About this blog

 Another blog? Really?

I have always appreciated good and loved great food. Not just the craft, but the culinary arts. The effort and perfection that goes into it. I love flavors, textures, aromas. I love increasing my culinary horizon; it is one of the best perks of the travel my job requires. And if you look at the history of the world's cuisines, you can't help but notice how this enriches our cultures, and how cuisines accept no borders.
As a child, I would often speak of opening a restaurant, later. However, it turns out that it is a really hard job, and my talents are somewhat elsewhere. Yet, I have maintained a fascination - some say, an obsession - about how food is prepared, understanding how all this cooking works, and geeking out about methods of preparation, kitchen gadgets, and appliances.
For my friends, this is a mixed blessing. I can exalt for hours about a great, transcendent restaurant experience, and they are usually not too badly off accompanying me. Or I can bore them to death with the minute detail of why I went with some kitchen gadget but not the other; if they're even still listening after having been unwilling witnesses to my selection process over days, or sometimes years. I may not be a great craftsman, but once I get a fixed idea about something, I may have a hard time letting go and tend to over-engineer my solution. And as much as great food, good craftsmanship pleases me, I have little patience but many words for the times when I am disappointed. And my rants about airline travel are legendary, as are my vocal endorsements why I love certain airlines, airports, or lounges.
And then, just this week, after one of the best meals culinary experiences of my life at the Rutz Berlin (of which a review will follow shortly that will entirely fail to do it justice), the manager asked me whether I needed a proper receipt. And it turns out I did.
You can see where this is going. Instead of merely raving to my friends, I am going to share this with all of you. But fear not; unlike them, who are often stuck in the same room with me, you have the chance to choose your dosage!

Topics covered

My primary focus will be reviews of all things culinary.

Restaurant reviews

That starts, but will not end with, my experiences at fine dining restaurants. Such ephemeral performance art deserves proper appreciation by the guest, and I find that reflecting in writing helps me understand my own emotions and thoughts. During the journey itself, the impressions are often overwhelming; the menus never have a chance to begin to describe each plate. Trying to capture some of these fleeting moments will selfishly help me retain a more vivid memory of each adventure, and see how not just the restaurant and chef, but also my own reception, changes over time and over the seasons.
This blog has a category I, somewhat tongue-in-cheek, call the "star of the week"; to entertain you, dear readers, I am willing to make the sacrifice of dining at a Michelin starred restaurant that often. (Of course, this won't always be possible, giving my commitments and the need to actually get a seat.)
At the same time, I will also discuss more day-to-day restaurants and fast food. If I spent days trying to find the best Döner Kebab in Berlin, which would obviously be a completely ridiculous use of anyone's time, you will read about it. I love burgers and currywurst as much as good bread and coffee. So stay tuned for that as well.
Oh, and if the response to the question of what tea they have on offer at an aspiring fine dining Asian fusion restaurant turns out to be "Green, black, peppermint, and chamomile", rest assured you will hear about that too.

The art, lore, theory, and science

And as much as I love eating out, I love the theory of cooking. Perhaps beyond what is immediately practical in my kitchen, but understanding how the science (biology, chemistry, physics) works allows to to improve my results. Or, as someone put it, I need to apply engineering where others use intuition. So books like Harold McGee's On Food and Cooking: The Science And Lore Of The Kitchen or the epic tome Modernist Cuisine: The Art and Science of Cooking are just what I cherish.

The tools and ingredients

Since I tend to compensate for my imperfect manual skills by over-engineering and too fancy gadgets and appliances, relevant product reviews for how I ended up with a particular choice, and the occasional rant about the products that did not please, will also be included. My patience with imprecise measurement tools is balanced by my happiness at finding the perfect flour mill for my needs (spoiler alert: Hawos Oktagon 1).

Actual cooking experiences

I am not the world's greatest cook or baker. In some cases, though, I have enjoyed applying the insights from the previous sections to good effect, or at least hilarious failures (that tended to feel mostly frustrating at the time, to be quite truthful). For example, it took weeks of research, experience, and the application of spreadsheets to bake rye sourdough bread with a high confidence in reliable results, even given the variations of a home cook's kitchen. And proper fermented pickles were trivial and delicious, and led to the tastiest roulades I have ever eaten in my life.
Folks also tend to often only talk about their successes; yet, I hope some of my failures will be just as entertaining and perhaps allow you to stay clear of repeating them.

Getting there

And, at last, I have opinions on traveling. I enjoy being somewhere, and especially the culinary experiences - that will allow me to cover more of the first category. Yet, I don't usually enjoy traveling itself - it's a chore to get somewhere. So I have spend research and effort on how to make it less unpleasant,  and perhaps, someone can benefit from that as well.

Wait, who are you anyway?

At this point, you will likely not be surprised to learn that my background has absolutely nothing to do with gastronomy. And the tagline of the blog kind of gives it away: I make my living in the software industry, where I am passionate and often outspoken about topics ranging from Open Source to all aspects of distributed systems, high availability, and storage. None of which has anything to do with food, but benefits being balanced by a less cerebral endeavor.
In this role, I am fortunate to be able to occasionally travel for business and leisure, which has certainly broadened my palate. And to be able to indulge my gadgetry fandom. It turns out that many of my colleagues are quite the foodies, too; from being much better cooks than myself, to reading more, to recommending amazing restaurants, to being farmers raising their own animals during their lunch breaks away from coding and making their own honey-cured bacon. (Hi, Tim.)
My own culinary path from my youth in rural Ostwestfalen-Lippe through only-slightly-less-rural Bielefeld, Cologne, Hamburg, and eventually Berlin (which is still one of Europe's melting pots) and my travels will perhaps turn into its own post or anecdotes in others. From an early love of Szechuan cuisine, deeply held opinions on bread, the first bite of an actually ripe mango, to the first time a restaurant blew my mind and gave me a sensory overload that had me delirious for the rest of the night. (All without a single drop of alcohol.)
Apparently, an engineer's mind has a tendency to fixate itself, obsess, and also form strong opinions and a desire to share them with the world. So, here we are.

Are you selling out?

I hope that if some of my personal opinions prove useful to my readers, perhaps their appreciation will allow me to review even more restaurants and gadgets. So yes, I am trying to monetize my hobby and thus be able to grow it further.
Thus, if you could find it in your heart to disable ad blocking on this blog (and if you see ads and really would rather not, use uBlock Origin like I do) or buy through the affiliate links or from my to-be-reviewed list, that would be really appreciated.

However, I'm completely unwilling to write "sponsored" endorsements. So please do not approach me about these; I have no need for that. As serious as I am about this blog, that it does not need to be my main income is a plus here and ensures its independence.

In closing

I hope this article frames my goals and mission for this blog, and what my readers can expect. I will periodically update this post to clarify and extend - and, on rare occasions, even shorten! - so please, let me know your thoughts and come back.

And with that, let's begin!