Professionally, 2021 to me stands for one extraordinary project and team effort: The WagArb Cookbook.
Being proud of an achievement is not a sentiment I share very often. This is one of the rare exceptions.
As many of you know, we have a long-standing tradition at WAGNER Arbitration: our Friday lunches, where we take turns cooking a meal for the entire team and serve it in our firm’s kitchen.
Joseph Schwartz — ingenious in branding as always — gave this tradition its now-iconic name:
👉 The Arbitrattoria.
It has not only allowed us to discover many regional German specialties, but also to travel to the world with our interns and trainees from Brazil to India, Australia to France, and Lesotho to Singapore.
When the pandemic broke out, the Arbitrattoria had to close its doors. Yet, we knew well before, that our weekly cooking sessions are in fact more than a place and a tradition — they are a mindset. In this spirit, we reached out to all alumni and team members and put together a cookbook with the meals that had or would have been shared at our kitchen table.
✍️ We have compiled 50 recipes from six continents, along with a personal note on the recipe and a short bio from each cook.
It is a beautiful testament to the tradition of breaking the bread which remains alive and well today. When you take a closer look, the concept of cooking for one another has more to do with dispute resolution than initially meets the eye. Cooking for one another can be a gesture of mutual understanding, and eating connects us all.
🌍 The cookbook has since travelled far — into homes, kitchens, and even major libraries around the world. Many have cooked from it and shared their results, which has been a joy in itself.
It will please you to hear that we’re currently working on the second edition and have already put together a list of over 50 authors.
Stay tuned and keep on cooking. It makes you and other people happy. And the world a better place. And if you still haven’t received your copy, please let me know in the comments.
Featured here for some random reason is the Carbonara recipe on page 58.
(…so proud 😉)
Next to our current team members, the list of authors includes brilliant chefs such as Lara Guyot, Fionn Richter, Max-Vincent Grosse, Marina Mertens, Anna Polubaryeva, Fábio Cavalcante, LL.M. (Berlin), Malte Benfeldt, John Faulk, Leonora Erhardt, Boyan Arshinkov, Dr. Christopher Lück, Jonathan Wu-Khor, Claudio Kühn, Fabio L., Niklas Luft, Albrecht Steinbach, Dr. Anna Akosua Hankings-Evans, Anne Regenbrecht, LL.M., Ella Wisniewski, Nthabeleng Mafisa, LL.M, Valeska Heldt, Verena Schug, LL.M., Asmita Singh, Vinayak Kapur, LL.M., , Mark Baldock, Munique Mendes, and Thiago Stüssi
🔜 Next: Reflection #19 — War in our Workday
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