hadn’t heard for the first time (what am I supposed to do, talk less well?). My resentment slowly subsided, very slowly, but at least enough for us to say goodbye with a handshake until tomorrow. I had vented properly, was (and still am) convinced that I hadn’t done anything fundamentally wrong and he was able to open my eyes to the problems he had, which I had obviously unintentionally exacerbated.

I realised all along that he was under considerable pressure, even if he didn’t say so. A new restaurant and everything has to get off the ground on time. I also realised that he was certainly surprised by the state of the kitchen itself and was anything but happy with it. But, I asked him, whose responsibility was it to check it beforehand? Who was on site to inspect the conditions in good time and remedy the situation well in advance (he had 6 months off) or pull the ripcord? I would have quit a great job in Berlin for this and left my family behind. As I said, I was really on a roll.

Now it’s over. As long as I’m not my own boss, I have to obey certain rules that aren’t mine. And I’m prepared to do so, as I’ve shown time and again over the past three years. There are certain things, rules and behaviours in the kitchen that I don’t like or that I think are simply wrong. There’s enough material for a separate chapter on communication, digitalisation and a poor understanding of humour.

In fact, for me as a career changer and late starter, some of it is learning from a bad example. Whereby bad sounds more judgemental than I want to make it sound.

My father always wanted a boy. After two girls, his wish came true with me. In the end, however, not quite. I wasn’t the typical boy, just as I didn’t become the typical man. We always remained strangers to each other. Because he was like that, although I never got rid of the feeling that he was just chasing after an image of what a man should be like. So I still learnt from him, namely how I don’t want to do things, how I don’t want to be, how I don’t want to be perceived. Learning from another example.

Nice to have you with me

11 Kitchen impossible

Hello, my dear friends,

Let me start today with something a little dreamy and poetic. 

Looking out over the sea or a lake, gazing down from a mountain into the valley or up from there to the mountains. A place where we can do this changes us and thus changes our view of life. I now live in such a place. Almost always with a view of Lake Garda and Monte Baldo. Next to our restaurant is a small alley that I walk along very often because it connects our warehouse with the restaurant and the kitchen. Every single time on the way back, my gaze wanders out to the water, which sometimes lies there extremely calm, but is also stirred up by stormy waves or turns red at dusk. Then I take a deep breath before the heat of the kitchen envelops me again. It is located behind the restaurant, and the restaurant seats are right by the water. As often as I can, I let my gaze wander out over the water from here. Some people may become numb to it over time, but not me (once, in April, I visited my sister on the Baltic Sea. She had never been to the sea at that time of year : ). Because I want to be aware every second of where I am, what I am doing here and how it feels.

These thoughts go through my mind as I sit in a beach bar in Maderno. I’ve just had another Italian lesson with my teacher Johanna, the twelve-year-old daughter of our head chef. She is very enthusiastic about teaching, which is why I chose her when I was considering the various options for improving my Italian skills during my time here. I’m about to head back to the restaurant for the evening service, music playing in my headphones (The Smile), a few young people sitting on the wall along the road as I speed by on my racing bike. One of them holds up his hand and I high-five him. A few hundred metres later, I see Fabian, our maître d’, riding his longboard along the side of the road. We greet each other like cool guys. 

La Dolce Vita.

What’s a little less romantic is that I quit. Well, almost, I was very close to doing so. Let me spare you the details. Matthias and I spoke only when absolutely necessary for over two weeks. We had and still have different ideas about how things should be done. Nothing had changed since the moment I didn’t want to sign the contract in the first place. I felt I wasn’t getting the respect I was entitled to as a career changer. I missed discussing the menu, the daily specials, the various events and things in general. Nothing. We both made mistakes. I knew what he was like, yet I followed an image of him that he cannot live up to and, at the same time, does not want to. 

Every crisis presents opportunities. Every new beginning has an inherent magic (not my words). And so I am also grateful for this intense struggle with him and myself. Because I was able to recognise what is good or bad for me, how I react to such situations and then manage to explore and evaluate alternatives. Take a break, look for a new job here or return to Berlin earlier. Even the latter would have been fine; I don’t have to prove anything to anyone. It filled me with pride that I could handle something like this on my own without panicking. Everything is fine or would have been fine again. I can deal with it.

Two final insights remain. Beware of the merry-go-round of thoughts. There’s often not much to think about in the kitchen. When you stop thinking, you’ve made it. Don’t think about how to cut the perfect onion cubes, cook the smoothest risotto or whip up the creamiest sabayon. Just do it. For someone like me, this is both relaxing and dangerous. Because the conditioned brain generously fills the painfully perceived free space. Possibly not with Italian vocabulary to learn, but with the repetition of the worries and hardships that are currently available. This spiral leads to nothing but a senselessly exaggerated perception of reality. Enough of that.

And quickly on to the happy ending. If I needed another reason not to give up, it was a letter from Gone, which she placed on my desk the day before I made my decision. A somewhat helplessly stapled envelope containing a letter in German that her daughter had written for her, or more precisely for me. She implores me not to leave and finds words that warm my heart. The emotion of what I read still brings tears to my eyes today. And shame. I had completely lost sight of her in my silent “struggle” with Matthias.

(new photos as always here)

Everything is fine now. I know that I cannot, should not and do not want to rely so much on Matthias and our supposed agreement. Rather, it is up to me to do things as I see fit, to create dishes that I would like to eat in our restaurant and, fundamentally, to find my own way. Maybe I wanted to be guided more in order to understand and learn how a restaurant works on a larger scale. But I can manage it anyway, or at least indirectly, together with two exceptionally lovely people (who unfortunately can’t separate rubbish and, in my opinion, work too untidily).

But let’s continue. The service staff at Nicholas is a pretty illustrious bunch. Men. No other introduction would do justice to this topic. First, as you know, there is the owner and namesake of Ristorante Nicholas. Fabian, his maître d’, if we want to call him that, and six or seven other men who, at first glance, are quite different. At second glance, less so. To be clear, I like them all as much as I can. They are funny, nice and entertaining in their own way. However, they are not my cup of tea. It’s hard to imagine what I could do with these guys outside the restaurant, even if I wanted to. Especially since the attention span of people with such a vocation is too short for what I would consider a good conversation.

