Neighborhood: Johanneshov, Stockholm Relationship status: Living with my girlfriend
What did you eat today?
I just ate a veggie bagel for breakfast. But yesterday I had so good food that it inspired me to answer this thing - finally. I had an amazing deep fried salmon roll with Chinese mustard (red hot), followed by some amazing noodles with flat iron angus steak on top. Fab!
What do you never eat?
Things in shells, if I can avoid them. Not at all fond of crabs, crayfish, mussels and that stuff. I think the shell is there for a reason - someone's telling us to leave them alone.
Complete this sentence: In my refrigerator, you can always find:
Mustard - the ultimate condiment that you can have on absolutely anything - including a cheese sandwich.
What is your favorite kitchen item?
An old school pot for making stews and casseroles. Throw something in there, leave it for a few hours, and somehow it always tastes good.
Where do you eat out most frequently?
The local thai place. Surprisingly good for being a local actually. Apart from that, I like Jacobs on Riddargatan that does both Danish smørrebrød and French main courses. Clearly underrated place.
World ends tomorrow. What would you like for your last meal?
Something Asian - probably something fairly simple like proper Kung Pao Chicken with those amazing garlic stirred beans that they have there (in China that is - I've never found them anywhere else). No point making things more complicated than they have to be if you're going to pop your clogs in an hour or two anyway.
As of right now (2:30 pm): homemade granola with milk, banana bread with cinnamon sugar, blueberries, rigatoni with sweet onions and leeks and chives and ricotta salata, more banana bread, more blueberries.
What do you never eat?
I have textural issues with raw oysters. And brain. I think brain is my final frontier, food-wise. [
Complete this sentence: In my refrigerator, you can always find:
eggs, extra sharp cheddar, milk, hot sauces, jam, peanut butter, Roland Dijon mustard, unsalted butter, and Polaroid film.
What is your favorite kitchen item?
I love my kitchen towels. They're all very soft and well worn, and many of them have stripes.
Where do you eat out most frequently?
Lately, a taqueria called Malena's. It's in our neighborhood, and it's not really all that great, to be perfectly honest, but their guacamole is solid. So we get guacamole, rice, pinto beans, and a few corn tortillas, along with salsa and chips. It's cheap and quick and always hits the spot.
World ends tomorrow. What would you like for your last meal?
I'm terrible at this kind of stuff. But I think I would choose a cheese pie at Di Fara and a beer. And then a scoop of Graeter's black raspberry chip ice cream, on a cone.
I had a blast with Molly in Rome last month. She's a lady. I'm such a fan. If you were in Rome on the same day that we were, you might have seen Molly looking totes cycle chic in sweet black ankle strap flats, jeans, a wavy auburn ponytail and Audrey Hepburn specs. I was the greasemonkey riding next to her, sweating through some Old Navy cankle khakis and a saggy green wifebeater. You can follow Molly's adventures at orangette.blogspot.com.
"But, my good lord, I wot not by what power,-- But by some power it is,--my love to Hermia, Melted as the snow, seems to me now As the remembrance of an idle gaud Which in my childhood I did dote upon; And all the faith, the virtue of my heart, The object and the pleasure of mine eye, Is only Helena. To her, my lord, Was I betroth'd ere I saw Hermia: But, like in sickness, did I loathe this food; But, as in health, come to my natural taste, Now I do wish it, love it, long for it, And will for evermore be true to it."
I'm not sure exactly when it happened. There were moments over Midsummer that I felt Sweden was casting a spell, pouring some love juice into my eyes. Could Sweden really be this charming and beautiful? Why have I bothered traveling to other countries when I could have been here the whole time?
My friend's brother Sef and I drove up to Tällberg for Midsommarafton, or Midsummer Eve. This is traditionally better than actual Midsummer Day -- it's always a Friday and it's the heavier snaps drinking night. Midsummer Day, Saturday, is spent recuperating from your hangover. The Swedes are planners, and I like planners.
But oh, Tällberg! So picture postcard perfect! Some say Dalarna is the heart of Sweden, and some say Tällberg is the heart of Dalarna. All the blond children singing folk songs in embroidered caps and dresses, all the maypoles raised with big wooden chopsticks, the horses swishing their tails in the breeze, the birdsong, impressive Lake Siljan...it was like a Swedish dream.
SEF: Where are the cameras? Because this can't be for real, right?
Lots of ladies wore thick crowns of wildflowers in their hair. "Where can I buy one?" I thought. But of course there were none for sale -- you're supposed to gather your own and make one. American consumer FAIL.
You wouldn't believe how many wildflowers there are here. It's no wonder Carl Linnaeus created modern taxonomy -- he had a lot to work with. Purple and yellow and white and FREE, the colors running in wide, ragged stripes through the lush green fields. It's so incredibly fresh out there...like there's more oxygen in the air.
I managed to get rooms at the last minute at Hotell Långbers, which sits at the top of Tällberg. It was unbelievably dreamy. The bedding was delicious, the rooms were airy, with that Swedish country modesty I find so utterly charming. Their website really doesn't do justice to how absolutely gorgeous the place is. I booked the rooms on Booking.com for not much more than I paid for the vagrant's room in Rome. The place reminded me of Mohonk Mountain House -- so unpretentious, but utterly luxurious in a wholesome way. The morning after our snaps-soaked dinner at Hotell Åkerblads, we booked the hotel sauna and outdoor hot tub for an hour before the long drive. Heavenly.
And the view from my room! A craggy landscape of pointy evergreens, cut off abruptly by the glassy curve of Lake Siljan, which stretches all the way to the horizon.
Midnight sun at the top of Tällberg. How wonderful, and how strange that it feels so normal to me now.
Before I came, I thought I would spend my two weeks of vacation in August traipsing about mainland Europe, hitting all of the major cities. Now, I think I'll stay in Sweden. I'm trying not to miss it already. Who knew?
It's almost Midsummer! Though I celebrated Sweden's National Day with some proper husmanskost a couple of weeks ago, people say Midsummer is the real Swedish national holiday. They may love their Christian holidays, but the Swedes are sun-worshipping pagans at heart. The Finns and the Norwegians also do Midsummer, but I think most people associate the holiday with the Swedes.
Food traditions include eating herring, potatoes, and strawberry cake, and drinking lots of snaps. Non food traditions include dancing around a midsommerstång (a maypole), singing, and drinking lots of snaps. And, of course, there will be lots of snaps drinking. Skål!
I asked one of my co-workers what she would be doing for Midsummer:
VIVECA: Oh, it's a lot of preparation. You prepare the food, and you drink, and then you eat. And you put up the maypole, and sing. And then you probably drink again.
My co-worker Björn's words of wisdom:
BJÖRN: Don't drink too much snaps.
ME: Why not?
BJÖRN: That's a rookie mistake. Just drink a third of it each time. Otherwise you'll never make it through the night.
Megan already posted this on her blog, but it's worth repeating here. This is a German IKEA commercial which was actually banned by the head office (according to the notes on YouTube, anyway).
Another midsummer tradition is for women to find seven kinds of flowers (again with the sju sorters) to put under their pillow in return for a dream of your future husband. Seems a small price to pay for such intel; I'll let you know whether or not the pagan gods deliver.
Here's the one song/dance I'm going to learn so I can participate -- it's the only kind of pole dancing I'll be doing in this life.
Tomorrow is Midsommarafton (Midsummer Eve), and Saturday is
Midsommardagen (Midsummer Day). I'm actually going to Dalarna, north of Stockholm, for
Midsommarafton, which is the classic place to celebrate. I suppose it's like going to Times Square to watch the ball drop on New Year's -- touristy, sure, but classic. I'm preparing myself for 11 degree weather (that's 51 degrees Fahrenheit -- witch tit cold, appropriately), and rain mixed with sun, which is apparently the classic Swedish Midsummer weather.
I'm really excited! And I'm a little relieved that the sun will start to let up. Last night, I was up at 12:30am, and though it never got fully dark, the sun was actually starting to rise. I can't even tell you what a mind fuck that is. I almost couldn't go to bed.
When kids here graduate from gymnasiet (high school), they spend part of their day getting drunk and riding around town on rented big flatbed trucks called "flaks" which have been decorated with hand-painted banners and, oddly enough, fresh birch branches. Oh yeah, and they're also wearing white sailor caps.
Every year, some drunk kid falls off the truck and makes the news. And the partying can get so out of hand that the city has to stagger the graduations throughout the first two weeks of June, thus limiting the number of drunk teenagers vomiting in the street on any given day.
I kept hearing the flaks from the office -- the screaming kids, the blasting music, the honking trucks. But it wasn't until today that I got to see one with my own eyes. The whole thing is very pride parade -- a bunch of shirtless sailor twinks and their girl friends dancing on a truck to the sweet thump of Eurodisco.
Neighborhood: Lilla Essingen in Stockholm. Relationship status: Living with Anna
What did you eat today?
For breakfast and lunch: My own bread that had unfortunately gone a bit dry, with cheese and cucumber. For dinner, spaghetti and a delicious pasta sauce with tomatoes and zucchini, cooked by Anna. A punchrulle brought to me by my friend Ulrika (Punch rolls are old ladies sweets) and a fruit salad. [Are those the same as dammsugare? --Ed.]
What do you never eat?
Guinea pigs. I rarely eat meat and never at home, but guinea pigs are something I know I have never eaten, and that I'm not curious to try.
