Die Schwelle des Traumes

It seems like a total insult to write about food when you only have to see the newspaper headlines to feel a sadness in your heart about the situation in Japan. Two friends I had fallen out of contact with who live in Tokyo described the horror of seeing the buildings swaying around them last week. Unable to concentrate on daily life, they have retreated to the mountains for a few days. I feel terribly helpless but all we can do is give a little and continue to watch the nightmare unfolding, hoping it will end soon.

So no recipes but in the meantime, here are some pictures from last Sunday in Treptower Park when the water was calm and silvery grey. I have always had a fascination with water, the way it ebbs and flows like life itself, never returning to same place and yet at the same time it frightens me with its power and strong currents which threaten to drag me under. I managed to get up early to capture the silence and beauty of one of my favourite places when the day was so mild and I could sit outside to read Patti Smith. Peeking through some holes in the fence at the long abandoned Spreepark, the old East German amusement park, I glimpsed ticket kiosks with broken glass, rollercoasters left to rust, overgrown fairground attractions and trainlines going nowhere. Waking up early yesterday, I opened the window to breathe in the smell of damp grass and hear raindrops falling; had it all been just a dream?

Some of the attractions at the old Spreepark