The guys of all ages are obviously doing a very good job. There’s no other explanation for why we’ve been fully booked or even overbooked every evening for several weeks now and will continue to be so until at least the end of August, and why, in my estimation, the proportion of regular guests is exceptionally high. We usually only have one seating per evening (i.e., all tables are only assigned once), so overbooking means that any tables that are still available or have been borrowed are moved as far as possible onto the promenade and in front of the gallery next door. People eat a lot, for a long time, and drink wine and champagne accordingly, which is often delivered in fancy wooden boxes (for which I have developed a passion, although I will have to stop collecting them at some point).

The guys are still pretty quirky, though. Imagine, for example, the restaurant, right on the lake under the blazing sun, and you see the owner and the maître d’ shortly before lunch service, setting the tables really nicely with their shirts off. No, they’re not particularly good-looking. The tables are, but the waiters are less so. One is short with a big belly, the other is taller with a tattooed body and an equally big belly. I have to put up with a lot here.

The craziest thing, however, is the following, regularly observed event. I’m still completely unsure whether this is some kind of eccentric hiring criterion for staff or whether it’s characteristic of all young and older Italian men. Hence the question for the male members of my little group here: when you find yourselves in the awkward situation of having to tuck your T-shirt (please don’t) or suit shirt (everyone else, please don’t) into your trousers, how do you do it? Do you undo your belt, drop your trousers halfway down, then tuck your top garment into your underpants as thoroughly, carefully and laboriously as possible, adjust whatever needs adjusting, and then pull up your trousers and fasten your belt with the same care and thoroughness? Do you also do this together and joyfully in semi-public, for example in a restaurant that is not yet open but still visible to the public? If so, then welcome to Team Italy. Otherwise, rub and wash your eyes, like me. As I said, I have to put up with a lot here.

As a chef (yes, that’s my job now), what I primarily want to learn here in Italy is how service works and how to get through it. For those of you who have nothing to do with cooking or haven’t watched all the documentaries on Netflix and the like, here’s a quick explanation. I call it the triple challenge of chefs in a restaurant kitchen. Cooking (obviously), service and cleaning. Right now, I’m focusing on service, but I’ll get to the rest sooner or later. In service, i.e. when the restaurant is open and guests are coming in, cooking in the traditional sense is secondary. The focus is on bringing what has been prepared, vacuum-sealed and neatly stored to warmed plates (ouch, that was too hot), which ultimately reach the guest. Obviously, this includes having everything (!) prepared in sufficient quantities (!) and knowing how to best bring out the culinary potential of the dish. Of course, this is more than just heating things up (for reasons I don’t understand, the correct term is “warm schiessen”. More on military commands in the kitchen perhaps at a later date). How to heat things up (frying pan, pot, oven, microwave), what to add and when (butter, then toss, Parmesan, tomatoes), when to remove the heat and how to react if something is not ready yet or goes wrong. Next comes plating. How many components does the dish have, in what order, what quantity and what type do they go on the plate. How much can I change if I have a better idea, and so on and so forth. 

Communication in the kitchen and your attention during the most hectic moments are extremely crucial and therefore important for this. I have experienced and learned a lot about this in my previous positions. However, this eclipses everything else. The good news is that I am learning under the toughest conditions I can imagine.

Under normal conditions, this is how it works: orders come in from the service staff, usually via a thermal paper printer that spits out small receipts. This is where digitisation ends abruptly. As we know from classic supermarket receipts, they become illegible as soon as they come into contact with moisture. Moisture? Kitchen! I have to stop myself here, otherwise we won’t get anywhere. The receipts list what the guests want, including any special requests (an omelette without eggs), intolerances (no salt) and other comments. One person, usually the head chef, stands at the so-called pass, which is equipped with heat lamps and where such beautiful photos are always taken, and is now responsible for taking orders, clarifying any ambiguities with the service staff and then verbally passing them on to his team. This is done quietly, almost without words (Micha Schäfer at Nobelhart&Schmutzig), calmly and cheerfully (Philipp at Orania) or latently chaotically loudly (I won’t say). The team knows what to do, coordinates internally, and everything ends up at the pass on time, warm (!) and just as it should be. Here, the food is plated under the heat lamps, given one last critical look, and then it’s out the door.

You may think, yes, that’s how it is. You may not realise that this process is the most crucial of all. You may have created a great place, attracted the right people, put the best possible dishes on the menu, and purchased and prepared the finest ingredients, but it is here that it is decided whether everyone will have a good evening. 

Nothing here is like that!

Imagine a three-year-old boy who has found an earthworm in the garden for the first time, picks the slimy thing out of the ground and runs excitedly to his mum in the kitchen to tell her loudly and excitedly about his fantastic discovery. That’s how orders arrive in our kitchen. Nicholas tries to outdo Dieter Thomas Heck by talking as fast as he can, then slamming the note on the pass and running away quickly. I realise that he is very busy outside, but from the kitchen’s perspective, that’s exactly how it looks. Now, as the head chef, I could not care less, because the only thing that matters to me is what is announced on the pass. If you’re thinking “all clear” now, think again. Because Gone and Matthias share the pass. With three chefs, there can’t be one person who only does the pass, I was told. Their job is to clarify the orders and pass them on to the kitchen team (in this case, actually just me). Because they’re standing in front of the note wall and could read what’s written there. Read, understand and pass on. It would be that simple.

Not so. The waiters essentially memorise all the guests’ orders, which is very welcome at first. No one enjoys it when the waiter scribbles on his notepad for too long while taking orders at the table or awkwardly types on his smartphone or tablet. Our service staff, on the other hand, quickly jot down their memory notes on a piece of paper on their way to the kitchen, and in no time at all we receive the most illegible orders imaginable. This assessment has nothing to do with my lack of language skills or my non-existent calligraphy skills. It is simply the most illegible handwriting imaginable. Matthias spends many valuable minutes each evening training his graphological skills. Without success. Last hope, Gone, who, despite three years of experience with this bunch of dyslexics, all too often has to guess or ask questions. Last but not least, the boys regularly cannot read what they themselves have written.

