Having dinner at KaDeWe in Berlin

Vielen Dank übrigens an Rolf, der mich als Gast hier bei Berlin Urban Sketchers posten lässt. Ich bin in Deutschland aufgewachsen, aber als Teenager mit meinen Eltern nach Kanada ausgewandert und lebe seit 30 Jahren dort, die meiste Zeit davon in Vancouver. Ich werde auf Englisch schreiben, kann aber gerne ins Deutsche überwechseln, wenn nötig.

The 6th floor of the KaDeWe („Kaufhaus des Westens“, a high-end department store comparable to Harrods in London in terms of acclaim it has in Germany) is the fine foods department. Just like Harrods, it boasts an amazing display of cheeses and meats from all over Germany and Europe, pastries, sweets and many exotic specialty foods. For example, you can choose from many meat counters, each specializing in its own regional meats and sausages: Westphalian or Thuringian or Swiss or Tyrolean or Austrian or Italian or French etc.

People walk around here with a strange gleam in their eyes since looking at amazing foods just does something to the brain and the appetite. It’s the same gleam you see at any buffet, where I’ve often thought I could detect a glimpse of aggression, an urge to physically fight for the food. Our natural impulse is to grab as much as possible when we see such abundance. Surely the threat of starvation is still a very active part of our dinosaur brain, so I think this is all perfectly normal.

The 6th floor is also dotted with various food bars. In case you get hungry while shopping here (very likely), you can have seafood or grilled meats or soups or pastries. It was dinnertime when I got there, so I was ready to sample. I was not willing to spend Euro 30 at the grill bar, but sat down at the „Kartoffelacker“ bar, which means „potato field“ and had a plate of scalloped potatos with „Steinpilze“ (porcini mushrooms) baked with a delicious cheese. It was Euro 10 and so filling I couldn’t even eat all of it. I highly recommend it.

I added the dark wash later at home and sprinkled salt on it to simulate the texture of the black marble counter. I tried to create a bit of perspective with the salt by sprinkling it closer together in the distance and more sparse in the front. Fun fun.