Social Balance, Fried Potatoes, and the Last Four Pastéis de Nata

Ralf begins with Germany out of the World Cup, wanders through winter soups, anniversary disappointment, hedgehog restaurant rules, cold espresso, Portuguese warmth, and arrives back at football with one dangerous but useful thought: maybe social balance is not only about people. Maybe it is also about how we play, cook, serve, listen, and live.

A Green Shirt on a Mourning Day

The Mayor opened the digital newspaper in the morning and saw the headline: Uruguay had thrown Germany out of the World Cup.

So, of course, the first question was clear.

Why was I wearing green and not black?

Why was I not in Tiefe Trauer, deep mourning, for the German football team?

I said, because this World Cup, these games, they are not my games. I have a heart in my body that likes football, yes, but not this. I like football in the German league. I like HSV. I can watch this. It is not perfect, of course. Maybe it is only a little bit corrupt, but I can still feel something there.

But the big football world, for me, is different. I said to The Mayor that Infantino is, for me, the big corrupt man. The Mayor helped me with the word. Corrupt. I said, yes, corrupt. And before him there was Blatter, also not good, but I had the feeling it did not become better. It became worse.

And I also do not like that the World Cup goes to a land where nobody has a heart for football. For soccer in this meaning. I know, this is my feeling, but I don’t like it.

My wife had a betting community with friends. They give their predictions. I said, no, I don’t like it. They said, you must say something. Okay, I said. Ten to zero.

That was my protest.

Football, but the Wrong Way Around

In many houses, the man watches football and the wife suffers.

In our house, it is a little bit the opposite.

My wife likes the German team. She also likes HSV, but she likes the German team. I cook, and I am not so interested in the World Cup. So The Mayor said, now my wife will be sad, because the motivation to watch football is lower. Therefore I must cook her favourite meal, maybe three times this week.

The problem is: her favourite meal is not for summer.

She likes everything from chicken. Pollo fino, drumsticks, all these things. But one of her real favourite meals is Steckrübeneintopf, turnip stew. And now it is too hot for that. You cannot rescue your wife with turnip stew when the sun is hot.

What Social Balance Looks Like

Then The Mayor changed the topic.

He asked me, when I hear the words social balance, what is the first real-life picture that comes into my head?

A restaurant table? My kitchen? The garden? Friends? My wife? Or maybe a hedgehog walking like he owns the place?

For me, the answer was simple.

My wife. Our evening coffee. Talking about the day.

And friends. Very important. To sit together with friends and talk.

And cooking is social balance too. Cooking is a short holiday at the oven. Not on the oven, because that is maybe too hot, as The Mayor said. But at the oven, yes.

When I cook, it is not only food. It is people. It is time. It is smell, taste, talking, laughing, and asking, “What do you do there?” This is social balance for me.

The Castle Cellar That Was Not a Highlight

Recently my wife and I went out for our wedding anniversary. The restaurant looked very nice. It had a beautiful destination, a nice place, a castle feeling. The first owner had special recipes, and every time we had a nice day in our life, like a birthday or our married day, we went there.

Now there is a new owner. The restaurant is called Genusswerk im Schlosskeller. In my brain, this name says special cooking. Nice cooking. Enjoyment in a castle cellar.

But it was all, only not special.

It was okay. You can eat it. But it was not a highlight.

The first disappointment came with the menu. I looked at it and I did not know what I wanted to eat, because there was nothing I really liked. This was the first time in my life I had this feeling.

The place still looked beautiful, but this beauty came from the old owner. The new owner had the destination, but not the feeling.

For a starter there was only soup or fried potatoes with remoulade. It was hot outside, so I thought, okay, we take the fried potatoes. But when they came, they smelled like fish. Like onion rings, like calamari rings, like something from the beach with remoulade. On the beach this is okay. In this mega destination, no.

The potatoes had a feeling like rubber in the mouth. In Germany I call this Panade nichts Panade. Breadcrumbs, nothing, breadcrumbs. You think you are eating something, but it is not really something.