From my previous professional experience, there is a clear, vulgar but true statement for this, which I will try to express in a more cultivated way here: shit in, shit out. 

Oops, that wasn’t very refined after all. Nevertheless, the message is clear. Poor input inevitably leads to a wide variety of errors in the subsequent processes. Consultants usually charge hefty fees for such obvious analyses. Well, that hasn’t quite sunk in in the kitchen yet.

My workplace is now further back in the kitchen (which sounds like I work in the south wing, even though I’m only 2 metres away), so I’m mostly spared the view of the magnetic board with the illegible orders. Curse or blessing, I don’t know. As a result, I usually rely on hearsay; someone will announce something at some point, and my challenge is to get as close as possible to that in terms of time and quality. You have to imagine that two or three times a night, I don’t have seven hands and six hotplates at my disposal to get everything going at the same time. Should I start the risotto for the second course at table 8 now, because it takes 10 minutes to cook? Should I combine the three paccherie frutti di mare for different tables and then wait with the last one? Should I prepare the mussels in advance, because it always takes so much time, even if they haven’t been ordered yet? Questions like these and the decisions they require arise every second.

And that’s every evening for between 60 and 70 guests with one female chef, two male chefs and usually around six people in service. The first time we had over 50 guests, I only noticed afterwards when Gone calculated the number of guests based on the orders, as he does every evening. I was surprised and thought, so this is what it feels like. I don’t want to exaggerate, but it’s now routine. Oh, 72 guests tonight, ah, cool. Ultimately, a lot depends not on the absolute number of people, but on when they arrive, how many people are at each table and what they order. That determines how the evening goes. One day, Gone and I together (Matthias only works in the evening service) had 104 guests in the lunch and evening service combined. Yikes. 

When my beloved daughter recently wrote to me that she wanted to use ChatGPT to summarise my overly long letters, I should have been warned. But what can I do? I still have to tell you about Vanessa’s birthday surprise.

It’s always a challenge. You know the drill: what do you give someone who has everything or, if not, can buy it themselves? And so, as usual, I was completely clueless until almost the last minute and hoped for my usually reliable last-minute inspiration. They were called Riva (one of the most beautiful motorboats ever built) and Ristorante Sonio. Since we’ve been here in Salò, we’ve been admiring these beautiful wooden boats with their typical azure blue stripes. We hadn’t eaten at the restaurant in question yet, but it offers an excellent service whereby guests arriving from the lake are picked up by taxi boat on the water and taken to the restaurant, which is also located on the water. When we first observed this spectacle from a small beach bar, we were impressed.

Never try to hire one of these boats if you value your money. It’s better to talk to the Albanian waiter, who communicates wildly with his Albanian friends and friends of friends, leaving you in doubt until the very end as to whether it will actually happen. In the end, it didn’t happen on the way there, which we completed in a Fiat Topolino without doors that I rented on the spur of the moment, but on the way back. After our wonderful, extensive lunch, Vanessa wanted to go back to the car, while I ran towards the water after I had unmistakably recognised the stocky, blond and tanned Paolo described to me on an approaching Riva.

“Come on, let’s take the Riva,” I said to her, and after a brief bout of vertigo on the wobbly jetty, we sat in the boat with our dachshund and were chauffeured back to Salò from San Felice. I love it when plans work out. (Well, the only flaw in my plan was that we then had to pick up our fun car with our car.)

It’s great to have you with me.

Frank

12 Allein allein

Ciao mio cari,

There is a subtle difference between being alone and being lonely. While being alone is more of a description of a state of being, feelings come into play when we are lonely. At least, that’s how it seems to me. The boundaries are fluid. So what best describes my situation remains to be seen.

Now, I consider myself fundamentally and aggressively an absolute pro at being alone. It’s fair to say that I really celebrate it. Because I can. When others miss others, I bask in my human solitude. If further evidence is needed, I am anything but a team player. It’s no coincidence that I’m a runner, almost always on my own; no team sport has ever appealed to me. While others thrive on it, it overwhelms me or simply leaves me cold. Even my many years as the founder and manager of my company couldn’t change that. I was only too happy to leave the necessary personal conversations with employees to my business partner.

Consequently, a place where I can be, where I can be alone, is of great value to me. It doesn’t really matter where that is. I am very easy to transplant. Yesterday Berlin, today Saló, tomorrow Berlin again or somewhere else. I’m fine with that. However, this also has to do with the fact that I’ve had to learn the hard way several times in my life to cope with the loss of my home. So I adapted, trying not only to get by with little, but also to be flexible and not too set in my ways. I made a virtue out of necessity. A friend, whom I have somewhat lost touch with today, said to me in a similar situation: I only want to own what I can carry on my own. Such a casually uttered sentence may roll off many of you without leaving a trace. But it stuck with me, fell on such fertile ground that, a good 25 years later, I still remember it and actually live by it to a large extent.

My first impulse when something needs to be done is therefore always and almost exclusively about how I can manage it on my own. The idea of asking for help, as many of you would surely consider, only occurs to me as a third or even fourth thought. I may be pleased that I found a way to move the heavy sofa or manage the entire move with fresh inventiveness. But the victory is deceptive, because it’s simply stupid not to be able to ask for help.

Fortunately, I am not alone and never will be.

There is my not-so-small family of origin (two sisters, eight children and already three grandchildren), my beloved and cherished family, and of course there is you.

I am therefore richly blessed. Rich in people who mean something to me. To whom I mean something. Who are fine with me just the way I am. Beyond that, there are of course countless other people I have met and continue to meet throughout my life, some of whom have moved and accompanied me, or simply been there. I have secretly said goodbye to many of them, just as I usually disappear from a party. Unobtrusively. My dear friend Reinhard did this in his usual radical manner on the occasion of his sixtieth birthday, reducing the huge pile of mainly business friends to a mere ten people. He knew an incredible number of people who followed him over the years and tried hard to get some sunshine in his shadow. 

You know how many people we meet in the course of our lives, how much we briefly enjoy being admired, needed or appreciated. Then comes the moment, which sometimes takes a while to arrive, when we realise that none of it matters and never did.