Complete this sentence: In my refrigerator, you can always find:
Soy milk for my coffee. The day holds no promise without coffee. Regular milk for the coffee is ok too, but is usually not found in my kitchen.
What is your favorite kitchen item?
My coffeepot. It's white with golden patterns.
Where do you eat out most frequently?
At a Persian café and shop in Gröndal, close to my work.
World ends tomorrow. What would you like for your last meal?
I don't know. I like so many things. But maybe my Lilla Essingen Thai dinner from Saturday: Shrimps with green curry and coco nut sauce with lots of delicious vegetables, and their home made spring rolls. Or Stockholm's best ice cream.
So I don't have a lot of money, and having a job in publishing means...not acting like you will have a job forever. I tried not to be ridiculous with my money, but I did find a few things that I felt were worth spending more than 15 Euros on.
Splurging in Paris:
Bike About Tours -- 30 Euros
I love bicycle tours. I do them anytime I can. You get a little bit of trivia, a little bit of exercise, lots of fresh air and sun, all while getting the lay of the land. But if you're going to do a bike tour, you want to do it in a small group because: 1. it's safer to be in a smaller group and 2. there's less of a chance that you'll be with some talky fuckers who want to show off the history they learned from the back cover of their Lonely Planet guide.
I'll be honest -- the Bike About Tour, while small at 7 or 8 per group, was still larger than I like my bike tours. But it's the smallest one you'll find in Paris. Do the Bike About tour on your first day in town and you'll be able to find your way around in no time. (I'd never do one of those Fat Bike Tours, which I saw in Berlin. They are always rolling 20+ deep -- no fun.)
The secret garden shtick is a bit much, but the tour goes through mostly car-free streets on the left and right banks. The little red Dahons are fun to roll around on -- and if it rains, you can all just fold 'em up and get on the Metro.
Paris is a wonderful city for cycling -- lots of cushy bike lanes,
flat, well-paved terrain and if you've got a credit card with a chip,
you can participate in their amazing Velib' bikeshare program.
Added bonus: as advertised on their site, the Bike About Tour guys, American Christian and New Zealander Paul, are très adorbs (and très married). Still, who wouldn't want to spend a few hours chasing fit, tan boys around Paris on a bicycle? [Disclaimer: I've crushed out on everybikeguide I've ever had.]
My favorite moment was when we were cycling in an alley in the Marais in front of a piece of the old wall. Our cluster of bikes was blocking a little Renault or whatever it was from getting through. The driver honks at us.
DRIVER: [Leaning out the window] ASDLKFJ!@#%#@# [In French]
PAUL: [With a casual smile] Me fou, ah.
DRIVER: ASDFKLWEFLKJSDKLJ! [In French]
PAUL:[To us cyclists] Alright, why don't you guys come a bit forward.
After the little car made its way through the alley to the intersection, the DRIVER stops, makes eye contact with all of us, grinning, and emphatically sticks his middle finger up in the air before driving away.
PAUL: That's just the French way of saying good morning.
P.S. I had to catch my flight right after the tour, so Paul and Christian made sure I ended with enough time to get to the airport. I cut it close, which was nobody's fault but mine, but if the two of them hadn't kept an eye on the time for me, I would have missed the plane. Of course, at the time, I was like, hm, getting stuck in Paris an extra day doesn't seem too bad to me.
Bike About Tours Vinci Car Parking 4, Rue Lobau 75004 Paris +33 (0) 6 18 80 84 92 Metro: Hotel de Ville Office Hours: 10am- 7pm daily
Tea at Le Mariage Freres-- About 15 euros
I'm sure it's not the most serious tea house in Paris, but it's still fun to be able to try one of dozens of flavors of Le Mariage Freres teas, which I absolutely adore. The Fleur D'Oranger Oolong was just the right temperature, and the Maria Callas recording in the background was playing at just the right decibel level. 9 Euros for two madeleines is totally ridiculous, but the matcha financier was pretty tasty. The room is on one of those super quiet corners of St. Germain on Rive Gauche. I loved the dark wood shutters and giant palm fronds against saffron mottled walls -- very Casablanca. The waiters wore white, I wore blue.
Mariage Freres 13 rue des Grands-Augustins (0)1 40 51 82 50 3-course lunch at L'Ami Jean -- 35 euros Looking at the website, I assumed L'Ami Jean would be a white tablecloth gastrolab with tall food, hungry models and the rich men who try to impress them. It wound up being a rather homey bistro, with a terribly-printed menu and little handheld chalkboards announcing prettily scripted specials.
I don't really know how to describe what I ate there because my food magazine French was no help. In any case, I can't remember any of the menu well enough to look up what was in my food. Poivrade, farcie, morue, that's all I got -- the rest of those pretty French food words confused me.
I just ordered what the lady next to me was having -- a beautiful globe artichoke stuffed with a swampy mix of mussels and teeny brown mushrooms. Then a piece of cod, perfectly cooked and seasoned, with herbs and poached apricots and some kind of foam and topped with a thin ribbon of bacon. It was served with a jam jar full of what I thought was aioli but turned out to be mashed potatoes so full of cream you could drizzle it.
And for dessert, grilled strawberries on a skewer, bursting with juice, with a little savory taste of whatever preceded them on the fire. These were served with an icy quenelle of slightly bitter grapefruit sorbet, a dot of whipped cream, creme anglaise, and toasted pistachios and walnuts. It was one of my fave desserts ever and something that I will have to replicate (simplified) at home.
The food was killer, but what I loved most was watching the middle-aged French lesbian couple next to me smack their lips and roll their eyes over the food. A French mother and daughter who were similarly ravishing their food winked and joked with the couple from across the room. It reminded me of New York and made me wish my French was better.
Happy Sweden National Day! Yesterday's National Day only became an official, no-work holiday about three years ago. My Swedish friends tell me it wasn't a big deal because it's not like Sweden was celebrating escape from tyranny, since they were always the ones ruling over others.
Sweden is a small country, and despite the fact that their IKEAs have taken over our suburbs, they're unaccustomed to celebrating themselves. Check out this clip of the country's greatest sports moment in recent history, Sweden's bronze medal in the 1994 World Cup:
Sometimes, you go to a city for the first time and it clenches its sphincter, shines a flashlight in your face and tries its very best to kick you back to where you came from. That's how I always felt about London, and my recent weekend trip just confirmed my suspicions. Rome was no better -- I could feel the city trying to squeeze me out, and the feeling was mutual.
But sometimes, if you're lucky, you meet a city who leans back, makes eye contact, fans its hair out and parts its knees a teensy bit.
I arrived in Paris on Saturday morning, dropped my bag off at the hostel (more on that later) near Republique, and walked south towards the Marais to begin one of the sweetest vacations of my life.
Paris was...Parisian to the Paris degree. Pliant, enchanting and just gorgeous. I fell in love almost immediately. As someone I went to dinner with last night said:
STOCKHOLMER: There are only two cities in the world that look just like they look in the movies -- Paris and New York.
But that's not the only parallel. I found that Parisians engage the way that New Yorkers do. They joke with strangers, or they shrug their shoulders at you, or they yell things at you and they acknowledge your presence. That famous Parisian rudeness they talk about -- I didn't experience it. Maybe I was too busy gawking at the buildings and stuffing my face with delicious things.
.
Look at the sunlight! Just pure and pearly, trickling softly through the leaves of aged trees lining les boulevards, les avenues, les rues. The temperature hovered in the 70s for the whole of my stay, raining only once for the five minutes it took me to flip through a rack of clothing in a little boutique. I didn't even notice it.
I also didn't go to a single museum. I didn't buy a single foodstuff to bring back to Stockholm. I didn't go to a single bar.
I basically bicycled or walked until my feet hurt, looking at beautiful things and beautiful buildings and beautiful people. I stopped to try on a pretty dress or two. And every few hours, I ate something utterly scrumptious. Sometimes I knew what I was eating and sometimes I didn't. You can forgive me for my lack of details or not, but I don't care because it was my self-indulgent vacation and it made me happy. It was only 3 days, but it was total perfection.
I took advice from David Lebovitz's site and packed pretty dresses to wear, and I'd encourage you to do the same. But comfortable shoes are a must for all the walking.
I thought my Swedish lessons would hamper my French, but my one semester of francais came back pretty smoothly. It was able to ask for water, say please, thank you, etc., and it was enough.
What I'm saying is, if you've ever wanted to go to Paris, go now! Go while the current mayor has cleaned up the Seine and made Paris beautiful. Go while the Velib' bikeshare program is pretty new and well-kept, so it's easy to get around town without having to use the Metro. Go because there has never been a good reason to keep Paris waiting. I know that now.
With trips every weekend last month, including the one to Rome that
bled my wallet dry, I think I put together an full but thrifty
itinerary for myself. I probably could have been perfectly happy to rent a bicycle for 30ish euros for three days, dawdle through the weekend street market of the Marais and sit on the Pont Neuf at sunset each evening with a hunk of cheese, a baguette and a bottle of wine.
Scrimping in Paris
Breakfast at Le Comptoir des Archives -- about 13 euros It's not that the food was so spectacular at Le Comptoir des Archives. The tartine with a thick trench of unsalted butter down the middle was as reliable as any tartine in Paris, the confiture of an unremarkable berry heritage. The salade de fruits was a fine mix of apple, peach, mango, banana and grape (thank God they don't put awful melon in fruit salads). And the cafe creme was perfectly good. (I know coffee is supposed to be terrible in Paris, but I thought all the coffee I had was better than all the coffee I had in Rome. You don't have to believe me. But that's what I think.)
