Quicker than quick chocolate cake for one

I found myself in a bit of a pickle just now. I had an unstoppable sweet craving, but nothing readymade in the cupboards, and I wasn't keen on waiting a whole hour while an actual cake was baking. So I made this mug cake. I used the last of my Valrhona cocoa powder and some awesome Callebaut Belgian chocolate chips. The result tasted sweet and light like Kinderchocolade. 

No picture today, I bet you know exactly what it will look like anyway. If not, just Google 'chocolate mug cake'.

3 tbsp plain flour
2 tbsp demerara sugar
5 tsp cocoa powder
1/4 tsp baking powder
1 tbsp rapeseed oil
1/4 tsp vanilla extract
3 tbsp milk
small handful chocolate chips

Mix the flour, sugar, cocoa and baking powder with a fork in a decent size mug. Pur in the oil, vanilla extract and milk and stir. Drop in the chocolate nibs, leaving them sort of floating on top. Microwave 40 seconds on 800 Watt. 

Eat. 

Truly, madly, pop up crazy

We love pop up, we love street food, we love moveable feasts. Paying an entrance fee to be allowed to eat someplace doesn’t seem to be a problem, nor does queueing up, canteen-stylie, to get your fare. Have we lost our minds?

All over Europe, they’ve popped up like crazy this summer. Once the sad little side show at music festivals and fun fairs, they have become the main attraction themselves. The food truck is pushing the restaurant out of the picture. 

The pop up aspect of these kitchens-on-wheels is what seems to appeal most of all. They are there when you are there, just when you need them most. In theory. Because in practice, it’s you traveling to the food festival which often involves a bigger trek than popping into your local café. On your doorstep they are not.

The chefs in these food trucks, on food bikes or even in vintage little caravans have to work under less than ideal circumstances. A small kitchen, a limited amount of gear and the work pressures of your average maccie D’s. It’s like asking a window washer to do without a ladder, an artist without a studio or a butcher without a block. It’s doable, sure, but you can’t really expect them to work miracles, can you? So how come that curry, kept warm for hours on end, is so expensive?

I can hear you thinking: but I love that there’s so much so choose from! And indeed, when you take the whole of the festival and see it as one big happy restaurant, the wide choice is certainly a bonus. You’ll have to queue up for each singular item separately, though, to collect your full meal. Plus once for the wine. Your food will get cold, you have to squat because all the chairs are taken and, to add insult to injury, you have to tidy up your own mess. Value for money? I beg to differ.

Yet, there I go, running excitedly towards the next food festival. Have I lost my mind?

Eat a lot (not): Bretzel Company, Neukölln

I like writing about things I like, but unfortunately this bretzel at the Bretzel Company wasn't one of them. After having been taught the German art of bretzel loving by a huge bellied psychiatrist in Bavaria, I had high hopes for this place. Was this going to be the best bretzel experience to be had in Berlin? 
 
But come 4pm on a Thursday afernoon, what was supposed to be a fresh bretzel made 'the old artisan way' was dry, sawdusty and pretty horrible. Shame, shame shame ... shame on Bretzel Company.

Bretzel Company, Lenaustrasse 10, 12047 Berlin, website