Arne & Claudia

The 2 Minute Interview

Together with her partner Arne, Claudia Hirschberger runs the food and photography blog Food with a View. Last year, they even won two awards because they are so good at it. Arne is a vegan and Claudia is a vegetarian (a mixed double so to speak). That makes cooking pretty easy, but can be a bit challenging when baking. Photographs and food. AND photographs of food. We like! By the way: recently the two popped over to Thomas at Leogant. Rumor has it, they’re planning something to do with water and recipes… We’ll keep you posted! Here’s what else we found out about them.

Name: Arne Schmidt / Claudia Hirschberger
Age: 50 / 45
City: Berlin Mitte
Job: Freelancer
Shoe size: 44,5 / 42
Favourite restaurant: Mogg & Melzer | Osmans Schwestern, Herr Rossi…
Contact: foodviewberlin.com

Do you have an idol?
A: You can learn a lot from other people. But they don’t necessarily need to be idols; people are so diverse and have different features.
C: A culinary idol? No, but other people are very inspiring. Friends, family, authors of cookbooks and other bloggers, of course.

Who is your favourite photographer and why?
A: Most recently Sebastião Salgado, whose work is currently on show at C/O Berlin, impressed me.
C: Ansel Adams was the first photographer I really took notice of. When I was sixteen, I saw some of his landscape portraits at an exhibition in London. They were electrifying, especially those of Yosemite Park.

Sweet or savoury?
A: I like both and in combination together. Especially sweet fruit like dates in spicy oriental dishes.
C: I like the combination of the two as well – we often cook like that. If I had to choose between the two, I probably couldn’t. One of everything, please! ;-).

What does your place look like?
A: Classic, minimalistic and rather bright. I keep my original vintage racing bike in the apartment. It’s a nice eye catcher next to the sofa.
C: A little bit of inherited mid-century furniture, a few design classics and some Ikea. My large linoleum table is definitely my favourite piece of furniture, because it seats so many people. And I love flower bouquets, those with lots of little tiny blossoms and grasses.

You can’t sleep at night and go to the fridge. What do you fancy?
A: I don’t take anything from the fridge; instead I take a banana from the fruit bowl. I love bananas!
C: A glass of water and a date. And if it’s really bad, I’ll have some warm milk and honey. That always helps.

What can’t you live without?
A: Definitely coffee. I don’t have to drink it all day, but I cannot replace it with a smoothie like Claudia. And before bedtime, coffee actually makes me sleepy. A phenomenon.
C: Not a single Sunday goes by without eating cake.

The best thing you’ve ever had to eat…
A: …might have been the berry compote my grandmother used to make. I wish I could have it again.
C: …were Rösti with a fried egg after a hike in the mountains that had lasted much longer than planned – with a lot less food supplies than necessary. The simple and traditional food at the mountain hut afterwards was great.

If you could change the world overnight, where would you start?
A: Making good food even more popular. With all the buzz about this topic, it’s still obvious that lots of people don’t know how to prepare simple and good meals and aren’t aware what effect it might have on their health.
C: Since I’ve just been dealing with the subject: provide clean drinking water for all human beings.

With which famous person would you like to have coffee?
A: Klaus Kinski.
C: René Redzipi, one of the founders of New Nordic Cuisine.

What would you cook for us if we visited you at home?
A: If we’re both cooking, something without any animal products. It’s fun creating meals that don’t immediately appear to be vegan. Definitely no tofu-schnitzel or anything like that.
C: On a hot summer’s day: green pea gazpacho with lavender and a raspberry sorbet in a walnut cornet.

What are you afraid of?
A: I’m not a particularly anxious person. But I’m afraid of the same things most people are afraid of: war, poverty, and diseases. Things like that.
C: I’m afraid of spiders and getting caught in a thunderstorm. And that we might never make the perfect vegan sponge mixture ;-).

What should no one know about you?
A: Sometimes I dream about Swiss cheese. It’s my dark side…
C: Store-bought pizza, once a year.

Which question should we have asked?
A: How do a vegan and a vegetarian live and cook together?
C: What is your favourite recipe and photograph at the moment?

Last Words:
C: …I’ll leave those to Arne.
A: Oh, how nice.