Wann es regnet, es quillt

So, Friday was quite a busy day here in Berlin as I somehow found myself with two jobs. Two jobs is really too many for me at this point, but as I don't have a steady thing going just yet and I'm trying to build a client base, I felt like I had to say yes. Of course both jobs came along on Wednesday so there wasn't even much time for preparation. I also have a fridge the size of a bread box and hardly any freezer space so the possiblilities for advance preparation were few. And.... we had already invited die Mutter von mein Freund over to celebrate her birthday. And, Thursday was the last day of Deutschkurs so I really couldn't skip it and the teacher basically made me stay late to take the final. Luckily, most of the Mutters dinner got done in advance. This was for better or worse, the best of the three meals: salad of red leaf lettuce and radiccio with candied spiced walnuts, persimmon, and feta, posole (made with blue corn posole that I brought from Seed Savers in Tucson) with all the fixings (avocado, salsa fresca, cilantro, feta pretending to be cotijo, sliced radishes. and crumbled corn chips -- it was really pretty, too bad I didn't take a photo...., and pavlova with kiwi, strawberries, and blueberries for dessert. I resisted the urge to serve the food and continue cooking while everyone ate...so I didn't really get to work until 11. I had to bring lunch for 10 to a design firm (the same place I've done a few jobs for already): individual ricotta tarts with olivada & roasted cherry tomatoes, white bean salad with lemon vinaigrette, prosciutto & melon, roasted marinated pepper salad, and assorted cookies. Making all this equaled just 4 hours of sleep. I had to schlep it all there, set it up, and then leave b/c I had another job at 1, a try-out of sorts for a family from Los Angeles. This is a family from LA....in Berlin for 6 months b/c the husband-father is producing a movie (there is a huge film scene here, fyi). I've been in their apartment twice now and it's a world like nowhere I've ever been. For example, on Friday I was one of four servants! Naturally, every stay-at-home mom with two kids needs two nannies, a maid, a chef, and a personal assistant, right? These are not my dream clients as the mother is uber neurotic, claims the family is low-key and eats everything, but one of them doesn't eat cheese, fish may never have bones, pork is fatty, apparently a lot of foods make small children gassy, and children can only eat food cut so small they need a microscope to find it on their plate, and the wife-mother doesn't like pie. Pie is sacred. Isn't it unamerican? unhuman? impossible to dislike pie? Has she never had pie that didn't come from a box? If this gig works out, this blog is either going to get a lot more amusing or irate. Or both.