I cut it short: buy yourself the land of plenty. From today.
"A book about the comforting effect of warm milk rice, art, a lentil dish to cook and the imponderables of love, "is the subtitle to Stevan Paul's new work Cockaigne . Do you need to know more, to immediately forgive yourself with the book in the park or on the sofa and want to devour it in a Haps? I do not think so. But I also have to admit that I'm very biased on this matter. There are several reasons for this:
1. Ever since I assisted Stevan for a week in his work as a chef and food stylist for a food magazine at the beginning of the year, I am a fan. Unrestricted. Yes.
second His first stories Monsieur, the Hummer and I were devoured on two evenings (very annoying that there was still a relatively long working day between two evenings) and since then I have been looking forward to more reading material from "Herr Paulsen".
3rd The culinary reading with selected stories from the new book Cockaigne was so funny, entertaining, touching and also (a bit) sad that I definitely wanted to read everyone else. Reading sample complacent? Please: Stevan is reading from Cockaigne.
4. Stevan just writes ... beautiful. A profane word, but just right at this point. Unhurried, colorful phrases directly create people, landscapes and situations. Suddenly we are right in the middle of things and very close - whether at midnight in the canteen of a large Berlin department store or in the dry midday heat on a small Italian village square. When steaks "which cut like marzipan" are fried in old battered camp pans and the olive oil splashes hot, you sit on a wobbly plastic chair and balance the plates on your knees. Delight, longs, dares, remembers and laughs half-limp. Or is a bit wistful. At the end of each of the fifteen short stories in Sweetheartland you feel a slight farewell pain and think "if only it would go on!" You will be comforted by a recipe that fits the story. And then it goes on - with the next story.
Maybe someday Stevan will write a book with a whole, long, big one History? I think it would be great - because I would also buy and browse again immediately.
But the best thing to do is to buy your own paradise. From today. Here and now:
Cockaigne
A book about the comforting effects of warm rice pudding,
the art, a lentil dish to Cook and the Uncertainties of Love
Stevan Paul
Mairisch Publisher
ISBN 978-3-938539-24-8-en 18,90 EUR