My sufficiently radical career change is both the cause and effect of these people no longer being there. Unlike in the past, I no longer chase after them or even start conversations with them. My experience shows me very clearly how much I invested in the past and how little of it remained. Me, at one of my lectures, somewhere, it doesn’t matter where, countless really good conversations afterwards. An euphoric atmosphere that I really liked, that drove me, that helped me to grow beyond myself. And what remained of it? Nothing. Almost nothing.

As a result, I no longer engage in many conversations at all. It happens here too, in my new job. People are sitting in the restaurant. I’m on my way to my racing bike to dash home, and one of the waiters calls out, “That’s the chef, come here, have a glass of wine with this guy or that guy. He makes the best risotto.” So I sit there with an entrepreneur from southern Germany who has a house, car and boat here, or whatever, and while I listen politely and reel off my counter-arguments or arguments in favour (it’s like cycling, you never forget) in a friendly manner, my second self looks at the situation and knows full well that none of it matters. None. Niente. I could jump naked on the table and dance. It doesn’t matter.

Now the question remains, am I alone or lonely? Because the professional in being alone has to admit one thing to you: there are limits. And that’s where I stand. Almost four months now have shown me that it can be difficult to be thrown back on your own. The one day off per week ultimately hardly makes a difference. So I’m stuck in a routine that I go through twice a day. Some free time in the morning (until 10 a.m.), then work, some more free time (from 3 p.m.), more work (from 6 p.m.), more free time (from 11 p.m.) and hopefully not too late, or rather early (1 a.m.), to bed. That doesn’t leave much time for anything else and, to be honest, I don’t really feel like doing anything else.

I think about being alone and how I’ve come to deal with it the way I do. And then I realise that I’ve been alone since I was 21. That’s when my mother died.

Just writing this brings tears to my eyes. It always does, and it will continue to do so as long as I try to convey the significance of this to you. Although not for herself or the doctors, she died completely unexpectedly on 18 June 1991, leaving behind my father, my sisters and me. It was exactly 20 years later on the birthday of my youngest son, Joona Joko. On that day, I was on my way to Hanover with my girlfriend at the time, who later became the mother of my enchanting eldest daughter. She had a job interview there, and I wanted to enrol at the university. On the way back, she was asleep and I was driving the rented red Golf along the country road (because we had driven far too many kilometres for the cheap rental price, we later rewound the odometer with a left-turning drill). I remember the feeling of urgency, almost obsession, and consequently drove too fast. She was asleep. When we arrived in Dessau, my grandmother was standing in front of my sister’s house and said I had to go immediately to the hospital where my mother had been receiving treatment for some time. She died that same evening. I couldn’t stay there and left her brother alone with her… The most important person in my whole life was no longer with me.

On the day of the funeral, I fled to my room, crouched by the window and looked out at the rain. Fortunately, it was raining. Apparently, I decided at that moment that the huge hole that had been violently torn into my life would never close again, never heal, never be good again. It was big and black, and I decided that was the right thing. While my sisters eventually found their way back to talking about her, I refused to allow myself any normalisation. No words, no memories, no relativisation. Just abysmal grief. To this day. What is it about saying that if you stare into the abyss long enough, it stares back at you? I don’t know.

At the time, I didn’t realise that I was depriving myself of the many memories I could have had. While my two sisters made their own modest recipe book, in which they typed out our favourite cakes, soups and casseroles, I simply stuck to my way of not being able to cope with this loss. Black. Hole. Eternal. The fact that I am close to tears or have to cry while writing all this shows that I have truly succeeded in this.

Over the following years and decades, two drastic separations were added, both of which, rightly or wrongly, made it clear to me that I had to cope on my own. That I had to make sure I was at peace with myself, that I had to deal with being on my own. Both times, I lost not only the person I thought I wanted to spend my life with, but also my home. I have a flight reflex that forced me to leave both times and leave everything, almost everything, behind. After the first break-up, I fled to Dublin to study there for a year. After the second, I went to New York with my 17-year-old daughter. It was, is and always will be impossible for me to stay in a place where I am not wanted. Where I feel that I am not wanted.

It’s nice to have you here with me.

f

#13 Neueröffnung

Ciao mio cari,

Today, we will discuss a topic that you have been patiently waiting for. I am opening my own restaurant. It is called “Stop Making Sense” and, consequently (consequently?), it primarily offers Italian-inspired vegetarian cuisine. This is how this text could begin at some point. Perhaps soon. Why not now?

Let me put it this way: sooner or later, that’s how it will turn out. I’m sure of it. Probably not in five years, but sometime along the way. That narrows it down considerably, and whether it will be in two or three years or next year, the difference is probably not that big. So why not now?

Of course, I’ve been thinking for quite some time about what will happen after this period here in Italy. If I’m lucky, I won’t be able to take a six-month break like most people here, but maybe a few weeks. That would be urgently needed and desirable. If no one dissuades me with an attractive job offer by then, it could happen. The number of places where I could see myself working as a chef and feeling comfortable is not that large, as I already have disproportionately precise ideas about what works and what doesn’t. These include a lot of professional criteria, but also numerous slightly peculiar ones, both for my own potential restaurant and for any other place.

I want it to be manageable. In many ways. When Novecento, in the “Legend of the Ocean Pianist” named after him, is asked why he never left the ship on which he was born, he draws a comparison with the piano, which he could play with great skill. There he stood in a borrowed coat and hat on the gangway of the ship in New York harbour. The world outside, he later said, was, unlike the piano with its 88 keys, unmanageable. It overwhelmed him so much that he stayed on the ship until it was blown up, ending his life.

(Incidentally, this story also marked the beginning of a love story that has now lasted for more than 10 years).

For me, manageable means first and foremost that I can actually see everything at a glance. Here in Gardone Riviera, I can look out from the kitchen across the bar directly to the outdoor seating area where the guests are sitting. Another criterion in this context is that I will only work where I can look outside. Here, I look out onto the lake. At Orania in Kreuzberg, at least outside onto Oranienplatz, where there was often a lot going on. I will not spend my time in the kitchen in windowless rooms or behind covered windows. While my hands are cutting onions, my eyes and soul want to be able to look outside.

However, manageable also means in financial and economic terms. Under no circumstances would I renovate a property in a costly and time-consuming manner, as many do, only to then laboriously pay off the mountain of debt. There are so many beautiful places that have everything you need, as long as you use your imagination.

