Rude Kitchen 
The Easter Menu is part of my project “The Ritual Year,” dedicated to food and culinary customs connected to the traditional ceremonial yearly cycle. Designing a Christmas Eve menu has been great fun for me for years. Christmas Eve is a fasting meal, and a properly strict one, at least in the most orthodox version—meaning … Read more
Who’s tempted? What would you say to a delicacy like this? An exclusive, high-quality, and very expensive chocolate. With a distinct moldy note. And no, it’s not about some new product using camembert mold in chocolate. It’s about the latest hype in the food world — Dubai chocolate, which, in practice, turns out to be more moldy … Read more
Easter breakfast — or Easter in general — in Polish tradition is a grand, fatty feast that clogs the arteries and makes the liver weep. This is somewhat understandable and rooted in historical context. Easter comes after Lent, winter, and the early spring hunger gap, when, even just a hundred years ago, there wasn’t much food to eat. Today, we no … Read more
For six years, I have been living in a “monastery.” Before that, I had many adventures in life, including romantic ones. And not that I’m an expert—my specialty was toxic relationships and emotions—but there’s one piece of advice I can give you, gentlemen: Cooking and serving a good dinner for a woman is very sexy. … Read more
One of the most important Christmas Eve dishes of my childhood, a dish never made at any other time, was “kutia”. For some, it’s noodles with poppy seeds. In Silesia, there’s moczka, there’s siemieniotka. A sweet dish with nuts, raisins, honey, and sometimes alcohol (a good kutia needs a touch of brandy) is a legacy … Read more
This soup has a bit of an Advent feel — it’s something quick, made with what’s on hand and what you know you won’t use otherwise. For example, I didn’t end up using the sweet potato for a salad. I originally bought it with soup in mind, but I also had leftover kaffir lime leaves and yuba. … Read more
Kemm’s Kuchen, also known as Hamburg gingerbread, is a traditional Christmas cookie from the heart of Hamburg. Its history dates back nearly 250 years. In 1782, master baker Johann Georg Kemm baked his first brown Christmas cookies on Lange Reihe in St. George, in central Hamburg. photo author St. George is a district in the … Read more
The beginning of December marks the season of Weinachtsmarkt across Germany, which starts at the end of November. In Hamburg, there are dozens of them. The largest one is in front of the town hall. Many, like the one in the picture, are simpler setups. Along a street or in a square, you’ll … Read more
For the past few weeks, when the guests leave and I finish a thorough cleaning — together with, or rather first of all washing the extractor hood, something no one likes to do — I’ve been working on a collection of recipes, my interpretation of Christmas Eve cuisine, mainly Polish. Pro Tip: This is precisely the problem — since no one … Read more
Gryfny Shalad for Advent. That’s about the extent of my Silesian, which is barely better than my German. These languages are very much relevant here because *Hekele* is a Silesian Advent salad, sometimes also served on Christmas Eve. And Silesia is one of the most fascinating corners of Europe. Situated between Poland, the Czech Republic, … Read more