My wife had a burger. It looked nice, and she said it was very good for a burger. But I do not go to this kind of place to eat a burger. I want half a duck, or a special cut of beef, or something special.

I ordered something like Ratsherrentopf. Normally this is with pork fillet and beef fillet. But there came schnitzel. I know pork schnitzel. I know chicken schnitzel. But beef schnitzel? I had never eaten in my life a Rinderschnitzel. I did not even know this existed.

Then came the bill.

One hundred euros.

For nothing.

I said, no. You can eat this for half the cost in a normal restaurant. If you go to a diner or a burger restaurant and pay fifty or sixty euros, okay. But not one hundred euros for this.

We drank two espressos. They were cold.

For me, this was the end of this action.

Hans Peter and the Beer Afterward

After this restaurant experience, we went for a drink. My wife was driving, because I was drinking. We went to Hans Peter.

Hans Peter is a man who does not need very much money. This is important. He knows his people.

At nine o’clock a tourist came and shouted that he needed a fish roll. A Fischbrötchen. He shouted again. “Hey! I need a fish in a roll!”

Hans Peter said, no, the kitchen is closed.

The man shouted again. Hans Peter said, “No, I can’t hear him.”

Then the tourist left and called him an idiot.

This is sometimes what happens with tourists. They come and think everyone must do everything for them. But Hans Peter had been standing there since eight o’clock in the morning. He was open in that moment only because we were there. Because we come also in wintertime, not only when the sun is shining and everyone wants something.

At ten o’clock Hans Peter said, “Last order, and then I drive home with my bicycle.”

We ordered some drinks. At half past ten he said, “Now I’m driving home.” Somebody said, “Hans Peter, I forgot to order a drink.” He opened again.

At eleven he said, “No, no, now I’m driving home.” And he left us sitting there in his garden with our glasses.

He said, leave the glasses, leave everything. I come in the morning and clear it.

That was fantastic. That was social balance. Not perfect service, but trust. Not a castle cellar, but warmth. Not one hundred euros for a cold espresso, but a special beer from Schleswig-Holstein, Dithmarscher Naturtrüb, very, very good, and a man who knows who you are.

Why Cooking at Home Is Different

The Mayor asked me the difference between cooking at home and being fed in a restaurant.

For me, the problem is convenience food. I don’t like ready-made sauces. Many restaurants use convenience food. They put something in a plastic bag, into the microwave, bing, and the soup is ready.

At home, I want live cooking.

Not always in our inside kitchen, because if everybody sits in the winter garden and I stand in the kitchen, this is not live cooking. Then I am separated. But in my outside kitchen, it is different. People can stand near me. They can look. They can ask me what I am doing there.

I can make barbecue. I have barbecue machines where you can cook on them. People can come outside from the winter garden and be with me in the outdoor kitchen.

This is better than in a restaurant.

And here is the funny anecdote: the Genusswerk was looking for help in the kitchen, or people who have cooking as a hobby. I said to my wife, I have so many ideas to make everything here better. But I am not the chief.

I said to her, I could maybe make the food there better if I only offered one noodle dish with a special noodle sauce from me.

Maybe that is arrogant. Maybe not. But when you love cooking, you cannot sit in a restaurant with cold espresso and rubber potatoes and not think things.

The Hedgehog Restaurant

Then, because Brida cannot stay serious for too long, The Mayor brought in the hedgehogs.

We have five hedgehogs in the garden. He asked me what they would say humans do wrong with social balance.

I think they would say: humans drink too much, eat too much, and work too hard.

Because when we are working, the hedgehogs are sleeping. And when the temperature goes down, they stand up and say, okay, now we drink a little water, eat some special hedgehog food, and live our life.

Then The Mayor asked what would happen if a hedgehog opened a restaurant for humans.

The menu would be special. Grilled mealworms. Soup from the special food. Hedgehog brekkies for humans, because the hedgehog thinks, if it is good for hedgehogs, it is good for people.