Here in the restaurant, on the one hand, a large number of guests certainly bring in very high revenues. On the other hand, however, high costs also add up, and I simply have to assume that no one has even the slightest idea of how things stand. Probably not until the end of the year, at the earliest, when all the bills from nine suppliers, among others, have been paid, will the results be available. As a former entrepreneur (is it like a triathlon, where once you’ve been an entrepreneur, you’re always an entrepreneur?) and a big fan of spreadsheets, my expectations are naturally different. My love of numbers and formulas stands in stark contrast to the fact that I consider myself primarily a creative person.

Manageable also means not letting things get too big. I am not a team player, which gives rise to the desire to do things essentially on my own, as far as possible. I have noticed here in particular that I especially appreciate the peace and quiet when I come home in the afternoon or evening. No noise from devices in front of, behind or next to me. No talking all the time. No hustle and bustle around me. Just me, alone, with myself. Wonderful.

It also means that things are done according to my rules. Whether they are right or wrong is irrelevant at first. The fact that these are the only rules makes work much easier. In many of the jobs I’ve had in kitchens so far, I didn’t like it at all when others messed up “my” things during my absence and thought they had to introduce new organisational principles, only for me to then laboriously change them again after my weekly return. A mixture of bad examples and good role models is also responsible for my now meticulous order and cleanliness in the kitchen. The dishcloth is my best friend. Fortunately, the sink is not far away. A table, just one metre deep and one metre twenty wide, which has to accommodate not only a good portion of the components and working materials, but also up to five plates for serving, leaves me no other choice. To forestall any cheers, this meticulousness is still limited to the kitchen. My numerous piles of clothes (I have so far successfully refused to just wear the same thing as everyone else, because it’s only needed for the short walk to the restaurant anyway) are still scattered around as if they had a life of their own. I’m working on it.

So you see me in a small, stylish restaurant with an open kitchen and maybe 20 seats. Outside, there are a few more, just in front of the windows. I’m confident I can manage that many tables, even with multiple occupancy. Ultimately, it’s a question of what’s on the menu. There may also be a lunch menu. Risotto in all colours (blue, except blueberry blue, which I still don’t have) and variations. Nothing more. There is what there is, because I don’t see why I should be responsible for satisfying everyone’s wishes and keeping the appropriate supplies in stock only to throw them away later. I’m happy to go out to the guests, but only when I want to and can. So I guess I’ll need someone else in the evenings. But why can’t people pick up their plates at the counter in a fine dining restaurant, which is what it’s supposed to be? Nothing is set in stone, everything is possible. When I open, how long I open, what’s on the menu, or whether you pick up your food from me. There will definitely be no numbers or vibrating things for that. There’s surely a more elegant solution.

All of this inevitably leads to what Reinhard, somewhat cynically but with personal experience, refers to as gastronomic romanticism. This idealised notion among people in or shortly after the so-called midlife crisis (which I am unfamiliar with) that it would be a good idea to convert a restaurant, bar or small hotel and then open it. We can imagine how often this romanticism has failed miserably. Unlike many others who also consider a career change at an advanced age, i.e. my age, as a fun project if they have financial reserves, for me it is first and foremost a job that earns a living for my children, my flat and my life. Let’s not talk about retirement planning. But hey, why not be romantic? In other words, if it weren’t romantic, it would lose all its appeal.

Let’s move on to the most important topic for a restaurant: what’s on the menu?

For me, it’s definitely vegetarian, maybe vegan. There are several reasons for this. The fact that I myself have become a vegetarian is not one of them. For one thing, I find the attitude of throwing the much-praised piece of meat on the grill or in the pan simply too boring, familiar and equally outdated. Of course, good ingredients are everything. When it comes to meat, it’s just too simple for me. Vanessa knows my lamentations when we cook together. I stand in the kitchen for three hours preparing the “side dishes” and garnishes, while she tells me to let her know 15 minutes in advance so that she can still throw the good and now rightly expensive meat into the pan in time for dinner.

Of course, it makes much more sense for me, as a young chef, not to focus on a topic that has been thoroughly explored and is held in high regard by every amateur barbecue master, but to look for something that is modern, new and full of unexpected possibilities. It is obvious that there is still a lot to discover, invent and try out here. Right now, I’m working with seasonal melons, the red ones called anguria here, and trying to turn them into an alternative to tuna for my next risotto. To do this, you have to vacuum seal or freeze them and then thaw them before cooking them slowly and for a long time in the oven. Sure, vacuum sealing isn’t the best option, nor is leaving the oven on for 12 hours. There’s also no need to focus on vegetarian alternatives to meat or fish. Nevertheless, it can’t be avoided.

It remains a problem, a challenge, no, a f***ing problem that I never tired of warning every optimistic entrepreneur and every overly confident entrepreneur with shining eyes about. My eyes were downcast, theirs were shining. Let’s call it: the sales problem. Countless times in my career, there has been the brilliant idea, the absolutely stunning concept or even the completely finished, ready-to-sell, ingenious product that should ultimately sell itself. But it didn’t. Unfortunately, when everything points in that direction, it means absolutely nothing. It will be no different with a restaurant. Everything may be right. The location, the selection of dishes, the chef, the music, the atmosphere, the good food and so much more. Nevertheless, there is no guarantee whatsoever.

Nevertheless, to find out whether the time is right for an idea, it’s worth playing with the idea as you have done so far. Thinking about a name for it brings it even more to the point. I consider myself someone who has always been good at finding names for things. Among my greatest achievements are the name of my company (foresee, phonetically 4 C, each representing one of our fields of application: collaboration, communication, consulting and coaching, which together stand for what we were really good at, foresight), IIIF (pronounced triple ei f and standing for international institute for inspiration and formation, which said everything Reinhard, Marco and I wanted to do) and Toph (as a nickname for my wonderful son-in-law). 

The name for your own restaurant is, of course, the holy grail of name finding. Many options (your own name, puns with your own name, Sonderbar, very funny, house numbers and street names, completely meaningless names with no reference) are out of the question. Over a period of about two weeks, the topic gave me a lot of fun. It also had an effect on me. Why think about it if I wasn’t going to consider this possibility?

