Christiane Schmidt

: Enlarge image; Christiane Schmidt; (© Gunter Klötzer)

Christiane Schmidt
Co-owner of the Walzwerk Restaurant
Born and raised in Saalfeld
Portrait: July 28th, 2004

Where are you from originally, and how long have you been living in the US?
I was born in Thuringia, lived for many years in Berlin, and eight years ago I moved to San Francisco. Today, San Francisco is as just as much my home as Berlin is.

Is your German background important to you?
I’m sometimes homesick for Germany, and e-mail and phone calls aren’t enough after a while so an annual flight to Germany is a must.

: Saalfeld - San Francisco; (© Gunter Klötzer)

What do you associate with the term Heimat?
Five years ago a friend of mine and I opened our own business in San Francisco, Walzwerk [The Rolling-Mill], an East German restaurant. So you might say we’ve brought a little bit of our German home to California. It’s fun to represent your origins and past like this in a foreign country.

What do you see as typically American?

Fast food, football, hip hop, and a coffee to go...
What’s typical of San Francisco for me? An organic bagel, Pilates, the San Francisco Symphony at Golden Gate Park, and a soy latte for breakfast sitting by the ocean... Yes, that’s one of the reasons why I live on the West Coast. California is more casual. The weather is far better, and if the Californian liberal political thinking represented the whole nation, everything would be perfect.

What does the American Dream mean to you? Are you pursuing an American Dream of your own?
Everything seems possible in America. You can have all or nothing—the best of the best and the worst of the worst... From supersize to micromini. That’s what makes life so much more exciting in so many ways. It seems as though it’s far easier to be successful, but if things turn out differently, there’s no social safety net. That’s frightening sometimes.

Would you consider going back to Germany for good? If so, why?
Maybe, but right now I see no reason to. I think I’m in the right place at the right time.