Ich bin (ein) Berliner
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Actually, chef-restaurateur Hans Rockenwagner is from a town in southern Germany called Schliengen, not Berlin. Nonetheless the Berliners (jam-filled donuts) at Rockenwagner’s new Santa Monica bakery were flying off the shelves this morning. Maybe because the locals know that Friday is the only day they’re made--or maybe because JFK’s famous speech has been in the news of late, thanks to Barack Obama’s current European tour and Obama’s speech in Berlin. (Click to listen to both speeches, via YouTube.) Politicos need to eat too, especially those with a sense of place-name irony. Rockenwagner, who was behind the bakery’s pretty wooden counter-top (which he made himself) this morning, pointed out that, technically, it should be ‘Ich bin Berliner.’ Unless one is wearing a jelly-donut suit. Rockenwagner’s Berliners--pillowy, sugar-dusted, filled with Julius Meinl raspberry jam--were so yummy I wouldn’t mind wearing a few of them, if only for the sake of German grammar.
If donuts aren’t your thing, there’s plenty to choose from, all made at Rockenwagner’s Washington Blvd. location and brought in (sandwiches are assembled on-site) daily. Raspberry jam-filled Linzer cookies, all those pretzel rolls, and a catalog of tiny sandwiches: tuna on brioche, salami on a pretzel roll, turkey and provolone on tiny pretzel baguettes. The coffee is also from Vienna, Austria-based Julius Meinl; the house-made muesli is soaked overnight in a milk-cream combination and loaded with walnuts and grated apples. ‘The original muesli recipe,’ says Rockenwagner. ‘In Switzerland they put whipped cream on it.’ Ah. Something to wear with that donut suit.
Berliners, $2 from Rockenwagner Bakery, 311 Arizona Ave., Santa Monica. (310) 394-4267; also at 3 Square Cafe, 1121 Abbot Kinney Blvd., Venice. (310) 399-6504; and at the bakery at 12835 Washington Blvd., Los Angeles. (310) 578-8171 (where the photo was taken, since they were out of Berliners in Santa Monica by the time I got there).
--Amy Scattergood