Then the algorithm washed the Talking Heads into my YouTube timeline. Older people will remember. Songs we know and the title of a music film that is supposed to be legendary. And there it was, the name.

Stop

Making

Sense

A meaningless name with no reference.

But that can be changed.

Nice to have you here.

frenk

#14 Nobelhart

Ciao mio cari,

this is going to be a very special letter. You will be there live for my new adventure, the outcome of which I cannot even begin to guess at this moment. I will only make changes to ensure accuracy and beauty. Otherwise, everything will remain as it is. Whatever happens, happens.

Right now, I’m sitting at Milan Airport with my second coffee. It’s Tuesday morning, 2 September, and I’ll soon be boarding the 8 o’clock flight to Berlin. I will be there for less than 26 hours, and there are only a few reasons why I would put up with that. With some effort, I managed to get a free Tuesday at our restaurant so that I could work a trial shift at the Nobelhart&Schmutzig restaurant today. You can’t imagine it, but it’s true.

There’s a story behind why this restaurant not only gets me up in the middle of the night, but is also my first choice and why I’ve been trying to work there (again) for quite some time. I got to know Nobelhart, namely Micha and Billy, during an interview I conducted with them on behalf of the Swiss lifestyle brand I used to work for. At the time, I had no idea that I would be a chef today, nor that I would apply for a job there. During the coronavirus pandemic, Billy was looking for people with two hands, two legs and a head on Instagram. That’s how he put it, and I could definitely confirm that I had all of those things. So I started as a temporary kitchen assistant. I worked in production and preparation, washing dishes and, on a few occasions, serving in the evening. Most of the time, however, I cooked for the newly founded label hausgemachtes.berlin, which offered Michelin-starred restaurant-quality products for home delivery. The ambition and the unconditional desire to carry out production in our own restaurant with our own hands was the right thing to do, but it ultimately led to its demise of our own accord.

+++

It is still Tuesday, 11:10 p.m. After more than 10 hours, I leave the restaurant on Friedrichstraße. It was an emotional rollercoaster with a conciliatory ending. Now I am very tired and need to sleep. More tomorrow.

+++

I didn’t go to bed that early after all. As always, my body finds some residual energy somewhere, and I went to bed late, or rather early. So the night was short and I slept like a log. In the afternoon, I have to be back at the restaurant in Italy, so off to the airport I go. 

The end of yesterday was conciliatory because it ended with a good conversation and general attention and recognition. However, it started differently. Apart from me, there was another young chef (the advertised position is for a commis de cuisine, i.e. a young chef) who had recently completed his training at another Michelin-starred restaurant (Golvet). The mood was neutral to indifferent, so we both started doing what we were asked to do. 

He washed carrots, I washed tomatoes. He mixed tomatoes, I washed Swiss chard and spinach. He cleaned carrots, I plucked coriander seeds. He plucked some, I plucked mulberries. This plucking is an unimaginably tedious task, and so I spent a good ninety minutes working with the 1-2 mm coriander seeds. I spent about the same amount of time on the mulberries, which left my hands a beautiful yellow-red colour because I had forgotten my gloves. What I have described so far took place more or less behind closed doors, as we did our work in the preparation kitchen. Only now and then did someone rush from left to right and disappear again to the front, where everyone else was. Except Fin and me. Consequently, I wondered who could possibly judge what I was doing here. Nevertheless, with every move I made, I wondered what potential there was to do something wrong. Not so much wrong as not the way it’s done here. Should I wash the spinach twice, no, three times? Do those little things have to be sieved out of the coriander seeds or can they stay in? Should I use a knife or a peeler for the rather small celery roots? Can someone please take a look at how fast I’m running these things through the vegetable slicer? Damn, too fast and with too much pressure (enthusiasm?), so that they ended up too thick on one side and too thin on the other. Stupid mistake.

It’s not hard to see that I was slightly frustrated. And tired. And silly, with these little balls and berries. Fin tried to strike up a conversation once or twice. I was fairly uncommunicative and avoided too much contact with the competition. He also showed typical signs of a chef’s training that is not very socially acceptable today. He directly blamed himself for the fact that this “stupid wound” on his hand had opened up again. He criticised his previous employer in the deepest tones. Hey, still, a nice guy. I was just jealous that he was allowed to make the tomato water. But in return, he had to do a lot more cleaning and vacuum-pack some leaves later on, while I stood at the pass.

Without giving it much thought, I also found it somewhat irritating that Daniel, whose position we were competing for, spent the entire time in the scullery clearing things away. Was that going to be my job too? Fortunately, some time later I found an organisational chart on the wall and my memory was refreshed. Because at Nobelhart, everyone takes on this job at some point.

It is what it is. My thoughts were spinning round and round in my head again, and only stopped once we had finished our staff meal. Because then it was time for the meeting. What I sorely miss in Italy (talking now and then about what is happening, what is going to happen, what needs to be done) is limoncello in other restaurants, or ouzo, as I prefer to call it. I’m getting silly, it’s the tiredness.

Billy, the owner, or, as he says himself, the landlord, reads out what’s on the agenda for today with his head bowed and an equally low mood. So many people, one vegetarian, will arrive in dribs and drabs between 7 and 9 p.m. And we also have a trial worker here today. No, two, say the others, who are slumped tiredly in their armchairs. Why Frank too, he’s our temporary chef, says Billy. Nice to have you back. He was here when you were still Quark in the shop window. For Billy, the last two years of my absence probably didn’t exist. I say, no, this time I want to do it right, so do something. Following Fin’s introduction, Greta interjected and said that she didn’t know me yet and asked me to introduce myself briefly. Finally, my moment. I could have insisted on it myself, but I was probably just too tired overall. 

As you can easily see, my mood immediately improves when communication takes place. Recognition, attention, humour and, yes, simply communication. Of course, I already had a little script in my head for this situation, so I launched into a short, humorous and entertaining talk – it sounds long, but it was really short and to the point – about my connection with Billy, the Nobelhart, the cooking and my career since I left the Nobelhart. It sounds as if I was actually there. And that’s how it is. Billy then adds that we also met by chance in Italy, where the whole Nobelhart gang blew all their tips. Oh, Zeno’s pizzeria up on the mountain, unfortunately it’s no longer there, but they had the party pizza, no, I say, it was called Disco Pizza and was flambéed and served with a disco ball. What fun. I was happy again.