But in Paris, it seems that the most popular spot at any given moment is the one that has the most attention from the sun. And at 9am in the Marais, it feels like the sun is looking only at you in front of Le Comptoir des Archives. 13 euros is obvs. not that cheap for a small breakfast. But
Paris is stunning in the morning, before the tourists wake up, and it's
worth it to get up and catch the sun and quiet while you
can. Think of it as 6.50 euros per hour.
You're better off spending 13 euros and a few hours on this quiet corner of the Marais than you would be for a twice-as-expensive breakfast at Cafe de Flore on St. Germain, where the confiture is an extra 2.20 euros and the salade de fruits is a mushy mess of soggy kiwi and papaya. Besides, a baguette with butter is pretty much a baguette with butter anywhere you go.
I sat next to the most elegant lovers. I imagined they'd just rolled out of bed to take a post-coital coffee and cigarette. Her strawberry blond, wavy hair was wild and thick, framing green bedroom eyes. But her white linen pullover dress was crisply pleated, punctuated by slip-on black kitten heels. Her head leaned into the crook of her young lover's arm. He had tousled black hair, wire frame glasses, a t-shirt and jeans. His jacket (a suit jacket, of course), was carefully folded in half on the wicker chair across from them. He had a book on the table but was only paying attention to his girl. Neither of them was particularly amazing looking, but together, they were irresistible.
Le Comptoir des Archives 41, Rue des Archives Métro: Hotel de Ville 01 42 72 13 56
Paris Opera -- 5 euros I tried to see Tosca at the last minute on Saturday, which was playing at the Bastille Opera. I'm glad I didn't get in, though, because it forced me to see another show the next night at the other venue, the magnificent Palais Garnier. It's smaller than the Met, but about five times more glamorous, with crazy chandeliers, gold carvings, and a Chagall ceiling mural.
The show was far from sold out, so the ushers encouraged me to move into the more expensive seating. No matter that I fell asleep during the concert, quintets and sextets of Ligeti, Prokofiev, Janacek and Hindemeth. It was totally worth the five euros to climb the marble staircase into Baroque heaven.
Palais Garnier The corner of Rue Scribe and Rue Auber Métro: Opéra lines 3, 7 and 8, RER Auber Ticket prices vary depending on performance and your seat.
L'As du Fallafel -- 5 euros It's a great falafel, maybe not a life-changing one, but a great one. The hot, crunchy falafel themselves are a manageable size, a bit smaller than a ping pong ball. The pickled veggies are great, the tender fried eggplant even better. The thick pita could stand to be more interesting. Don't worry, the guy asking you for your order and your money while you wait on the long line is legit. The question is, where do you sit and eat it? I wound up in one of the chairs in front of the place -- not ideal, and just okay for people watching. If you figure out a better place to sit, let me know. But it's a cheap filler up in the middle of the Marais on a beautiful, historic street.
L'As du Fallafel 34, Rue des Rosiers Métro: St. Paul 01-48-87-63-60
Caramella -- 3 euros Why does everything in continental Europe have to close on Sundays? I had hoped to crowbar a meal at Rose Bakery in the Montmartre into my very full itinerary, but had no luck because the French don't like working like New Yorkers do. I had to have dinner at Caramella instead. Wasn't such a bad option, though -- cooled down with a scoop of mojito sorbet, which was fresh and minty if a bit too sweet, and yogurt sorbet which was tangy, creamy heaven. Totally better than much of the Roman gelati I had. Again, you don't have to believe me, I don't care. I don't know how it rates compared to Berthillon ice cream, but it was pretty damn good and I didn't have to wait on line for it. Worth a pit stop to Rue des Martyrs if only to pretend you are Chocolate & Zucchini for a minute.
Caramella 47, Rue des Martyrs Métro: Notre Dame de Lorette 01-44-530956 3 euros
You know that Gwyneth Paltrow story about how her dad took her to Paris because, as he said, "I wanted you to see Paris for the first time with a man who would always love you, no matter what"? I love that story. In general, I'm ambivalent about Gwyneth, but I love her father for doing that for her, and I love that Gwyneth shared that story with the little girls of the world who long for a father to share that kind of love with them.
But. BUT. It's the kind of story that makes you believe that you should wait to go to Paris. Wait until you are with a man who will always love you, no matter what. Or at least wait until you are with someone who will love you while you are in Paris. Wait for the rendezvous, the pas de deux, the tête-à-tête.
I never really thought about Paris before. Perhaps in the back of my mind, I thought, maybe I should go see Paris for the first time with a man who loves me.
Which is silly, right? Here I am, the eternal bachelorette, the stoic loner, a person who calls her blog Eat Drink One Woman -- no Man. I am a romance pessimist. What was I waiting for?
But I think of the Isley Brothers' cover of the Stephen Stills song -- "If you can't be with the one you love, honey, love the one you're with." I know that's a song about loving the bird you've got in your hand. But what if you don't have a bird? What if nobody's ever going to take you out to dinner again, and if you want to go out and be treated like a queen, you have to make it happen? Would that be so terrible? If you have accepted that romance is not in the cards for you, don't you have to love the one you're with, even if that turns out to be yourself?
Name: Stefan Mehr Occupation: Executive Director at Bonnier Media University
Neighborhood: Vasastan in Stockholm
Relationship status: Married and longing for my wife who is visiting in Boulder, Colorado, much far away from Sweden
What did you eat today?
For lunch: Smoked pepper pork with pickled and knuckle of pork and mustard, sauerkraut, roasted vegetable and shiitake.
For dinner: As a starter: Nettles soup, scallops, bleak roe and baked farm egg.
Main course: liquorices, tendered steak with Swedish fresh potatoes and tomato.
Dessert: Elderberry ice cream, raspberries with chocolate and pistachio.
... No, I'm not kidding. This is what they served at the place where we have our media programs.
What do you never eat?
Blood pudding [FYI for you non-Swedes, I always thought blood pudding was a kind of sausage, and it is in England or Scotland. But Swedish blood pudding is really more like a pudding made of blood. --Ed.]
Complete this sentence: In my refrigerator, you can always find:
Kalles Kaviar (a typical Swedish fish spread that you can find abroad only at IKEA), and dark chocolate
What is your favorite kitchen item?
For the moment my lemon squeezer and cappuccino milk foam maker. Did I forget my new smart and slick Danish tea boiler.
Where do you eat out most frequently?
At my local Sushi bar Ki Mama, the best in Stockholm.
World ends tomorrow. What would you like for your last meal?
It used to be calf kidneys flambé. Now, maybe oysters...
Relationship status:
Married (partnership to be specific, although now that we can actually do the real thing, we're planning on switching over, probably around the 10th anniversary of when we got hitched the first time)
What did you eat today?
Filmjölk - which is something like yoghurt and buttermilk - with raw cashews, almonds and pumpkin seeds, an apple, black coffee
What do you never eat?
Organ meat - except for foie gras, which I know is very politically incorrect but what can I say, I'm not politically correct when it comes to food
Complete this sentence: In my refrigerator, you can always find:
At least 15 jars of various kinds of jams, marmelades and lemon and lime curd, a bottle of champagne, Spanish sweet peppers (sometimes totally wilted), butter, fresh ginger (should that be in the fridge?), filmjölk, jalapeños, chorizo, parmesan cheese, tomato paste and Kalles Kaviar (that peculiar Swedish concoction of fish eggs, sugar, tomato and potato flakes in a tube)
What is your favorite kitchen item?
Probably my Kitchenaid mixer, although the hot water cooker comes in a close second
Where do you eat out most frequently?
At our neighborhood bistro, Tranan - which does upscale versions of classic Swedish dishes... I always get potato pancakes with bleak roe and sour cream. More often than going out, however, we order sushi from Ita Mae (a restaurant on the ground floor of our apartment building - very convenient!)
World ends tomorrow. What would you like for your last meal?
Wow. Never thought about it. But amazingly, a last meal immediately comes to mind: First, a Bellini cocktail to whet the appetite. Then to start the meal, a small bowl of cream of Jerusalem artichoke soup with brioche to sop up what I can't get without (rudely) scraping the spoon against the sides of the bowl. The main course would be a perfect crabcake - light but buttery and rich without being greasy - with a little jug of hollandaise sauce on the side; some thin spears of green asparagus, a little undercooked; and even if it's a strange combination, potatoes baked in the oven in duck fat (the way my sister's French mother-in-law does it), all served with Louis Roederer champagne. For dessert, an outrageously large helping of my latest sweet obsession, bread pudding made of banana bread and dark chocolate custard, served with a cup of strong black coffee and a snifter of good old-fashioned Grand Marnier.
I read Francis's blog before I came. It's an engaging ex-pat read with great style; it really captures what's charming and what's frustrating about being in Stockholm. I'm totes a fan, and now I scored a YAWYE with him! I love the internets.
If you're going to Rome because you think Gregory Peck is going to pick your drunk ass up off the street and take you around town on the back of a Vespa, stay home.
If you're going to Rome because you want to wade in the Fontana de Trevi in a black strapless dress with Marcello Mastroianni wrapped around your neck, stay home.
This is me thinking, "I'm going to play Frogger on my bike through this?"
But if your idea of a good time is standing butt cheek to butt cheek with busloads of obese American tourists looking for Vatican City while chasing your wallet down the street and eating mostly Little Italy quality food, by all means, take that road to Rome.
