mobile minds archive

Saturday, December 26, 2015

happy 2016 and a quick review of gaumenperlen 2015

First of all: I wish you a very happy, sunny, joyful, healthy, exciting and tasty news year 2016!
Let´s start with a quick review of the year 2015 : It was really a very wild one – for gaumenperlen as well as for mobile minds and me:-)
Reviewing all the pictures a lot of scenes came back vividly to my mind and I smiled as well as being glad, that some thigs are really over.

The year started with a fantastic trip to Genova, where all the orange tress were already carrying fruits! It was like a direct jump form winter into summer. I remember a very nice party and my walks at the seaside, the water drops of the spray in my face. These short days were one of the most beautiful eperiences of the year 2015.
Afterwards in March I had a wonderful birthdayparty at www.briefmarkenweine.de – big thanks again to Alessandro and Nicola for hosting this event with so much care, attention and love!
Briefmarkenweine is still the best winebar in town and my absolute favourite. There are always new and rare wines to discover, and the two are the greatest hosts!!!!:-), have a wonderful team, and marvellous anti-pasti. I hope they will be here forever!
Then there were a lot of professional u-turns in early summer, not easy to handle but in the end everything worked out, and I am really greatful for that. That was why the gaumenperlen summer production did not really happen, except for a few private gems: One new chutney out of grapes, barberries and dill, and in autumn a fantastic chocolate plum cream - best to eat with homemade vanilla icecream.
Vanilla icecream ist the keyword for the next chapter: I still remember the superhot weeks in summer, when it was nearly impossible to move, the city was completely overheated. People acted slowly and sometimes a bit crazy:-). I still remember a great garden dinner evening in the coolness of the lounge at rummelsburg at a friends´house. I discovered two new favourites during that hot period:One at the cafe aroma in Schöneberg - they call it maumau. It is a light cocktail, very simple and it tastes so refreshing and bracing. And one at a street cafe in Prenlauer Berg, it is called "affogato al caffe".

How to prepare Maumau

Cut a pealed fresh ginger peace in very tiny slices. Put them in a glas with a few fresh menta leaves and round about 2cl homemade Limoncello. Then pound it slightly. Put ice cubes on it and fill it up with an extra brut Prosecco or Champagne. Marvellous summer stuff!
Since I did not like the Limoncellos I tried – they all taste so artificial and remind me more of american chewing gums than of fres lemon – I satrted to make Limoncello on my own. The result of thsi period were two extraordinary Fruit Liquors: A Limoncello and an Orancello – some technique, but made out of Oranges. Unfortuneately the whole production has already left my kitchen: one part for presents and the other part for all the dinner drinks @ palais gaumenperlen during the summer dinners.

Let´s move on to my second favourite summer rediscovery: affogato al caffe. A fine italian Espresso with a little bowl of vanilla ice cream. This little sweet thing will stay on my alltime favourites list forever. Super simple and very fine taste. But be careful: The espresso really has to be of high quality and really hot and the vanilla ice cream should also be not too sweet – best way: homemade:-)

At the end of the hot summer I started my trip over Munich to Switzerland for a fantastic holiday with my very dear friends. Back to Berlin I already planned the second trip to Switzerland for their wonderful wedding party at the Albula Garden Ressort - I was so happy for them that they got amrried after 15 years:-) Unbelievable nice event, so many nice people, top food and wine and sunshine the whole day as well as one of the last hot summer nights. Will never forget that party.
Autum started softly and turned into a wild final period of the year. Had a lot of very nice and dear visitors here in Berlin, went to the RAW wine fair with my favourite private Sommelier:-) and met a lot of interesting new people. There were so many marvellous moments in the last two month, a lot of them to private to talk about, but they were so sweet and turned this wild year into a soft and sweet one in the end.
All the best for 2016 for you!! Thank´s for being my friends, guests and partners!

dolce vita ahoi! 
monika ebert • mobile minds





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gaumenperlen - a label by mobile minds, monika ebert::: gaumenperlen is a diary about affairs of the heart. I´m addicted to delicious food, unique and extraordinary places as well as valuable things, fine arts, design, music, tango argentino and interesting people. The focus of this diary is food. Delicious food is much more than nutrition, health or prestige. it is the basis of your body& soul, it is at the core of your way to think, to live and act, it is your attitude towards nature. For me cooking is a wild, joyful, creative process with the objective to share the result in the end. This process is surrounded by a bunch of exciting encounters - nevertheless where I am:: at the markets, talking to producers, at the book stores, in restaurants, in my kitchen. That´s why I love cooking and travelling.