Once again, I briefly returned to chopping celery, but then I was called to the pass and actually spent the rest of the evening there, about three hours. That was my world.

In between, I asked myself whether this was really what I was looking for. At the end of the day, I’m leaning a little more towards yes. People are probably more approachable and nicer once you’re there. 

So everything is fine, no matter what the outcome. The key question is what reason there could be to choose me over a highly trained young chef. There may be reasons, but whether they will be enough remains to be seen.

+++

By now, you’re probably wondering (aren’t you?) what on earth I see in this place. It can’t be superficial sympathy. In all my years here, I’ve exchanged maybe 38 words with Micha, the culinary epicentre. Our acquaintance began with the interview I conducted on behalf of Dan and his laid-back Swiss lifestyle brand. Micha probably used up all the words he had reserved for me during that interview. 

Our best conversation was the following, shortly before Christmas. Me: Micha, we want to serve venison for Christmas. Where would you buy it? Him: From the hunter. Me: I see. Him: Just look in the cold store downstairs and tell me what you want. End of conversation. They probably found the interview that marked the beginning of our acquaintance rather, well, meh. A brief digression: on the same tour, I was with Dan at the legendary Berlin techno club Kit Kat. Unfortunately, we both independently decided to wear fur coats that day. Vanessa had inherited mine from Gabi and taken it off me. And so Dan, Swiss, watches, lifestyle and I stood in full light with the owner in his club in front of large-format paintings of breasts, cocks and vulvas. They also thought, what a strange bunch of birds. 

Back to the topic. Then there’s Billy, who is just Billy. There are people where you sense that there’s something there. You like them at first glance, they’re friendly and the opposite of strangers. Then there are the others, who are far removed from everything that is close to you, where you realise that nothing will ever happen. In between are those you encounter and cannot categorise. That’s Billy. I actually like this type of personality in general. There’s something exciting to look forward to. 

If it’s not sympathy, then what is it? You all know what everyday life in a kitchen is like in one way or another. You’ve seen films whose plot takes place entirely or partly in a kitchen, you’ve seen chefs in interviews or TV shows, or Tim Raue in his role as an annoyed, uncultured jerk on Chefs Table on Netflix. All of this paints a picture that no one particularly likes to see. There is grumbling, shouting, oppression and language that no one wants to hear. To this day, it remains largely inexplicable to me how such a beautiful, meaningful and creative activity as cooking has to take place in such bad, uncouth and unpleasant circumstances, as it still does to a large extent today. Part of the reason, though not entirely, can be found in the documentary on arte about Auguste Escoffier. The rest remains incomprehensible.

Nobelhart&Schmutzig is none of these things. They know very well that they are not perfect and cannot fully explain or even solve any of the relevant issues surrounding food. Nevertheless, they tackle them head on, whether they are issues directly related to cuisine or only remotely relevant. They are not afraid to follow their convictions. 

Years ago, I was invited to a (paid) meeting where the Code of Conduct was read out and discussed. At the time, it was a 70-page document that left no topic untouched. Of course, it covered everything directly related to a restaurant and the kitchen, but also everything else. How to treat each other, discrimination, racism, sexism or any other form of discrimination. The No-AfD sticker had been on the front door for a long time. That impressed and influenced me. It takes a lot of courage and determination to do that. I still admire them to this day.

+++

Friday morning. I write Juliane an email. She has been involved in everything at Nobelhart from the very beginning, handling personnel and communications. I thought that would be appropriate. Well, she has nothing to do with the decision. But good energy is important. So I kept the tone of my message deliberately relaxed, light-hearted and non-committal. Thanks for the coffee, the nice chat and the engraved glass. No reply to this message is necessary. Best regards.

+++

Today is Tuesday again, which means it has been exactly one week since I was in Berlin. Nothing has happened since then, except for my light-hearted email to Juliane. Of course, I thought about it every day, and my assessment hardly changed. Why should they do it? If they say yes, that would be really good. If not, then I will try to take a few weeks (months?) off. All in all, it’s a good setup to avoid disappointment.

In a situation like this, it’s easy to simulate internally how you would feel at the moment of decision. You imagine the email landing in your inbox with a ping, you click on it and it says either one thing or the other. And you think, yes (!), I did it. And you think, well, okay, if not, a few weeks off would do me good too. For me, both outcomes are positive.

Of course, there is also the question of whether I can or should do something. Write again, call directly. Ultimately, something like that certainly doesn’t influence a fundamental decision. Frank called three times, he really seems to want the job, let’s take him. That’s nonsense, of course. So I’m practising patience, simulating potential outcomes internally and continuing here. Tonight there were 74 guests in the restaurant. After the Italian holidaymakers, the golfers are coming back.

+++

Now I’m starting to get grumpy. Of course, it’s possible that they invited other people to try out the food. Something like that doesn’t have to be decided within two weeks. Still.

+++

Today I woke up and decided to call. As far as I know, Juliane doesn’t work on Fridays, so I called the sous chef. That’s what I did. I tried to be patient, but it didn’t work, so I said that right away. He said, as I said, the decision will be made on 15 September. He hadn’t said that. I just didn’t want to harp on about it. Fine, then forget my call, have a nice day, bye. Yes, bye. Maybe he wanted to say something else. I was just in a hurry to end the situation. What else could he have said?

Incidentally, 15 September is a Monday, when the restaurant is closed. So it will probably be Tuesday.

While trying to distract myself, my mind reminded me that I need to explore two unusual flavour combinations when the opportunity arises. One is biscuits and liver sausage. The other is coffee and fried eggs. Boiled eggs are also fine.

The first has to do with the fact that my mum sometimes put a plain biscuit in my lunch box to go with my liver sausage sandwich. Childhood memories.

The second: during my student days in Dublin, which was also a time when I was living alone, I often enjoyed going to a coffee house called Bewleys on Grafton Street with the Irish Times under my arm (the thickest newspaper ever, and even back then I could pay the £1.50 for it at the kiosk with my credit card). There they served a pot of coffee, fried eggs and chips. And the ink from a daily newspaper, although I would leave that flavour out of the dish.