I got to Rome on Wednesday night and was supposed to leave on Monday morning. I thought I would love it. I loved the food in Milan. Wouldn't Rome be even better? But by Friday, I was like, better eat all the gelati you want because you're probably never coming back. And on Sunday, I spent the entire morning trying to figure out if there was a way to get back to Stockholm sooner. When I realized I couldn't get back for less than 500 Euros, I spent the rest of the day just sitting in the cool, quiet apartment hiding from the crowds and doing work. I don't know why I forget that I'm such a misanthrope. But I don't want to be around that many people ever again.
What I hated:
I got swindled by the taxi driver on the way in ("No, it's 70 Euros at night with the tariff, no you gave me 30 Euros, no I need change for this 10 because you owe me five more Euros"). Come on, I am a pretty well-seasoned tourist. When did I start looking like a sucker?
I rented a bike on the first day and nearly got flattened by the INSANE mopeds and drivers and buses; but there wasn't enough room to walk my ride on the sidewalk thanks to the herds of gaping-mouthed Pope tourists.
My 85 Euro/night room at Hotel Zara was a total dive. Worse yet was having to hear the tourists at the breakfast room complain about how terrible the breakfast was as they were stuffing their mouths with it. Two days in a row.
I think someone who cleaned my room took my fancy earrings.
The food was mostly meh, no better than linguini on Mott St. WTF? We are spoiled in New York, people.
The heat! The dry, hot hot heat was such a shock to my body. It hasn't gone above 65 here in Stockholm. I packed poorly and sweated buckets through a beleaguered silk dress.
Did I mention the complete clusterfuck of tourists? I have lived in New York and London, and I have never seen a tourist situation like this. At least in New York, all you have to do to avoid the tourists is to stay the hell away from Times Square. Rome is like 15 different Times Squares.
What I loved:
Hamming it up with all the friends I met up with there, old and new: Winnie, Francis, Molly, Austin, Jeanne and Joao. God, I've missed laughing at American jokes.
Cooling off, drinking bitter orange soda and a cold cappuccino in the Borghese Gardens with Francis and Molly, reminiscing about our families.
Molly and I did an amazing bike tour of Rome with Top Bike Rental, guided by our half-Sardinian, half-Czech, drop-dead gorgeous and knowledgeable guide Giorgia. We zipped coolly around the cobblestone streets of the city center on the shop's excellent, well-kept hybrids. About as safe as bicycle riding can get in Rome. Also very satisfying to plow through the throngs of tourists, breathing in the scent of night-blooming jasmine growing on the alley walls and only stopping into the sites worth seeing. Giorgia also gave us some excellent food tips. If you must go to Rome, just go for two days and do the bicycle tour one of those days.
The Pantheon. That thing was built in 146 A.D., and it is one of the most breathtaking things I've ever seen. And the rain drains into the floor.
Also, the Fontana de Trevi is still a remarkably gorgeous, gaudy thing. Or it would be if all the freaking tourists weren't completely blocking it.
The apartment Jeanne, Joao and I got in Celio had the most beautiful view. Coral buildings, terra cotta roofs, cascades of fuchsia bougainvillea. It was also in a quiet, calm neighborhood just behind the Colosseum -- well, quiet except for the bumpin Euro disco music the gay bar would play well into the night.
Pizza at Forno Campo de Fiori. The best. Pomodoro was amazing, zucchini flower with anchovies and mozz was as good as it sounds.
Volpetti deli and a fruit and veggie market in Testaccio. Flirt with the old counter guys in white coats, taste some Tuscan prosciutto, get saddled down with bags of Italian goodies. In fact, my favorite meal was probably the one we had at Winnie, Francis, Molly and Austin's apartment -- noshing on speck, serrano ham, tuscan prosciutto, thumb-sized carciofi, squeaky nubs of mozzarella di bufala and sliced Sicilian tomatoes which Francis dressed in olive oil, salt and pepper.
Here's a map with more detailed reviews of restaurants. There were a couple of good hits in there, and I ate enough gelati to take a year or two off my life. But I'm telling you, most of the gelati in Rome ain't got nuthin on Il Laboratorio del Gelato. Green means good, yellow means meh, and red means AVOID. Click on an icon to read more. And don't say I never do anything for you.
After feeling under the weather in London and totally crapping out in Rome, I'm not too sure about Paris this weekend. I'm so happy that I'm too broke to leave Sweden for all of June. Actually, these trips have made me fall in love with Stockholm. Stockholm is like the sweet boyfriend I've been ignoring -- sure he's not super spontaneous, and he tells jokes I don't get, but he doesn't beat me or cheat on me.
Sure, the ingredients are similar, and the looks are similar, but trust me, they would be in totally different cages at the zoo.
Kladdkaka is a chocolatey, gooey or chewy thing with a crusty top.
Beyond that, all bets are off. Some people use flour, some people don't. Some people use cocoa, some use only bar chocolate. Some people use a round springform pan, some spread it out in a glass rectangle. Some serve it with whipped cream, some serve it with ice cream, some serve it with a little sprinkle of powdered sugar.
Best of all, everyone here has their own version. It's the kind of sweet Swedes seem to always have lying around under a piece of plastic wrap, ready to nosh on.
"Oh, try a piece of my wife's kladdkaka -- it's the best."
"Do you want some kladdkaka? It's a bit dry, maybe have it with a lot of ice cream."
"Oh, I have a recipe. But it's not a real recipe or anything. I can write it down for you."
"Kladdkaka is the one thing I can make that comes out perfect every time."
Kladdkaka recipes vary wildly. Malin kept her favorite kladdkaka recipe in her purse, a recipe which calls for no flour and a day of refrigeration (!). My co-worker Sofia knew hers by heart and wrote it up in an e-mail -- a whole recipe with ingredients in about 30 words. At Kitchen Coup #4 (coming soon), Anja threw one together without measuring anything -- a shake of this, a crumble of that, chop chop chop, poke poke, done! Anja's, a marvel of crackly top and gooey innards, had a slew of secret ingredients which she wouldn't divulge to the dinner party.
I plan to try a lot of different kladdkaka recipes. We'll start with my variation on Sofia's recipe. This is not the intense coconut of Mounds or suntan oil. The silky young coconut gives it a very mild coconut perfume. Your friends who don't like coconut might even like it. And if they don't, they can go mooch off someone else's kladdkaka.
If you want to try Sofia's original, classic non-kokos recipe, omit all the coconut stuff, up the sugar to 3 dl and up the butter to 150 grams.
3 eggs 2.5 dl sugar 125 grams salted butter 25 grams coconut oil* 1 dl flour 1 1/2 tsp. vanilla sugar** 4 tbsp. good quality cocoa 1/2 can young coconut meat*** (don't add the syrup) Toasted coconut flakes for garnish
1. Preheat oven to 150 degrees Celsius. Grease and flour a 30 x 15 cm glass pan. 2. Melt butter and coconut oil together. Whip eggs and sugar together. Mix in butter/coconut oil. 3. Mix flour, vanilla, cocoa together. Add to dry ingredients to liquid and mix well. 4. Add young coconut meat. Stir into batter to coat. Pour batter into greased pan. Top with coconut flakes. 5. Bake for 35 minutes. Let cool completely before serving.
*Available in health food stores. **I'm not sure how much vanilla extract is equal to vanilla sugar. My best guess is that 1 part extract = three parts vanilla sugar. ***Available in Asian markets. Can looks like this.
My dear New York friend Francis was in London last week, helping his mum paint the house. I decided to buy a cheap ticket on RyanAir that would deposit me in London at about noon on Saturday and fly me back to Stockholm at 6 a.m. on Sunday. I got my friend Helen to come from Copenhagen and make an adventure of it. I figured we would stay up all night until about 3:30a.m., at which point I'd start making my way to Liverpool St. Station so I could get on the first Stansted Express train available.
What was grandma thinking?
Look, it's not that a 31 year old woman can't do a 12 hour trip to London. It's just that I can't do that. Not only that, I don't WANT to do it. I'll take a hot shower, clean sheets and a comic book over hard partying anyday.
Drinks by the Thames near Millennium Bridge. Obvs did not exist when I lived there.
But it was super fun to see Francis and Helen, if only for a few
hours. I had all kinds of transportation mishaps, though. I took the
bus to the wrong airport on the way over, but because I am a planner, I
had enough time to take the express train back to Stockholm and pick up
the correct bus to Skavsta airport. (Which, incidentally, is like a
Barbie doll airport in the middle of a cow patch.)
It's strange because I hadn't been back to London since I lived there
twelve years ago. Twelve years! I had a miserable time most of the
year because I didn't force myself to go out and make friends.
I
did really spend time cooking, though. I used to go to the Portobello
Rd. Market every weekend to pick up vegetables from the loud hawkers,
occasionally splurging on a few mushy, tart dolmas from the olive
barrel stand.
On the flight over, I had little flashbacks of
my year. I remember the view from the window of my craptastic
apartment on Canfield Gardens off of Finchley Road. I spent the entire
year wondering where the fucking gardens were. Suddenly, in May, that
naked tree I'd been resenting all year clothed itself in lush green
foliage. And I was on my way back home to California.
I remember the big pots of sauce I would make from fresh tomatoes,
breaking them down over low heat until they liquefied. Or the spot on
my roommate's carpet where the one space heater we shared melted the
thin pink rug underneath it, branding it with a black waffle shape.
