While here in Germany, there are a few things that I miss about California. Family, friends, and MEXICAN FOOD. I mean, yes, technically there are Mexican restaurants here in Hamburg. But… well…. they don’t have fresh, hot tortilla chips homemade by a Mexican grandma. And what about the salsa bar? Where’s the salsa bar?! We need mango salsa, pico de gallo, salsa verde and some salsa fuego!

But most of all, we need FISH TACOS. How does Europe live without them? I honestly don’t understand it.

A brief history of the fish taco according to my memory is as follows: Baja California (the Mexican peninsula portion of California south of San Diego) is a popular place for surfers. Surfers get hungry & like cheap food. Taco vendors sold cheap food. Some of the favorites were sellers of tortillas stuffed with fish, some secret white sauce, shredded cabbage, a slice of avocado and a squeeze of lime. Some smart surfer brought the recipe up to San Diego and founded “Rubio’s Fish Tacos”, thus creating a national treasure (and a very profitable venture).

After being here in Germany for much of a summer, I realized that it was time to bring Rubio to the Deutsch in the form of California’s beloved “Taco Tuesday” (although, technically, it was Saturday). Being our first dinner party, we had to make an emergency visit to Ikea to buy a dining room table and a gaggle of chairs. I went to a Target-like store called “Roller” & got a bunch of plates and serving bowls to augment Soenke’s bachelor selection.

Probably the most fun was had preparing for this event. With my ingredient list firmly in hand, I marched off to the grocery store. But…. no cilantro. No real Mexican beer. No ripe avocados. The corn didn’t look so great. But hey, we have limes! At least we have limes! Ok so “plan B”. Go to the specialty produce market with my English/German dictionary. Remember that cilantro is called “coriander leaf” in the rest of the world. Round up 4 employees and several customers to help me ask for ripe avocados and tomatillos. Find a guy who speaks Spanish (finalmente!) but has never heard of a tomatillo. Almost end up with a bag of shallots that I meant to be onions. But heck, it was fun! I wonder if they’ll allow me back to that store again. As a small break, I headed over to the Greek market that sells a huge array of flavored dips and bread, which they hand out in free, copious, sample quantities. They also speak English, so I had a nice chat about a particularly tasty dip made with the vegetable that we call the “eggplant”, but they INSISTED is called the “Bingel” in English (or something like that).

Across from the Greeks was the cheese store, with every cheese known to mankind EXCEPT cojita cheese, which is what I wanted to top the pinto beans and salad with. The female employee spoke a bit of English, so I specifically described how I wanted a cheese to “crumble”, not “grate”, which launched us into a description of the difference between crumble and grate, since neither were in her vocabulary nor my dictionary. Once that was settled, I sampled a few cheeses that she presented (which I’m sure were feta, but she had not heard of feta, which was suspicious for a CHEESE store) and decided on a sheep’s milk cheese that was similar in texture, if not entirely in flavor, to cojita. However it was very tasty, so I sampled it several times just to be SURE.

Things started to fall apart a little after I picked Soenke up at the airport, and asked him to accompany me on a search for Mexican beer, crushed ice, and margarita mix. I mean, WHERE is the ice in Germany??? It’s nowhere, that’s where it is! Finally I realized that the fish market had its fish on crushed ice, so THEY had to have some. The fish ladies were very understanding that this strange American girl couldn’t live without her crushed ice, so they gave us a bag for free. They also helpfully informed us that one usually buys ice in a large block. THANKS. I’ll just toss that right in my blender. As for margarita mix, there was none to be found, so I improvised with some frozen raspberries, strawberry pancake syrup and lime juice. It worked. And Mexican beer…. I gave up and bought something called “Desperado” that looks like beer, but actually is some sort of blend. Its sort of like the “Zima” version of Mexican brew (ohhh you have to be MY age to remember what ZIMA was !!!). But I have to say, it was pretty good. Soenke’s dad gave it the thumbs up. Even my landlord commented today that it was one of her favorites when I showed her the empty bottles and asked where I could recycle glass (still no answer to that).

Back at the flat, I sliced & diced & chopped & roasted & simmered & made a holy mess for what seemed like days, & then everyone showed up and the show began. First we organized a crackerjack team of 4 (Soenke, me, Sally, Knut) to figure out how to operate the blender. I still don’t really understand how, but Soenke has the magic touch. Raspberry margaritas were flowing (both virgin & not so virgin) and the chips, homemade pico de gallo and guacamole were out in my new blue serving bowls. I must say, if it were California, those bowls would have been EMPTY in about 25 minutes, but I think the Germans exercise a bit more restraint, or else they are a little suspicious of green dip. Klaudia, Mehmet, Klas, and Soenke’s mom & dad arrived. Knut brought some Spanish music which we pretended was Mexican, and everyone talked and snacked and drank for hours, waiting for me to get all the fish fried. Our neighbors Vladimir & Katyana showed up with chocolate and champagne. Finally dinner was served, including a romaine salad with orange sweet peppers, roasted corn, cheese and cilantro-lime dressing; seasoned pinto beans (which I totally overcooked!); Mexican rice with sliced olives & roasted corn; and traditional FISH TACOS with all the fixings. It took us about 25 minutes to inhale all that!

May I add that we received some very-much-appreciated hospitality gifts from our guests. Soenke’s folks brought some dishtowels and an ICE CRUSHER, for which I will be forever indebted to them. Sally brought potholders, a large salad bowl with tongs, a vase, fresh flowers, and homemade brownies! Klaudia and Mehmet brought a real live house plant (our first), ICE, and a selection of fabulous chocolates.

As for the dinner, no reports of food poisoning followed, so I can only assume it was a pretty successful evening! Fish tacos appear to have been accepted into the inner circles of Germany.

Our photographers were apparently off drinking margaritas, because our photo supply of this event is scanty:

The kitchen crew hard at work (me on fish, Sally on rice, Knut on blender):

Mehmet tasting the margaritas:

Soenke’s folks waiting patiently for the tacos to be done! :