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Satirical German magazine Titanic this week lampoons presidential candidate Christian Wulff by comparing him to a knödel dumpling. The headline reads: "Merkel's Recipe for a Crisis: Now a Knödel will become president."

The magazine has a history of food-related gags - publishing caricatures of former chancellor Kohl's head as a pear in the '80s. They spoofed East German's obsession with bananas following the fall of the wall, with the cover depicting an Easterner holding her "first banana" which is in fact a cucumber.

On the way back from New Zealand I stopped off to visit a friend who recently moved to Venice, LA. It seemed like an idyllic place to live, with broad deserted back streets for cycling on, hot sun, happy-looking hounds, oranges hanging on trees, good-tasting cerviche and a surfeit of free condiments in the take-out burrito shops: like free pickled radish and jalapenos, and free tortilla chips.

The only thing that comes free back home in Cologne, is ironically cheap men's cologne (from a big bottle on the counter at a Turkish take-out in Mülheim).

Another cool thing about Venice, apart from the breaded deep fried Jalapeno poppers filled with yellow string-cheese, is a coffee shop called Intelligentsia on Abbot-Kinney. They do single-origin espresso from a 1972 La Marzocco, as well as selling chic beverage apparatus like chemex coffee makers, tulip-shaped heat-retentive glasses, aqua-glazed Japanese tea cups, & painted children's mugs from Denmark.

Intelligentsia
1331 Abbot Kinney Blvd | Venice, CA 90291







An Intelligentsia tea-ologist at work, note how he is concentrating on his stop watch:



Delicious flat white from Intelligentsia.