Todays topic is especially reaching out to Big City residents who left their childhood places in hope for….,yeah for what exactly ?

Though the German word “Heimat” finds no translation, the feeling is Universal

Often people living in big Cities tend to come from far away. They left their “Heimat” (homeland) in order to realize a dream, and so did I.
Though the German word “Heimat” finds no translation, the feeling is Universal.
The need for it loomes the closer you are and you miss it the most while living in the distance.
One refers to it as a place, the others refer to it as a feeling, a vanishing memory of ones roots.
No matter what the word might be translated into, it yet has a common meaning in all of us.
The only thing that differs: one cannot be sure about if home is only a place or an individual memory, the smell of your Mamas food or your inner circle of people you were surrounded by, while starting your once so innocent life. You can find home in an attitude, for example the conservative paradigm your grandparents gave you, such as it can be the Hippie spirit of your elder siblings.
Heimat can be the whole country or it can be only one friend.
Or is the word “Heimat” only a cliché that helps us to define ourselves ?

It can be the small Village up to the North, the farmhouse on the countryside, big houses, small appartments, a project building, the bourgeois Wilheminian style. It can be a Trailorpark or a tent.
A social background that forms your empathy and beliefs. It can be the desert, or a wood, but wherever one might be born into, it is meant to be our headquarter of familiarity.

Home is an afterglow of safe and sound childhood memories and rebellious teenage years.
Even people who consider them self not having good childhood memories, yet had their spiritual home in times of grief. At least you will always find the most secure shelter in your inner truth and if its up to me, also accompanied with a good German beer.
When I was a child in my lower Saxony provincial Town, I always used to chill on my terrace and dreamt of the life in the big illuminated Bradshaw City.

From Braunschweig to Bradshaw
I fulfilled my childhood dream and I made from Braunschweig to Berlin and inbetween years, I also made it to „Bradshaw“.
By the time living in New York, I had intense 5 minute conversations with people in a Coffeshop or even on the subway. I was able to lose my “German” honesty and suddenly I loved the superficial small talk world. Life was like an elevator pitch for a while. Know yourself pitch yourself.
Result: We are able to go through every kind of challenge as long as we know Ourselves by then.
Thank goddess I had my terrace and no Internet, by the time I was an adolescent, plus time enough to visualize what options would wait outside if I would get there.

Home is the place where one knows oneself best; it is where one belongs, it is in oneself.
So let us continue to fulfill our childhood dreams and we easily carry our home wherever life might take us in the future.
I chose to leave my hometown 13 years ago. I still find my favorite beer every once in a while in my fridge and I see myself surrounded by mostly the same people I started my lifetime journey with: Grandmas attitude, Hippie Siblings, Mamas food, reliable Homegirls and Homeboys….and so on.
They are mostly next door or next to ones heart.

Go offline, call them! Happy end.

Der Beitrag „Heimat“ erschien zuerst auf Urban Appetizer.

Today I want to introduce you to an event that puts a lot of love and effort in preserving this culinary identity, called My Mother’s Recipe.
It is a Sunday afternoon potluck, based in New York, established by The CareGivers’ Project which brings together older people who live in their own homes, independent and assisted living and nursing homes and their caregivers. The purpose of My Mother’s Recipe is to celebrate the bond between caregivers and caretakers by sharing a home-cooked dish and recipe, which has been handed down from an earlier generation with other care pairs in their community. It is open to fathers, sisters, caregiving neighbors and past caregivers who all have stories to share. This past spring, I had the chance to spend one afternoon in a beautiful retirement home in Yonkers, just north of the Bronx, where the event took place.  I love old people and the stories they have to tell, that’s why this afternoon, which was far away from all the „cool“ and „hip“ stuff was one of my favorite days, while living in New York City.

The „Riverdale-Residence Girls“ at „My Mother´s Recipe“ buffet Spring 2014

I was happy to see also younger generations taking part in this event, since we are the caregivers of tomorrow. All together celebrating generations of comfort food and “back in the day” stories related to their family members and the roots of the meals they brought.

The background
The CareGivers‘ Project was incorporated in 2012 by the creative spare time synergy of my friend Jomarie Zeleznik, Mary Ellen DeVito and Michael E. Berry all of whom drew inspiration from caring for parents. To be a caregiver is a choice you can make. A classic definition would be: „A person who provides direct care as for children, elderly people, or the chronically ill“. The website of The CareGivers’ Project published individual comments stated by a variety of people reflecting on the term „caregiver“, showing that the perception is very different in our society. Read more about the mission of the project in general here.

