A Strange Dinner Experience

From Alan: A few short blocks from the Clinic, on the way to our nearby guest house, we pass a small restaurant. We thought that this might be a good place for us to get a real German meal. We asked Frau Schumacher to drive us there and in the exchange of information, she said the restaurant was open for 14 days. We thought we misunderstood her, because she speaks only a little English and we speak no German. When we got to the restaurant, we were the only customers and the waitress called over a man to help translate for us. I started out with a great big German beer that was cold and refreshing. He did his best to translate the menu and we ordered two soups - a chicken soup and a vegetable soup. Jeannette ordered a salad with turkey and I ordered a steak of some unknown kind, but he said it was the house specialty so I figured I would give it a try. The soups were home cooked, thick and flavorful and delicious. Then the main meal came out. Jeannette's turkey was soft and tender and my steak was very special to me. When I was a boy, between the ages of 10 and 15 or so, my parents would take me and my brother, Len, out to dinner almost every Friday night at Schwellers Kosher deli under the Jerome Avenue L near Gun Hill Road in the Bronx. The restaurant was always crowded and our favorite dish was Roumanian tenderloin steak smothered in fried onions. Well, that is the exact dish that I was served. It brought back such memories of my youth and my parents. I ate every bite. When we were almost finished out of the kitchen comes the chef dressed in his chef's white uniform. Well it was the same man who had tried to translate the menu! He sat down at our table and began to talk and talk and talk. Even though he had a hearing aide in his ear, he nevertheless could barely hear us, but this did not stop him from talking. We found out to our surprise that this man, Herr Mannheimer (I think) was born in Germany in 1946 and was of Jewish descent as his paternal grandfather was Jewish. I never expected to meet any Jews in Germany and here he was a Jewish chef cooking my favorite childhood dinner! And he opens his restaurant for only 14 days a year. Frau Schumacher was right!. His restaurant is open this week and next and then he closes until December 2010. Is that weird? I would call our timing remarkable. He explained to us all about the local area here (which used to be a main silver mining area) and how poor everyone was. He said that from 1946 until 1990 it was under French control so he spoke French too. Even today, many of the local farmers will pass down their farm to their eldest son and all the other children are sent off to find their way in the world. I had a wonderful time and dinner and would have listened to him all night but Jeannette felt tired and it was getting late so we headed back to the guest house with a fond memory of our strange dinner experience in Hallwangen.