The weird thing is that when I got to London on Saturday morning, not a thing was familiar. Not a thing. Okay, maybe the Royal National Theatre I remembered. And Waterloo Bridge. But Francis took me to Borough Market, the oldest food market in London, for my first time. How could I have never gone there the entire year I was in London? I'd never even been near the London Bridge tube station.
Francis and I walked around the Tate Modern, which had not yet opened the last time was in London. TWELVE YEARS AGO. (How did I get to be old enough to say shit like that?)
After meeting up with Helen and her friend Ia, we strolled through Covent Garden. The only corner I remember was a Nike store that used to be a Shelley's (probably a decade ago). I also had vague memories of a Buffalo shoe store on that street. (Do any of you even remember those? They were these horrific platform sneakers in pastel colors popularized by the Spice Girls. THE SPICE GIRLS. And of course I wanted a pair. Good God.)
Wound up in a dusty old sherry pub called Gordon's on yet another street I didn't recognize, just off of the Strand, the street my university was on. Seriously, what did I do that whole year? I have no idea. I didn't drink, I remember that. Maybe all I did was stay in
the house and cook. Am I going to come back to Stockholm in a dozen
years and realize that I never left the house here either?
Dinner with Francis's sister Rosie and her husband Julian was at the Eagle, the original gastropub near Exmouth Market (another street I'd never seen). (Tart boquerones, sweet colored peppers with raisins and pine nuts, grilled sardines on crusty bread with chili jam, roasted tomatoes and arugula.) I totally copped out of staying up all night and wound up crashing in Helen's hotel room. Before midnight. So much for partying til the break of dawn.
The next morning, the cab company I had called the night before told me they had no cabs. My underground travelcard had run out, so I couldn't take a night bus. And it's not as easy to get a cab in London at that hour as it would be in Manhattan.
I waited for a bit and finally got a guy in a black cab, who then tried to convince me that the Stansted Express wasn't running. He said he'd take me to Stansted for 18 quid (even though it's usually 100 quid, he said). When I told him I didn't have the cash, he offered to take me to a cash machine. He kept asking me where I was from, talking about some girls from Ohio he drove to the airport last weekend.
At which point I was like, look, I have to see for myself if the train is running, because the website said it would. And he dropped me off at Liverpool St., and guess the fuck what? Station fully open, train totally running, first train leaving at 4:10, just as the website said. I thought the black cab drivers were the trustworthy ones. Innocence lost.
The lesson of this story -- no more weekend dashes for grandma. Next time I try a cockamamie stunt like that, can one of you please check me back into the nursing home?
I will say that when I got back, I really felt relieved to be home. Home! This place is home now!
I've managed to cook in four Swedish kitchens now. It's hard to document the kitchen coups because I'm always fussing over the food. But I'll try to give you some snapshots.
---- The guests: The editor The style writer The musician The nurse A 9 yr old A 4 yr old A 2 yr old
The kitchen: an eat-in family kitchen, mostly white, with tall ceilings and a short green Smeg refrigerator. Induction stove, 4 burners. Big empty slot under the counter, currently the 4 yr old and 2 yr old's favorite hiding place, soon to be the slot for the new mini-dishwasher. A silver lamp arches widely over the kitchen table like a shiny basketball in mid-toss. The table is set with a pair of white Tripp Trapps, the Scandinavian high chair of choice.
The coup: Six sea bream halves. Bones-in, skin-on. They have no heads, and yet they stare back at me, gray, dull. What now, boss?
The plan: Chinese-style steamed fish. I try to put the sea bream on a plate. But the plate will not fit in the steaming pot. I try another plate. And another pot. And another plate. And another pan. The editor and the style writer are pulling out kitchen cupboard keys, unlocking cabinets, climbing onto chairs. "We always think we have too much stuff."
We borrow a bigger pot from a neighbor. But the editor and style writer's kitchen has an induction stove, and the pot refuses to heat up. I put my All-Clad underneath the borrowed pot. Like magic, the induction burner lights up.
The guests will arrive soon. I am dubious. The fish is going to put up a fight, I know it. I stuff the fish with ginger, cilantro, dainty straws of Chinese celery, to shut it up.
Gentle steam, check. Steaming plate raised up from the bottom of the pan with the help of a little bowl, check. Lid on, check. Make note of the time plus ten minutes. Go!
The guests have arrived. The 4 year old and 2 year old are ready to eat. It's past their dinnertime. They start up on rice cooker rice doused in soy sauce. We start to eat the other dishes, which have been ready to go.
I check on the fish. Done? Hm, done around the edges. But -- dammit! -- raw inside, the wan, translucent color of disappointment. Shit. Well, we'll let it go. I turn the heat up.
The rest of the courses pass. Chicken green curry over somen is pleasantly creamy and starchy, if a bit undersalted. The pork larb is excellent, made chili-free for the kids and chili-ful for the adults. The water spinach with bean sauce is reliable.
Oh the fish!
We are at rolling boil. The steam is angry. It shoots out of the sides of the lid like the ears of a dragon. The fillets are now decidedly opaque, strands of white protein leaking into the steam puddle. I scrape the soggy ginger off and pour the soy sauce-sesame oil-julienned ginger over it.
Overdone. Overdone overdone overdone. FAIL.
Nobody else seems to notice. The 9 year old has actually cleaned her plate completely. She is totally fascinated by me, the Asian lady cooking exotic food and speaking only in English, a language she has not yet mastered. She asks her mom to whisper English to her so she can talk to me. "Where are you from?" "How old are you?" and even stranger, "You're skinny." I protest that I'm fat, but then I think, what kind of message are you sending? So I switch tactics and tell her that she's pretty and lagom, which I use to mean that she's just right, but I'm probably not using the word correctly.
The conversation floats around me. The musician offers to get more wine at his apartment down the street. The editor asks for the recipe for the pork larb. I smile, I laugh, but inside I shake my fist at the fish and vow to avenge my failure.
Occupation: Editor for the Swedish food magazine Allt om Mat - All About Food
Neighborhood: Sickla, Stockholm, Sweden
Relationship status: Living together with Tomas, another Luleåbo in exile.
What did you eat today?
I had a great breakfast with cooked Italian ham, Danish rye bread, OJ and coffee. For lunch, I had six Danish smørrebrød made by a famous (in Denmark) chef named Adam Aamann-Christensen. They were small and delightful and he is very cute! Now I'm looking forward to a big beer tasting real soon here at work! The dinner is a secret but I have high hopes, cause there's another great chef in our kitchen, making it right now.
What do you never eat?
Oysters. They make me sick, unfortunately. I hope I'm never served eyes from sheep, or any animal. I don't want to eat eyes.
Complete this sentence: In my refrigerator, you can always find:
Mousse of artichoke, perfect on crostinis with a fresh basil leave on top. One of my many favorite snacks! I love snacks.
What is your favorite kitchen item?
My Kyocera knifes. They have ceramic blades and break easily but man! Are they sharp!
Where do you eat out most frequently?
Vietnamese restaurant Noodle House, Korean restaurant Arirang, and Thai restaurant Korat. They are all great! [Malin just took me to Noodle House. We ordered her favorite, these little silver dollar rice flour pancakes topped with shrimp, peanuts and cilantro that were squishalicious. Me hongry. --Ed.]
World ends tomorrow. What would you like for your last meal?
Probably something as boring but tasty as spaghetti Bolognese.. You can't go wrong with that!
Malin is one of the dear people saving me from loneliness. She makes excellent crostini.
"S is for Sad...
...and for the mysterious appetite that often surges in us when our
hearts seem breaking and our lives too bleakly empty. Like every other
physical phenomenon, there is good reason for this hunger, if we will
be blunt enough to recognize it."
I wish I had my M. F. K. books with me. I know she was married three times and had lots of lovers, but I also know she understood what it was to be a bachelorette -- how peaceful it can be, how lonely it can be. Who understood the effects of a full stomach on an empty heart better than she? Those moments of self-clarity were butterflies she pushed pins through and put on display.
Remember back in March when I asked you for help making my apartment feel like home? Little did I know, my subconscious was already hard at work answering that very question.
What does home mean to me? As I'm sure you could have guessed, it's not about the furnishings:
It's not about the bedroom or books, despite the fact that I miss M. F. K.:
It's not about toiletries:
It's not about clothing:
It is now and always will be about the kitchen, and my almost pathological need to comfort myself with quantities of food. The rest of the apartment looks like a hotel I've moved into for the week. But the kitchen, the sweet little kitchen with shelves that are the perfect height and depth -- the kitchen looks like the home of someone who's been collecting condiments for years.
When you learn to carry recipes in your hands, your heart, and your palate, you can always create a sense of home for yourself. And as long as you can be flexible with ingredients, you can do so anywhere in the world. What a comfort the kitchen continues to be for me.
I'm so grateful to my Pau for teaching me love through food. But I'm also grateful to the friends I have made dinner with -- to Miho for teaching me how to make gyoza; to Helen for teaching me to make bread; to La Doug for teaching me to swim in butter; to everyone I've ever watched from and learned from in the warmest room in the house.
In my head, I've invited M. F. K. over for to share a
bachelorette's meal of romaine salad with hard-boiled eggs and herbs
snipped from my windowsill plants. I'd serve it with a homemade Danish bun,
sliced cheese and a glass of cold white wine straight from the refrigerator. Or
we could have a simple tomato sauce filled out with canned borlotti beans and blanched broccoli over penne, spruced up with cubes of fresh mozzarella. Or a gigantic bowl of cold glass noodle salad with shrimp, lots of lime juice and cilantro. I'd carry the kitchen table out to the main room, prop the window open with a piece of wood, and light a couple of tealights. We'd sit in the squeaky wooden chairs, two ladies alone together, listening to Blossom Dearie sing "Manhattan" and watching the sun set and set and set into the Stockholm spring night.