My personal ingredients 

I do sometimes miss the other perspective of the elderly in my very urban environment having grown up in a small town in a three generation household, which was very usual in the 80s. Living in the „Big City“ I feel, that there is a strong need for keeping up the exchange between the different generations. Well, we all know the demographic change is very obvious. People are moving to the cities and we are all getting older. Its all super obvious, but still we so often forget. I think culinary journeys are a very good occasion to connect with older people.
My grandmother passed when I was only 12 years old and ever since, I miss her and the incredible food she made. Preserving that memory, I decided to bring a special potato salad to My Mother´s Recipe that strongly reminded me of her. The funny thing about this meal was,that she actually never made it for me, but I made it for a family event once, because I found the recipe somewhere. When my mother first tried it, she said that’s exactly the taste of her childhood, because my grandma used to do it in the same way in earlier years. In the end I was so super glad to share this taste of my family far away from my German home with elder New York ladies at this cozy suburb afternoon. It somehow gave me the feeling that I took my grandma with me that day.

My Grandmother

Grandma & me in 1983

If you are wondering why I don´t post any recipes in this article at all, Donna Jacobson one of the contributors, has a pretty good answer in her own story to this. Whenever people asked her about her mother´s recipe, she says:

”… usually, there was no recipe. It was a little of this, a lot of the other and cook until it tastes right. Occasionally, our mothers would trade family recipes, but most often, they were a guarded secret, revealed only to family members. „

Enjoy Donna´s complete beautiful story about food and family set growing up in the Bronx:

FOOD FOR MY SENSES

and 

MY FATHER´S MEATBALLS by Mary Ellen DeVito

These two beautiful stories that were told at the last event. Maybe make you´ll be inspired what´s next on the menu. Even if, for whatever reason, we don´t find any recipes or can´t talk to family members any more, the memory of the taste is in our DNA and we all should preserve this family treasure!

Bon Appetite!

Photo by Kristen Llobrera pixelatedcrumb.com

The next MY Mother´s Recipe,
Sunday October 19, 2014 12:30-3:00 PM

Hosted at The Riverside Rehab and Healing Center

Official Website
The CareGivers ´Project on Facebook

Der Beitrag The taste of childhood …or how I took my Grandma to NYC erschien zuerst auf Urban Appetizer.

The US VOGUE´s September Issue is traditionally the most important and biggest issue of the year. Lately it has been Fashion week in New York City and September has arrived. These facts should be reason enough to put the spotlight on the worlds most famous Fashion Magazine and its notorious Britain editor in chief: Miss Anna Wintour. I somehow like Anna, especially, because she is one of a kind and obviously a strong character.

Vogue/Youtube

By the way, the Fashionistas all over the world discuss the recent VOGUE Cover as being unconventional, since the September issue usually uses celebrities on the front page tending to score major sales of the Magazine and the brands featured in it. This year (OMG!!) a revolution has taken place:  it is just Models on the Cover, no Sarah Jessica Parker or Victoria Beckham! Only Models, who are famous on Instagram Celebrities.Yes, I know, this is not highly political, but since it’s Sunday and autumn comes and we are all laid back, still worth mentioning. I like these sometimes unexpected decisions Wintour makes, the only thing I´ve always contradicted with is, that she supports the fur industry that is still booming. Designers incorporate small amounts of fur into a wider array of garments, making it more affordable and therefore also attractive for younger generations. Nowadays still you´ll find a lot of fur features in Top Magazines such as Vogue. This influential Magazine should not only revolt with “unconventional” Covers, I think it´s about time to think over giving the alternative fake fur industry more credit in the future. Kids stop wearing fur, bake some funny Sunday cookies instead and relax your mind ! Now you should find the right recipe in the Magazine.

Photo:

Eric Boman, Vogue, September 2014

Photo:

Mario Testino/Vogue

Der Beitrag The September Issue… or what cooking with Marihuana and Anna Wintour have in common erschien zuerst auf Urban Appetizer.

