Fiction

It was a day like any other, working undercover. Contrary to what most people imagine, it’s a boring routine. The ones who walk in off the street have a far more interesting job, day to day. They even hit a few different places a day. I’d already been here a few days, I just needed … Read more

Have you ever tried to buy al dente pasta? A colleague from catering and I once argued whether the story about a guy trying to buy “al dente pasta” was made up or real. I said it was real — not everyone spends their life cooking or knows kitchen terminology. Al dente literally means “to … Read more

The three most important gastronomic films of recent years—”Burnt,” “Boiling Point,” and “The Bear”—are culinary tales for and about the middle class, where all the chefs have Michelin stars and appropriately large amounts of money. The Swedish series “Restaurant” and the French film “Delicious” tell the story of the working class’s emancipation and two paths … Read more

On April 25th in Hamburg, at the age of 70, Klaus Barkowski, also known as “Beautiful Klaus,” the world’s most famous pimp, died, recently popularized by the Amazon Prime series “Luden.” Barkowski was one of the central figures of the Nutella Gang, which in the late 70s and 80s displaced the pimp gang GMBH from … Read more