The view from my window at 9pm on Wednesday night. All the light is disconcerting. It's hard to go to bed, and it's hard to sleep deeply in the morning. I wind up eating dinner at 9:00pm because my body is confused and not hungry til then.
The light has been coming on hard and fast. The idea that the days will continue to get longer until about June 20 really boggles my mind. I wonder if the descent into winter is just as rapid.
Relationship status: Single What did you eat today?
Breakfast, which was Weetabix with sliced banana and milk and an orange. For lunch I had a mix-up with tuna, cottage cheese, avocado and tomatoes served with wheatberry and salad. It's that kind of dish a restaurant in Sweden would name "Health dish", but it was really good! And for afternoon snack, I ate a cake which my grandmother had made.
What do you never eat?
Hmm... I don't really know, but maybe fried food? Don't like it at all.
Complete this sentence: In my refrigerator, you can always find:
Well, though I don't have a refrigerator for my ow.n I guess I can tell what you always find in my family's: Milk & sour milk (something really Swedish!). [For you non-Swedes, that's filmjölk, and it's like kefir with a different funk. --Ed.] Because if you have that you can at least eat breakfast!
What is your favorite kitchen item?
I don't know... maybe a really good knife? At least that's what I use most frequently.
Where do you eat out most frequently?
In school I guess? But that doesn't count! I don't eat out very frequent, and when I do I like to try different places. But maybe SoFo Café at Söder, Stockholm.
World ends tomorrow. What would you like for your last meal?
A dessert with really much dark chocolate and berries. Yum! And a cup of coffee.
So maybe you're thinking, wait, how can you have already found the best ice cream if you've only been to two places? Here's why:
On top is fläder, or elderflower, sorbet. Not too sweet, fine fine ice crystals, a touch of perfume, a kiss of citrus. I love all things fläder, and I love the word fläder. Ask a Swedish person to say this to you and just TRY to not crush out on Swedish.
Under Neat that is Teheran gelato. That's right, it's called Teheran, as in Tehran, Iran.
And it's made of vanilla, pistachio, squiggly threads of saffron and rosewater. I detected a hint of orange as well. It's eggy and smooth, like a shorn mink for your tongue. Surely this is what the most devout teetotaler Muslim virgins get served in heaven.
In the interest of journalistic integrity, I may try more ice cream places. But I will probably resent them for taking up space in my arteries that could otherwise be occupied by Stockholms Glasshus glass. But the reportage will continue -- you know it's true, everything I do, I do it for you.
I remember fawning over my friend Helen's bread the first time she made it for us. "Everyone in Denmark can make this kind of bread," she said, bewildered at my enthusiasm.
I like that attitude. Why has bread become this special occasion thing? I would never buy pre-made rice. Why should I buy pre-made bread?
Look, this is not some slender, golden Parisian baguette with slashes and leaves, or a ciabatta with holes big enough to put your fist through. But it's a sturdy, honest bread, the kind of bread your body would be happy to wake up to.
When I was in Copenhagen, I asked Helen to teach me to make her bread.
No measuring, no kneading, no chopping, and she can make the dough
after partying until 8am. I've seen her do it. And now I can do it.
Now that I understand how it works, I can make as few or as many buns as I want to at a time. I can make it in metric countries or in non-metric countries, whether I can read the food labels or not. The world is mine.
Ingredients: flours, water, yeast, salt, honey/sugar, whatever hippie flourishes you want in the bread.
Equipment: A bowl, a spoon, parchment paper, a rice paddle, a baking sheet, a dish towel, an oven
Take 1/8 of a block of cake yeast. That's a little bit of yeast. And drop it into some warm water. Like a couple of cups. Add a generous teaspoonish mound of salt and a tablespoonish squirt of honey. Mix it all up until everything dissolves and the honey smell blooms.
Add nuts, seeds, dried fruit and a glug of oil. Whatever you got, that's fine.
Add enough spelt flour (or rye flour, or wheat flour, whatever alternative brown flour you can find) until you get the consistency of pancake batter.
Sprinkle in some muesli.
Add enough regular flour so you get a wet bread dough. It should be kind of elastic and pull away from the sides of the bowl.
Cover with a well-wetted clean dish towel and go to work. Or go to bed. Or set it in a warm place and do your laundry.
The dough will be twice the size. Preheat your oven to 200 degrees Celsius. (That's 375ish Fahrenheit, or 3/4 to the top of the dial on a home oven.) Use something like a rice paddle to plop bun-shaped mounds onto parchment paper.
Bake until brown and crusty. I don't know how long this takes. Use your nose. When your kitchen smells like bread, take a look at them. The buns should be brown, and the exterior should be crusty.
This is the bed I sleep on here. It's a nice bed, but it's not my bed.
My bed back home has a dip slightly right of center where I sleep, as though someone were sleeping on the inside, next to the wall.
I watch my neighbor across the courtyard cook for himself everyday. When he's finished cooking and he's ready to eat, he turns off the overhead lights and turns on a small lamp on the kitchen table. He always eats alone.
The flowers are going nuts out there, especially the cherry blossom trees. The pink petals were everywhere, swirling around in the fountain, turning the water pink. Reminds me of April in New York, when the cherry blossom petals whoosh along Park Ave. by 42nd St., swept into blushing piles by the wind. Not to be all emo, but what other flower is as pretty as it's dying?
This weekend was Valborgsmässoafton and Labor Day. I love these random Swedish holidays. Valborgs involves a big bonfire. I went to Rosendals Trädgård and Skansen on my day off. I thought I would stay for the bonfire, but I got bored.
I did stay for the Stockholm Academic Male Choir (Stockholms Studentsångarförbund), though. I loved them. At the end of the set, the old men helped the older men step gingerly off the risers.
On Sunday, after a texting my friend at the wrong number, I wound up on a boat to the Stockholm archipelago by myself. I went to an island called Sandhamn. The boat ride was 2 1/2 hours. Luckily, I brought a book.
I walked through the woods until I reached the sea.
The ocean, the scene of so many feminine demises, pastel silk floating around willow wrists. Virginia Woolf, Kate Chopin's Edna Pontellier, the real little mermaid. But water can also enlighten. Think of M.F.K.'s Sea Change, Helen Keller. W-A-T-E-R water. After a long walk along the rocky beach, I nearly missed the boat back to Stockholm. I had gotten lost in the woods, so I used the iPhone GPS to try and make the blue dot (me) connect with the little ship icon on the map. As I ran down the hill, I had to laugh at the lesson -- nobody's going to save me but me.
To celebrate having caught the boat, I treated myself to a cheap mazarin (my favorite) and a cup of tea. I think I have to lay off the coffee. It's giving me acid reflux.
Tonight, La Doug and I ate ice cream together over Skype. He had Haagen Dazs vanilla chocolate chip. I had Ben & Jerry's New York Super Fudge Chunk with sliced strawberries. We both finished the last of our tubs.
Relationship status: Married What did you eat today?
Just breakfast so far - rye bread with Swedish liver paste and sliced cucumbers, a glass of vitamin-c, coffee, and a fruit salad with orange and raspberries.
What do you never eat?
Despite having a food blog and all, I'm surprisingly un-adventurous in food. I won't call myself a picky eater, but... let's just say there are many, many things that I have no urge to try.
Complete this sentence: In my refrigerator, you can always find:
Pepsi Max. How embarrassing to admit - but it's certainly true.
What is your favorite kitchen item?
I really do love my Kitchen-Aid!
Where do you eat out most frequently?
I don't eat out all that much, but I do meet friends for "fika" quite often. Vurma is one of my favorite cafés - great sandwiches, and nice coffee. [I got a pretty great falafel sandwich on sesame bread from the one next to Hornstull Strand last weekend, but it took a full hour from the time I got on line to the time I got my cold sandwich. That is too long to wait when the sun is out. --Ed.]
World ends tomorrow. What would you like for your last meal?
I've decided to stop and take pictures of the flowers whenever I see them. (At least, whenever I see them and I'm not on my bike in the middle of traffic.) Not to bash you over the head with the obvs, but I just have to remember to stop and notice them and smell them or whatever.
Yes, all this US chatter about socialist Sweden is hilarious. Those clips are making the rounds over here, too.
Here's another reason to fear socialist Sweden.
When you own a bike shop, you and your shop buddy can be open Monday through Friday from 12-6, and be closed for lunch from 1-2. That means your shop is open 20 hours a week; and if you split those hours with your shop buddy, you are working 10 hours a week. 10 hours a week, people. And you never have to worry about healthcare, or day care, or education.
Of course, this is not terribly convenient for certain people who have to work regular office hours and need to get their bike fixed, but can't hate the playa.
People speak incredibly fluent English here. That's why it's easy to pick up on the Swedish language idiosyncracies being translated over. There are certain phrases that seem to be popular in Swenglish (or svengelska). Lately, I've been hearing a lot of "for example" in the middle of a sentence:
She likes to eat fruit, for example, pineapple, cherries and raspberries.
I've also been hearing a lot of "among others":
She likes to drink cava, Pimms' Cup, and red wine, among others.
