|Langos| On December 13, I had officially gone three months without a haircut. I did this on purpose. You see, on previous visits to Deutschland, I witnessed many young and confident men enter into the arms of well-trained and well sought after Turkish barbers, only to emerge from the shops as neutered, docile slumps of…

|Schnitzel| Aside from weekends, Wednesday is easily the most crowded day at the Weihnachtsmarkt. The people need a hump-day jump, a midweek jolt of jollies to help them survive until Friday. I don’t blame them. The German work life looks, to this untrained eye, crippling on a psychological level. One might say they are a…

|Bratwurst (Weihnachts Edition)|  The truth of it all is that this could have easily been “14 Days of Bratwurst.” The varieties are innumerable at the Weihnachtsmarkt, and the taste is always something special. On Tuesday the 11th, after a day of class when one student said “I don’t even know what literature is anymore,” I…

|Schokokuss| The 10th was a simple day that called for a simple dessert. The end of the tiny rains seemed to finally arrive, and I wanted to try something maybe a little hidden, a little tucked away. Enter the Schokokuss, or “chocolate kiss.” These little treats are simply dollops of sweetened egg-white foam dipped in…

|Lumumba| It’s hot, it’s creamy, and it gets you where you need to go. No, I’m not talking about Tuna Helper. I’m talking about Lumumba, the strangely festive-titled drink that’s really just hot chocolate with a shot of rum in it. You drink Lumumba when you want the reminiscence of childhood but the aggressive intoxication…