In which Hamburg celebrates love.

Hamburg celebrated Christopher Street Day with a huge pride festival last weekend, perhaps more enthusiastically than usual due to the German government FINALLY approving marriage for everyone a few weeks ago: three days of rainbow flags, dancing in the streets, fashion stretching, glitter bombs, unicorns, surprisingly accommodating weather, and tens of thousands of people celebrating one another, celebrating themselves, celebrating love.

In which we row, row, row some boats.

T'was a most photogenic weekend. Saturday afternoon was spent exploring Hamburg's carless streets (see previous post); Sunday afternoon was spent -- somewhat spontaneously -- with a group of German and American Fbright alums exploring Hamburg's carless canals in canoes. I'd done this a couple times before, but not for a long time and, to put it simply: what a pleasure. The day was overcast, but the Alster was full of happy canoes, kayaks, stand-up paddlers, and steam boats. One highlight/delight was a canoe-thru café where you could ring a bell on the wall and order ice cream, coffee, cake, beer, whatever from the window above. Another delight: being reminded how much I love this city.

The weekend concluded pretty spectacularly with an intimate, wine-filled, donation-based, pop-up "living room" jazz concert in a newly opened, very grand Steinway piano repair shop about a 5-minute walk from my apartment. The adjectives go on. 

As the Germans would say, "I am a lucky mushroom".

In which spring, sprang, sprung.

Alle Jahre wieder... Hamburg was finally plagued with perfect weather this weekend, symptoms including sore feet from so much wandering, daffodil dizzies, warm sunglasses, massively increased ice cream consumption, evening sun lazing in through wide-open windows, a giant vat of pad thai and a plethora of soft and succulent ricotta lime cookies with toasted coconut. 

In which summer is more bountiful than beautiful.

Hamburg photo dump, summer/kitchen edition. Sure, we had some summer this year, but mostly in short, humid spurts interspersed with long periods of cool, gray rain. That was outside, however; in reality the summer just hung out in the kitchen all season long. But first: a couple field trips -- a friend worked on a wonderful organic/demeter farm on the outskirts of the city for several months and gave me a tour.

Good luck with weather on an evening stroll downtown, including feathery family happenings.

 

 
Another friend grows the most beautiful tomatoes in Hamburg and keeps me and my work colleagues well-stocked throughout the summer months. This means that there is a major sampling of tomato recipes while the time is ripe, such as this cheesy polenta tarte or my favorite savory tomato cobbler.

Naturally there were many, many berries and other seasonal fruits to pass through the Baumhaus, such as those displayed on this 4th of July cake, baked and styled by Jules on a historically hot day of 99°, and in plenty of other pies, cookies, muffins, and cakes.

Additionally, chocolate peanut butter brownies.

The sky put on a pretty nice show between storms, such as those skyskapes displayed here.

Step outside the kitchen, however, and we're back to this.