I asked my co-worker Niklas what the Swedish equivalent of these phrases are.
till exempel = for example bland annat = among others.
Niklas speculated that the proliferation of till exempel and bland annat may be a linguistic manifestation of the Swedish dedication to fairness, inclusiveness and equality (*cough* socialism *cough*). The phrases act as a tiny disclaimer in the middle of a sentence. Their presence helps to make it clear that the items listed are just a few of many, and that they don't necessarily take precedence over those not listed.
So a Swede might say:
He has expensive taste. His closet is filled with shoes from Dolce & Gabbana, Bloomingdale's and Martin Margiela, among others.
And an American might say:
He's got expensive taste. He owns shoes from Dolce & Gabbana, Martin Margiela and Bloomingdale's.
I don't know about you, but I tend to front load my lists with the heavy hitters, the point-provers. In the Americanized sentence above, I wouldn't assume that the man in the sentence only owns shoes from those three designers. And as a writer, I wouldn't deem it necessary to explain that there might be other kinds of shoes in the guy's closet.
I don't think I use "among others" much, if at all. And I only use "for example" at the beginning of a sentence, when pointing out a single item in order to
illustrate a point.
Is the sentence better with or without the explanation? Which tells the story more accurately? Depends on who's listening, I guess.
I've decided to make it my mission to find Stockholm's best glass, aka ice cream. Copenhagen's Paradis set the bar pretty high. Oh, sure, there are articles I could put through Google translate, but I don't know which critics to trust. Besides, it'll give me something to do with all my free time.
Anyway, we start today with Glass on Dalagatan near Kungstengatan in Vasastan. There are about 25 flavors, advertised as "importerad från Venedig" (imported from Venice). This boggles my mind. I don't want to know that my ice cream sat on an airplane for several hours and had to pass customs before it got to Stockholm.*
I got two scoops on recommendation from the cashier -- croccantino and hazelnut.
Croccantino was a kola (caramel) variant, and it was awful -- like a gritty cross between those penny candy butterscotch discs and hard water ring around the bathtub. My burps taste of cheap vanilla Glade. Hazelnut was alright, but I kind of hate hazelnut flavored things and I don't know why I agreed to get it.
I like my ice cream either eggier or ice milkier, and this was in that boring in-between place, with a couple too many ice crystals for that classic velvet gelato mouthfeel.
The verdict: Fine to scratch a glass itch, and there are probably better flavors, but I think I'll save my calories for somewhere else.
*This baffles me almost as much as this sign advertising "Bagels direct from London" does.
The locavore movement has not hit Stockholm yet. In fact, there are no
farmer's markets. No farmer's markets! I don't know where to get real
deal produce. People keep telling me about the wonder of the new
potatoes, and the local strawberries, but where are the farmers? I
can't very well trust Daglivs and ICA to provide access to the most
loving farm fresh food. Stockholm, have faith in your own abilities to
grow and make food! Go local!
UPDATE: Commenter Anne says there is a farmer's market! If my translation is correct, it's only open 3 Saturdays in May and 2 Saturdays in June until August. But I'll only be in town for two of those days. And then my job here ends on August 14. Blerg!
I spent my weekend on the bicycle, trying to hunt down the flowers in Stockholm. Where are they?
I rode up through Hagaparken all the way to the motorway. I saw little white flowers dotting the green carpet of ground cover. But not much color.
I rode back down Norrtullsgatan and met some friends at Hornstull Strand for a picnic. Not many flowers there.
I rode past Kungsträdgården, where there were some pretty spectacular pink cherry blossom trees, but the square was clogged with tourists on the borrow-a-bikes.
I rode out to Djurgården, up to Rosendals Trädgård, which was lovely, but no flowers, really. Where are the flowers? The apple tree garden is budding up. I bet by the end of this week, they'll have flowers.
The sign says "Apple garden closed! Please let the grass grow" or something. As you can see, many ignored the signs in order to lay out under the trees. I can't decide if I want to chide or admire their irreverence for the grass.
I don't know why, but I'm craving a big explosion of color and scent. I'm obsessing over perfumes and candles. Maybe I want confirmation that the city is alive. I'm hoping the exuberance of nature will spur me out of this mild depression, which I totally hate myself for. And then I hate myself some more for my lack of compassion. It is a vicious cycle.
This is my time of year. I love spring! I only get it once a year. Such beauty, such scale. I have friends now, and I'm actually meeting up with them from time to time. So why can I not kick myself out of this funk?
Look! Coffee, a chocolate cookie, sunshine, a garden bench in the sun, an iPhone, a pen for my tortured slambook...good god, you ungrateful bastard, what more could you want?
I hate feeling like a total cliché. I've done this before. I knew I'd hit a rough patch. I just figured I'd be able to pull myself out of it faster, having experienced living abroad before. Here's how I might characterize the stages:
Stage 1. Fascination They're blond and tall! They eat food in tubes! Look at the pretty latch on this window! The coffee is soooo delish! I've had a cinnamon bun before, but this one is different!
Stage 2. Alienation I'm not blond or tall. I don't eat food in tubes. I've had those cinnamon buns, but they don't fill the void in my heart. I miss my nightly decompression talks with La Doug. Wait, give me back those cinnamon buns.
Stage 3. Internalization (current stage) Okay, kid, I guess it's just me and me. I'll catch up on my reading. And get better at cooking. Do more yoga. I'm not such bad company, when I'm not being mean to myself. Except that I will probably be alone for the rest of my life and never know love and get even fatter and have a cat named Pebbles and I should just accept this loneliness as the period at the end of my sentence.
I'm trying to remember what's next. Participation? Navigation? Emancipation? Uh oh, I'm not sure I got past this phase during my year in London. Because I was definitely a much better cook by the end of the year. If I can push through this part, what's next? Anybody?
So you know how the other day I yelled as you pulled out in front of me, "YOOOOOOOO!!! ASSHOLE!"? And then I rode up alongside you just so I could stick my head in your window and give you the evil eye? And you know how you said something to me in Swedish, but I didn't respond? And you repeated it but I still just kept giving you evil eye because I didn't understand?
Well, after you pulled away, I thought maybe you said "viktig" or "riktig". And then I thought, hm, I think that means "right". Maybe you were saying "right of way"? But then why would you be saying "right of way"? Weren't you cutting me off? Or was I cutting you off?
And then I rode past that intersection again, and sure enough, there's a light there. Which is weird because I didn't notice it before. There's only construction work going on on your side of the road. But I probably ran a red light. Or did I?
So, um, listen, I'm really sorry I called you an asshole. You probably weren't used to being called an asshole in English by an angry Asian cyclist in a stupid helmet and stupid aviators. And I probably ruined your day.
I always think that getting a good expletive out will be better than the slow burn of l'esprit d'escalier. But it didn't help.
And then I thought about how I maybe made you hate cyclists a little more. Or Asians. Or women. Or Americans. Or aviators.
So if it makes you feel any better, the guilt eroded me and totally ruined my day, too. And I have no way of unburdening myself of this guilt because I don't know where to find you.
But if you see me again, if you could please not run me over with your station wagon, that would be cool.
Do yourself a favor and get one of these wire whisks. This is the kind of whisk you find in Swedish homes, and it's totes genius. The coiled wire sits flat against the bottom of your pan, so you can whisk up roux and caramel and all kinds of bits that like to the stick to the edges of your pan with ease. They're also genius for whipping small amounts of liquid. And they're easy to clean. I'm sure you can get one at IKEA.
Neighborhood: The swanky Östermalm, albeit in a very hidden enclave full of just plain ol' regular folks.
Relationship status: Taken What did you eat today?
For breakfast I had this great dish I always make and which will most probably contribute to my economic downfall, considering the price of fruits in this part of town. It was: one mashed up banana, some pomegranate seeds, one passion fruit, four physalises split down the middle, a handful of blueberries, a handful of strawberries, a handful of raspberries and another of blackberries (all berries have to be frozen, not fresh, to contribute to the right sogginess), then some seeds, whose names I can't remember in English, suffice to say that they're supposedly good for the tummy, and chopped hazelnuts and Brazil nuts. And two Weetabix (product placement) and milk. Stir and enjoy! OK, that's where my day usually starts and from then on it's all downhill. Lunch was a bag of pick n' mix sweeties (of which Sweden does the best in the whole wide world) and pancakes with Nutella (another product placement) and more milk (a must when eating chocolate). Since I abhor cooking, I cross my fingers every morning that someone will take me out to eat at some point during the day, and today my friend Agnes cooked for me. Lucky me. Otherwise it would have meant more cereal and more milk. Agnes made borscht which I had to eat very very carefully so as not to stain my nice expensive outfit (my mum says beetroot stains are impossible to get rid of). I did well. I also had sandwiches with cheese and butter. We drank water. And then coffee, but it was decaffeinated so that we would all be able to sleep soundly. And chocolates. It was all very nice.
What do you never eat?
Nada. I eat everything! I think a picky palate is a sign of a narrow mind. [Hear hear! Here here? Hear, hear! --Ed.]
Complete this sentence: In my refrigerator, you can always find:
Milk! And chocolate - although that's in the cupboard, strictly speaking.
What is your favorite kitchen item?
I have a spoon I stole, as revenge, from a crazy flat mate I once had, and that I like very much. I never use any other spoon, when eating at home.
Where do you eat out most frequently?