+++

Afternoon break. Of course, I’ve been thinking about it since this morning. 

Remember, this is a live email. Whatever happens, happens.

Every now and then, Vanessa sends me the mail that accumulates in my letterbox. By email. Not quite awake yet, I look through the PDF with my eyes half closed, and the very first letter is from Billy Wagner KG. Noble. Right on the first page, in the first sentence, it says “your employer, Billy Wagner KG”. The rest seemed familiar, bureaucratic stuff that didn’t interest me anyway and was generally of little importance. My thoughts lingered at the beginning as I skimmed through the other letters (just official stuff in C4 envelopes with windows, as always). Back to the beginning. I send Vanessa a screenshot, hastily marking the essential part in red. Did she see that? No, but there’s also something from the tax office. Important. Of course. Advance sales tax payment for the third quarter. I, you don’t understand. 

Then she understands. And during the phone call that follows, I hear her tears welling up. A similar feeling wells up inside me and I would all too quickly follow her. Nevertheless, my tired thoughts continue to race and I wonder at the same moment. My gaze falls on the date of the letter. The date of my trial work. The illusion shatters. As always in such situations, my first concern is how Vanessa (or others) would react to this reality. But the thoughts and emotions are so dense and happen in such a few seconds that there is no time for that. We shared a brief moment of happiness. 

That alone was worth it.

A simulation cannot be more real than that.

(The simple explanation is that they might have to pay me for my work that day, but at the very least they had to make sure I was insured.)

+++

All this time, I was sure I had already written about it. However, a quick text search for “serious” and “taken” proves me wrong. But maybe the search function is just rubbish. Never mind. 

Why is the Nobelhart so important to me? That was the question. From me to myself. Because it would mean finally being taken seriously. That would be the big, life-changing statement behind a decision for me. An unskilled, old chef. Being taken seriously.

Because looking back on my young career shows the opposite. Despite all my ambitions, my commitment and my now quite numerous positions, no one has ever taken me seriously in what I do. I write this without reproach, frustration or whining. I understand opposing positions. I can relate to them. The assessment that no one has taken me seriously in my first steps and subsequent endeavours remains correct. An offer from Nobelhart would change that once and for all.

+++

Yesterday was the day the decision was to be made. Today, in the middle of the evening service at the restaurant, everything became clear to me in a fraction of a second. 

They are professional enough to make decisions when they want to make them. They are also professional enough to communicate those decisions immediately. Are they professional enough to also think of those for whom the decision has not been made?

I guess I’m out. 

Fine, then I’ll just take the day off.

+++

Everything’s different again. Juliane says that people will be coming in for trial shifts until the middle of next week. About 10 in total, which limits my chances to 10%. And that’s only in the best-case scenario of equal opportunities. So, another week between “Yes, I’m being taken seriously” and “Ahhh, I’m taking the day off”.

+++

Do you know that feeling? You know it. 

At first, your thoughts are on this one thing practically every hour. At some point, the mental dominance reaches its peak and then slowly but surely subsides. Only occasionally, instead of hourly or daily, does your head get caught up in this seemingly endless cycle of yes, no and maybe.

I was once in a very turbulent interim relationship. Don’t worry, the protagonist in this short story would not be particularly bothered by the term “interim relationship”. Because it was me who found it difficult to let go. Then I read somewhere the story of an old gentleman, presumably British, who simply could not come to terms with the loss of his long-time butler. After decades of devoted service, the butler had died, leaving him helpless and at a loss. The only way out seemed to be to remind himself of this loss so clearly that it would eventually fade from his memory. And so he hung clearly visible signs in every room of his house that read: “You must forget him”. In a modern interpretation of this parable, I wrote “You must forget her” on the screen of my Sony Ericsson smartphone and saved it as my wallpaper. 

I digress. Nobelhart has not yet been in touch. Perhaps tomorrow, as announced.

+++

The assumption that they would actually show up on Wednesday does not stand up to even the slightest logical scrutiny. 

Other people were supposed to come in for trial shifts. Two days. Tuesday and Wednesday. The decision will be discussed with everyone. So Thursday at the earliest. The sous chef usually has Thursday off. Not without him. So Friday. First a team meeting, then a “management” meeting? Who knows. Either way, Juliane, the bearer of the message, is only working until Thursday.  

Oh, you know what, you… can tell me later. 

+++

There’s no clearer way to say no than by not making a promised phone call. 

+++

I’m afraid I’m boring you. Because I’m bored too. Of myself. Of everything.

Late on Friday evening, Juliane writes that she couldn’t make the call today and will be in touch on Monday. So a decision has been made, but only the winner has been informed directly.

Suddenly, it dawns on me how boring this miserably long, epically told story will end if the answer is no. Such theatrical suspense and then just the end. Over. No.

What a modest ending. I can understand your disappointment.

+++

In order to salvage the deal at least a little, I essentially cancelled myself yesterday evening:

From: “Frank B. Sonder” <post@franksonder.com>

Subject: How about this deal?

Date: 30 September 2025 at 22:08:48 CEST

To: Juliane 🀫🀫🀫🀫🀫🀫🀫🀫 <🀫@nobelhartundschmutzig.com>

Dear Juliane,

So… here’s the deal. I’ll spare you a necessary phone call and in return I’ll take the liberty of saying what I think. 

You know how much I respect and admire Nobelhart. Not shying away from any topic, communicating well and actively, and being transparent and open – that’s what sets you apart (apart from the obvious, of course) and I really appreciate that.

Unfortunately, I haven’t seen much of that in this application process. Of course, this is only a small part of the picture, but it’s important, isn’t it? Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed making the trip from Milan to Berlin. It was my decision. My investment. I just wish I hadn’t been left completely in the dark since then and for weeks afterwards. 

I don’t want to nitpick the details now. That doesn’t help anyone. I would have just liked to be taken seriously as a committed applicant. I didn’t get that impression. 

I wish you all the best and continued success. 

Best regards | f 

Your reply today was polite, apologetic and a little evasive. 

End of story. 

+++

It’s great to have you with me.

f