The house rule would be: the restaurant opens at ten o’clock in the evening and stays open until six in the morning. An all-night diner.

But there is one problem. Where hedgehogs eat, they also make their business outside. I don’t like it.

This reminded me of my father. On Sundays, when my mother had cooked, my father said, “Now you can make a break, and the children and I clean the kitchen.” My sister always said, “Papa, Papa, I must go to the toilet!” And my father said, “No, you are leaving here, not to the toilet.”

He had a German saying from table to toilet. Vom Tisch auf den Mist. And this is the same with hedgehogs. In the front they are eating, and in the back it comes out.

Social balance, yes. But also house rules.

Eating Without Talking Is Not for Me

The Mayor told me about the Italian detective Montalbano, who likes food and has one rule: when he eats, he does not want to talk.

I cannot understand this.

When you are eating, you have a nice moment in your life. You talk about the meal, the recipe, the smell, the taste. You say, “Oh, it is fine,” or “It is a little spicy,” or “It is a little salty.” You talk about the day, about life, with friends or with a good business partner.

For me, this is a good meal. Not only the food. The talking too.

The Mayor also told me about a monastery where breakfast was in absolute silence. The idea was that, if you do not talk, you focus on the food, and maybe also on the people in the kitchen who prepared it.

I understand the idea, but for me it is not normal.

If I eat a bad meal and cannot talk about it, I become crazy. I am not introverted. I am extroverted. I must talk over this. I must speak with my partner about the meal.

And sometimes, if I say this is a bad meal and five other people say it is a fine meal, then I must think. Maybe I am not normal. Maybe my feeling is different. Or maybe the five people are different.

But I still must talk.

Adriana and the Last Four Pastéis

This is why the Portuguese restaurant is different.

At the castle cellar, the main person stands in the kitchen. You can see him, but he does not really come to you.

At the Portuguese restaurant, Adriana comes out. She is in service, and she comes to you and says, “Hey, what is your life? What do you make?” She talks.

Now I have longer hair, and she said, “Oh, that is not normal for a man, but my man has long hair too.” Then she called him out from the kitchen, and we talked about hair and rings to put it back.

This is very fine.

When we come inside, Adriana knows what we like. Land and sea. Maybe the bestseller. She knows that after lunch we want coffee and pastéis de nata.

One time she said, “I have only four pieces. Do you like them after this?” Yes, yes, yes. And she reserved them for us.

Later the people cleaning the dishes came to us and said, “There are two. Is this for you?” And we said, yes, and we need two espresso. Or in Portuguese, only coffee.

This is not normal in the technical sense. It is better than normal. They know what we need. They remember. They share life with us.

That is social balance.

Back to the World Cup

At the end, The Mayor came back to football.

He said, very carefully, maybe one reason Germany went out of the World Cup is that football is sometimes seen too technically. Too structured. You must do this, you must do that. Maybe there is not enough soul in the game.

It is a dangerous comparison, and we both knew that.

But maybe it is one way to look at it.

The castle restaurant had the technical shape of enjoyment. A beautiful place, a strong name, a concept, a menu, a bill. But not enough soul.

The Portuguese restaurant had Adriana. Hair, coffee, pastéis de nata, remembering what people like, talking like life is allowed inside the room.

Maybe Germany, in some moments, lives for working. And maybe Mediterranean people, in some moments, work for living.

This is not true for everybody. I know many people in Germany who have Mediterranean thinking. And of course, if you are a chef in a kitchen, then work is work everywhere.

But for my life, I think it is better to think a little more Mediterranean and not only German.

Even in northern Germany, where the wind is not always warm, you can have a good time with the right constellation of people.

Maybe the place is not perfect. Maybe the architecture is ugly. Maybe the weather is bad. But if your friends are there, it is home.

And maybe that is the real social balance.

Not the perfect system.

The right people.

The warm coffee.

The last four pastéis.

And sometimes, after Germany is out of the World Cup, not a black shirt, but a green one.