We spent the week in Jockgrim, Germany, under my fiancé’s great-aunt Margit’s roof. Every morning, before we woke, Margit bicycled to a local bakery, curating a selection of the region’s rolls for me to try, because she knew I loved food. And every morning, a stainless-steel carafe of fresh black coffee awaited and awoke me. She would then prepare an elaborate breakfast featuring a selection of those breads, complete with cold cuts, cheeses, fruits, salads, butter, jam and tea, all laid out on a long wooden dining table by the kitchen.
Later in the evenings, we would meet up with Margit and her husband, Bertold, for a nightcap as they were winding down on the porch, glasses of Pfalz wine in hand, doors and windows of their 40-year-old house ajar. Built to their personal specifications, Margit and Bertold’s house breathed.
Recipe: Sizzled Bratwurst With Mashed Potatoes
In that house, I learned what “German bread” meant, and for the first time in four years began to understand why my fiancé eats so much bread. It’s his white rice. I also picked up other things: how to optimize a home in relation to its environment, how to document a life through photos and maps, how to buy only what you can eat (and grow the rest), how to take bratwurst from frozen to lunch in under 30 minutes and how that could make someone from far away feel close to home.
Bratwurst, spiced and savory sausages, are a popular street or festival food in Germany, especially in Bavaria, in which case they might be served with bread rolls called brötchen or semmel. But served at home, they are a juicy secret weapon for busy workdays. Cut them into little chunks and cook them like aromatic meatballs in a tomato sauce, as Luisa Weiss, the author of “Classic German Cooking,” does when she’s feeling pressed for dinner time. A standard cookout or canteen lunch, she told me, bratwurst can be pan-fried or grilled, commonly accompanied by mashed potatoes, sauerkraut and hot German mustard, all of which help to balance the rich deliciousness of the fatty sausages.
A juicy secret weapon for busy workdays.
The seemingly simple techniques in this recipe, inspired by one particular lunch Margit prepared for us, are useful kitchen lessons pulled straight from proper German home cooking: whipping the potatoes with an electric mixer and seasoning them lightly with salt, butter and nutmeg; adjusting the heat for multiple types of cooking in the same skillet; simmering the sausages in water to plump them up first, before evaporating that water and then searing the outsides in the bratwurst’s own rendered fat. Wash this hearty and nourishing dish down with a cold beer poured into a tall glass.
We were committed to one last nightcap with Margit before leaving Germany. Laid out on the dining table, under the spotlight of a ceiling lamp, were photo albums and wineglasses. Margit brought out ice-cream sandwiches in the end but didn’t make a big deal about it. What would she do with a freezer full of ice cream? she asked, sipping her lager.
In the morning, when we said goodbye to our host in the rush of the dark (we had a bus to catch), I thought I might have seen some tears, and regretted not being able to find the words then to tell her how much that week meant to me.
When we got back to New York, our lease was up. So we packed up our things and moved apartments. It took a few weeks, but eventually I started to recognize the new building’s most German qualities. Living in it felt like living in a big treehouse in the woods. You could hear the birds chirping and the rain pitter-pattering on the sidewalk. Dogs barking and frogs croaking, the sounds of life on Earth.
The kitchen of this 95-year-old brownstone is, like Margit’s kitchen, in the Frankfurt style, meaning it’s small but efficient. You can reach everything from everywhere, get a hard sear when you need to and a gentle simmer when you want to. I think of Margit often, whenever I put away a wineglass or take out meat to thaw. As I move about my kitchen practice, I keep saying to my fiancé: This is what Margit would do. Then I do it.
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