Born in West Berlin to an Italian mother and an American father, Luisa Weiss grew up shuttling between Berlin and Boston after her parents split up. Although she loved both countries (and parents) equally, she struggled with the heartaches inherent in an international lifestyle, turning to the kitchen to recreate the flavors of the places and people she missed.
Although she had built a successful publishing career and created a popular food blog (The Wednesday Chef) while living in New York, Weiss missed the tastes, sights and sounds of Berlin. While visiting her mother after a painful breakup, she reconnected with a former boyfriend and soon found herself--to her utter surprise--packing to move across the Atlantic, back to the city and the man she still loved.
Weiss vividly evokes the flavors of German, Italian and American cuisine, from her father’s comfort dish of baked beans served with broccoli to the towering, complicated Hannchen Jansen (gooseberry cream cake). The characters around each table come to life as vibrantly as the food, and Weiss adds helpful hints to the recipes that crown each chapter.
From encounters with pigeons in Paris to New Year's fireworks in Berlin, from cooking with roommates in New York to sharing a kitchen with her German husband, Weiss takes readers on a culinary tour of her life. While her recipes are inspiring, the true magic of her meals (as she admits) comes from gathering with loved ones, no matter what country's dishes are on the menu. --Katie Noah Gibson, blogger at Cakes, Tea and Dreams