The Girl Who Ate Everything

For an overview of my trip to Berlin that took place from April 5 to 12, check out this introductory post. All German translations I've presented are done with Google Translate; if I've written anything that's wrong, please let me know. I AM ALMOST DONE WITH WRITING ABOUT THIS VACATION, I SWEAR.

Some snapshots from the day.

And on the seventh day, Robyn tried to do all the things, which ended up being impossible, but she made sure to eat doner kebap and some cake and some schnitzel.

The problem with not planning aggressively for a vacation is that on the night before your last full day you might realize, "Crap, I still haven't done these 20 other things I wanted to do." And thus you spend that night figuring out how to smush all of those things into one day, basically writing the plan you should've written before your vacation began. You figure out how many minutes it takes to get from one place to the other, and you write out the subway stations (along with termini and transfers) and addresses of every place you're going to, and you make a schedule that you'll inevitably be unable to stick to. But it's mostly successful.

First stop: KaDeWe.

KaDeWe

KaDeWe. You can't miss it. It's huge.

I'm not much of a shopper, but I love department stores—as long as the department store has a bitching food hall. What am I going to do with non-edible things? Eat them? What's the point? What has non-edible ever done for me? Case closed.

And that's why I, alone with most other people who like to eat food, put KaDeWe on my "must visit" list. The 105-year-old luxury department store KaDeWe—short for Kaufhaus des Westens, "Department Store of the West"—is Europe's second largest department store (after Harrod's in London) and boasts 645,000 square feet of stuff you can buy. Out of its eight floors, the top two floors are dedicated to food, although the seventh floor is really where it's at (the eight is a 1,000-seat wintergarden). Here's where you'll find grocery items from all over the world, fresh produce, meats, and fish, wine, cheese, tea, baked goods, baking mixes, candy, chocolate, snacks, jams, pastas, soups, prepared food stands, and more and more and more.

I wasn't planning to buy anything; I was mostly interested in seeing what a luxury department store stocks to represent food from around the world, like curating a museum of modern food. What products would make the cut?

AMERICA THE BEAUTIFUL.

Pop-Tarts! Swiss Miss! Fluff! Marshmallows! Jolly Time! Snapple! Peanut butter! THIS IS (THE UNITED STATES OF) AMERICA, FOLKS.

Head to Maigocute.com for more info.

My doodles are leaping off the Internet and onto your baby! Or your torso! Or your bag of whatever you put in bags!

Yes! It's called clothes and tote bags, everyone's first foray into the world of "printing your stuff on stuff that isn't paper." Thanks to Christine, my former Serious Eats coworker and current awesome friend (people love Christine so much that they cry when she's not around—truth) and newly christened owner of online shop-of-awesome-Japanese-ish-things Maigo, she's getting Gimme Pancake T-shirts and onesies (if you don't know what that bunny is, head here) and Round Things tote bags printed for the holidays!

Thanks to Vi Hart, I now know what a turduckenailailenailailduckenailailenailail is: a turkey stuffed with two ducks, stuffed with four hens, stuffed with eight quail eggs. Yup, you want to watch this video.

Happy Thanksgiving! (Yeah, I know it's Friday for most people now, but it's still Thanksgiving...somewhere.) I hope y'all had some fantastic food comas. I got my food coma on mostly thanks to spatchcocked turkey, liver stuffing, and Robicelli's cupcakes. As I type this, my digestive system is turning that awesome food into poop.

...Anyway, as usual, I'm SO VERY THANKFUL that you guys still read my blog every now and then, considering the ever widening gap between substantial posts. Without you, my life would be far more meaningless. My mom doesn't even read my blog. WHY DOESN'T SHE CARE ABOUT ME. (JK, I know she loves the crap out of me. She does keep tabs on my Flickr photostream as some evidence of being interested in my life.)