Elke

This is Elke Fuchs-Werner as I met her recently at the Dineen Café at Yonge and Temperance. There are, she told me, three things she is fanatical about: Yoga, Bridge and the Opera. There are forty-eight things that she is passionate about: the Environment, Jazz, Cooking, Watercolor, Biking, Cats, Montserrat Caballé, Venice, Arsenal Football Club, Penne Arrabiata, Rembrandt, Schubert's Impromptus, Culatello de Zibello, Merlot, James Joyce, Denmark, Vanilla ice-cream, Raisins, Richard III, Paul van Himst, the Fortified Church of Bierthelm, Comfit de Canard, James Ensor, Jasper FForde, Boca Juniors, Grey Goose, Tabasco, Toronto Maple Leafs, Dogs, Blues, Carnaroli rice, John Irving, Eric Satie, Brunello di Montalcino, Jamon Pata Negra, d'Alambert, Cashews, Guiness Stout, Bucatini All'Amatriciana, Hamlet, Giraffes, the Color Blue, Chrysanthemums, Fernet-Branca, Peñarol Montevideo, Kandinsky, Zaha Hadid and Berlin. Elke confessed that there are two hundred and thirty three things she hates but did not supply a list. As a child she had a pet zebra called Fibonacci, her cousins from Arnstadt had a pony called Klement.