The Column Kitchen Help: The Happiness of Socializing

What used to be the worst punishment that could be imposed on a naughty child? It had to eat alone. In our posthuman times, when far too many people have cardboard box pizza delivered to the Netflix series, this cruel penitential exercise has long since lost its horror – but not for the Berlin star chef Sarah Hallmann, who runs the wonderfully family restaurant “Hallmann & Klee” in Neukölln and knows about the happiness of socializing when eating. That’s why she enjoyed sitting shells in her Swabian homeland as a child, even if the Neckar is not the English Channel: A giant pot is on the table, everyone reaches in with their hands, they talk to each other. It's just so much fun. And that has not changed. Even today, the shell orgies with friends on Sunday evening are among the favorite rituals in the Hallmann house – and there is no greater punishment than not being invited to them. Sarah Hallmann prefers to use bouchot mussels from the Maison Morisseau, which has cultivated her shellfish for generations with the utmost care in the Bay of Mont-Saint-Michel in Normandy, the national shrine of all French patriots and the Walhalla of all mussel lovers of the world. They look small but are almost completely filled with meat. Once you have eaten them, you do not want normal mussels anymore, so the life-like insight of the boss. For the sauce, on the other hand, you have to take real Gorgonzola dolce from the large loaf, because it is then particularly creamy and mild. “He has nothing to do with Gorgonzola from the refrigerated shelf in the supermarket, and with such a Gorgonzola dolce I was able to convince the greatest blue skeptics,” says Sarah Hallmann, who advises rigorous quality. For the butter you should afford the premium goods from Bordier and take time for the baguette to make yourself. Because freshly baked, taste it better around worlds, says the boss and gives en passant all people who watch too many Netflix series, a general life advice on the way.