Hamburg City was always on of my big Loves in the German Landscape. The new collective space FORMSCHOEN is very good reason to put this northern light once more on the map. The Hamburg based Fashion Designer Sarah Bürger founded a very beautiful space for building up a new creative concept with main focus on the fashion manufacturing industry.

Photo Credit: Bilal Jan Harcsa

The FORMSCHOEN as a collective co-working space is all about bringing designers and people working in the industry together. In the end it results all into a symbiosis of creative people enriching each other in their working process. A photographer, for example, needs the clothes for his/her production, whereas the fashion designer depends on the photographer to put every dress in the right spotted scenario. All people involved in such productions, also graphic designers or filmmakers, find at FORMSCHOENS a spacious platform to work together.The 210 square meter fabric building provides working space with lots of light, high ceilings and communal areas.

Fashion from Hamburg is created here!

The Facilities are equipped with industrial sewing machines and iron facilities, as well as two large cutting tables. If you want to use them you can benefit from one of three flat rates and thus flexible working on own projects, you are involved in a community. The team of FORMSCHOEN consist out of young designers next to fashion lecturers and amateur sewers. The exchange and networking between these passionate people is a great asset for this concept and often gives constructive exchanging feedback.

Photo Credit: Kerstin Lakeberg  

„Space is the place“ and wherever there is much room ideas can emerge. Here is light and space, 7m high ceilings and turn of the century architecture are contributing to its special charm. The space can also be used for events or workshops. Last but not least FORMSCHOEN also offers a Co-Working Office space with a nice view.The shared-office sector has seen growth in recent years and that swell is only going to continue once more in this beautiful surrounding of young creatives in Hamburg.

More about the rental conditions: info@dasformschoen.de

Special Tip!: Workshop “5 pieces in 5 days”, September 23,

6:30 – 9:30 pm

Learn how to sew your own wardrobe, 5 pieces in 5 sessions

With professional guiding assistance

You can use the industrial sewers or can bring your own machine.

Instructors: Sarah Bürger, Henriette Dittmer

€ 135 // Please register at workshops@dasformschoen.de

MORE WORKSHOPS:

http://dasformschoen.de/events/

www.dasformschoen.de

https://www.facebook.com/formschoen.raumfuerdesign

Wartenau 16, 22089 Hamburg, Germany, +49-40 84892499

Der Beitrag Space is the Place // New Co-Work Space for Fashion Industry in Hamburg erschien zuerst auf Urban Appetizer.

The concept ORIGINAL UNVERPACKT (“ORIGINAL UNWRAPPED”) ties in with the old “Tante Emma Corner Store” from another Century and is yet the most modern approach for sustainable contemporary consumer behavior. – We live in a throwaway- society: Each cucumber is wrapped in plastic,eventhough it is already wrapped by nature, every tea bag has its own paper sleeve, the yogurt is filled into small cup and chocolate candies are wrapped in two layers of packaging. Additionally you pay another amount of money for plastic bags which are mostly not useful for a second time grocery shopping. So is the nowadays reality in supermarkets in the Western Society.

Source: kubusmedia.com

The two committed Women Sara Wolf and Milena Glimbovski from Berlin founded a start up – supermarket in Berlin-Kreuzberg, which dispenses entirely on packaging. Along with hundreds of investors who participated on the crowdfunding platform Start Next the vision turned into reality and the first market is about to open for and with you on September,13th in Berlin-Kreuzberg.

The concept: customers bring their own empty glasses, bottles and fabric bags or can borrow such things alternatively in the grocery store. Then one only has to purchase the desired amount of a product which he/she actually needs.

Source: startnext.de

More than 100.00 € euros have been collected due to startnext for the project on the crowdfunding platform, which is a huge success. Within 24 hours the inimum amount was cracked and only a few days later they reached the 45.000 € which they needed for a larger range.
As an additional funding requirement, the multiple award-winning company received investments by a scholarship for Social Startups of SAP and by the Federal Ministry for Family Affairs, through private investors.

Official opening:

September, 13th

Wiener Straße 16, 10999 Berlin

Everyone is invited to meet the owners, discover the shop and will be gladly advised with all questions about the products and the concept.

Opening hours: Weekdays from 8 am – 8 pm & Saturdays. 9am -7pm 

http://original-unverpackt.de

Der Beitrag The future of grocery shopping- Progressive Supermarket Concept Opening in Berlin erschien zuerst auf Urban Appetizer.