I'm on a very strict budget in these financially turbulent times, so my eating out habits rely on other people's generosity, so it would be bad form to be picky. I do however like places that serve heavy pasta. Or places that serve Wallenbergare, a Swedish speciality that consists of mushy meat and cream I think. It's served with mashed potatoes (I love love love mashed potatoes) and lingonberries (ditto). Restaurant Prinsen here in Stockholm does the best ones I've tasted so far in life.
World ends tomorrow. What would you like for your last meal?
I spent the entire day cooking for Allt om Mat (All About Food) magazine. As you may recall, my predecessor Megan wrote a story for them about Thanksgiving in New Mexico.
One of the things I've been trying to do to make new friends here is to invite myself over to cook in other people's kitchens. So far, only one person, my lovely co-worker Niklas, has accepted my offer. Well, that's not entirely true; several people have accepted, but only Niklas has actually agreed on dates and lined up ingredients and guests.
Niklas told Malin, the Allt om Mat editor, that I was pimping myself out. She figured, hey, maybe we can do a story about it. So she invited me to cook for her.
And I did. And everything turned out beautifully. Really, I was so pleased. And if you know me, you know I can be really critical of my own cooking. I've been testing and testing these recipes to make sure they'd work. I'll share the menu if/when the story comes out.
But can we talk for a second about the pleasure of throwing a dinner party? What's better? You sit, you eat, you drink, you can hear each other talk, you eat dessert, you have coffee, you can retire to a couch when it's over...there's no better way to socialize. Why, why waste time in a bar when you can get cozy over a dinner table?
I've had people over for dinner in my little studio here, and it's been no big deal. I'm not the best cook, but I make simple food that doesn't try too hard. And for the kind of people I want to surround myself with, simple is enough.
That's what I have to remind myself all the time; and that's what I want to remind you of. Nobody cares that you're not Thomas Keller. They're just happy to eat a home cooked meal for the price of a bottle of wine, without having to kill their buzz with check splitting at the end of the night.
Besides, we may be moving towards that end times barter economy. Better brush up on your skillz.
Gosh, it's so nice to ride my bike along the water. The water looks so black at night. Hey, those seagulls are going nuts over there. Seagulls, stars, so many little bits against the black sky.
Hm, detour in Gamla Stan. That's weird. I don't remember seeing this before. Does this sign mean go around? Okay, I guess I'll hang a right and ride right along the water.
Co-o-bb-b-b-l-l-l-e-e-ss-s-ss-t-tt-to-on-nn-ne-e-ess. Still, it's pretty. It's so desolate over here. I'd never ride around something like this in New York.
Oh look, trolley tracks. Remember when Heej nearly got a bike tire stuck in the tram tracks in Berlin? I better ride over diagonally.
Oof--uh-oh---what's--
[CRASH. Right knee-Left shin-Right thumb-Left heel of hand-Left thigh. Lock goes skidding across the stones.]
FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCCCCCCCCCCCCCCK!
OWWWWWWWW!
Get up.
Knee? OW. Get up. Can I walk? Yes. I'm walking. Pick up your lock. Did you drop anything? Phone, keys, wallet?
Fuck that hurts. Walk it out. What if I weren't wearing a helmet and I hit my head and passed out and forgot everything? Would anyone help me? Would anyone find me? How long would it take?
You're fine, walk it out.
What if I had really hurt myself? How would I have gotten to the doctor?
Ow. Let's walk out to the closed off bike lane.
How come that guy's riding in the street? Was I supposed to ride in the street on not on the detour? What did that sign say? What's wrong with the bike lane? Nothing seems wrong. Why did they block it off?
Fuck my knee. Fuck. I guess yoga is not happening tomorrow. Get back on the bike. There you go. Ow. Ow. Ow. My knee is not happy. Shin's alright, though. Thumb's alright.
Well, at least I was wearing boots. And gloves. Really, could have been much worse. What if I had lost teeth? Broken a bone? Gotten amnesia? I'm wearing a helmet, but still. What if the helmet didn't work? Do helmets work?
Is my knee going to swell up? Getting older sucks. I am going to take forever to heal. I hope I'm not bleeding.
If I wound up in the hospital, would my Mae come visit? Yeah, she totally would.
Did I leave anything back there? My bag is open. Should I go back and check? OW.
Come on, suck it up. That's what happens. People fall. Real cyclists get bruises. You're fine. Get it together.
I don't think I have any ice at home. Is there anything? I guess I can put some frozen salmon on it. OMG, I am going home to ice my bruises with frozen salmon. If that ain't some old maid shit, I don't know what is.
[Epilogue: I am now home with a piece of frozen salmon on my knee. I smell vaguely like cat food, but I'm enjoying a can of young coconut juice I had forgotten about. Awesome.]
Name: Klara Kjellberg
Occupation: Web Editor + a lotta other stuff at Hyper Island
Neighborhood: Södermalm, Stockholm
Relationship status: Boyfriend/sambo (translate it) on a distance What did you eat today?
Apple, banana, chocolate and peanuts. And a fish oil Omega 3 pill that my friend gave me.
What do you never eat?
Chicken sausage.
Complete this sentence: In my refrigerator, you can always find:
an onion of some kind.
What is your favorite kitchen item?
I love graters! Dreaming of a vegetable holder, kinda like the one on the left. Have grated one too many fingertips.
Where do you eat out most frequently?
Right now, Louie Louie on Söder. The same dish at least once a week (most recently last night); feta cheese and olive salad with bulgur.
World ends tomorrow. What would you like for your last meal?
A spaghetti dish I had on a Caralunyan beach. I don't want to say where, it's a sacred place.
The trailerish restaurant is open during summer only, and I think it's run by a family. When I was younger, they had a spaghetti dish with a salmon sauce that was unbelievable. So if the world is ending... might as well die of spaghetti OD.
A giant papier-maché egg filled with candy. All this candy is giving me a rather uncomfortable gut.
Glad Påsk! = Happy Easter!
In Sweden, Easter lasts for almost a week, which is strange considering that the vast majority of the country is secular. Even stranger, Thursday is Skärtorsdag, where little kids dress up like witches from Blåkulla (Blue Hill, a mythical place) and ride brooms while going door-to-door for candy. Then there's Good Friday, then Easter Saturday, which is some other big candy day, and Easter Sunday. And today is Easter Monday. What? I know.
I'd have more to report on Swedish Easter, but instead of doing my due diligence here, I skipped town and spent a few dreamlike days in Copenhagen with my dear friends Sarah and Helen. Sorry.
Actually, I'm not really sorry. I had an awesome time. Highlights:
An EPIC bike ride up the water and into some enchanted former hunting grounds. The trees aren't awake yet, and the grass grows tufty like choppy waves. We rode thisclose to herds of grazing deer in hazy, golden sunshine. So alien, so awesome.
Had a dinner party at Helen's house with the clan Lookofsky.
Saw the zoo's elephants and monkeys from gorgeous Frederiksberg Have.
Before you write letters, I know that's Swedish. Denmark is allowed to show Swedish art.
Following the recommendation of the guy I rented my bike from, we also went to Cisternerne. It's an amazing underground museum in an old water cistern in Frederiksberg Have. The water still seeps from the ceiling and walls, so, brilliantly, somebody decided to make it a modern glass art museum. It was quite a warm day, but the minute we stepped into the cavernous cistern, we could see our breath. It's really one of the coolest museums I've ever been to. It'd be the perfect place for a satanic choral music concert. The light! The echoes! The wet glass! The weird creepy room of greenish townspeople statues facing every which way!
By the way, if you need a bike, go to Baisikeli on Tursensgade. Not only is the guy who rents the bikes cute, but proceeds go towards providing bikes to poor villages in Africa. Plus, the guy suggested I take a red bike because, as he said, "It matches your jacket. In Copenhagen, we like that extra little touch. It's style over speed."
Part of me of course misses my friends and the comforts of home. And part of me is already nostalgic for my time here, my little pseudo-European life. I am sitting around being bored and lonely, shopping to fill my time, not feeling that I can lean on the tendril roots of my new friendships. I am also home on "Easter Monday", riding my bicycle around the islands of Stockholm, reading books and drinking hot coffee, re-teaching myself to cook. It's lonely and it's lovely, all the time and at the same time.
Spring has arrived in Stockholm. The gigantic tree in the courtyard, the only one that can peek into my attic apartment, is really starting to bud up. I have been waiting for this moment for months. Now that it's here, I'm reluctant to rejoice. This is what I have been waiting for. Well, now what?
Two months I've been here. Only two months, and yet already 1/3 of the way through my job. Sometimes I feel like I have made no progress. When it comes to the language, when I'm feeling tired and lonely (which is often), I speak English for everyday interactions. My Swedish is not 1/3 of the way towards basic communication.
And yet I can understand a lot. The signs are no longer just fun exercises in pronunciation. Kemtvätt, hembageri, ingen reklam tack, stängd, ej kod. These things, which are so common to me now, would have been nothing to me just two months ago.
For the last two weeks, I tried to verb it. Must enjoy! Must socialize! Must stop kvetching! I think this week, I'm going to lay back in the cut a bit, maybe plan some more weekend trips, do a little more yoga. I'm hoping that not trying so hard to enjoy myself will translate into a marked increase in actual enjoyment. It is not my usual New Yorker/Asian-American overachiever way, but it is a way I ought to learn.
This business of actually calling my friends' friends and making dates is really good for me. I got and accepted an invitation to the birthday party of a lovely lady named Malin. I was a little worried about feeling awkward going to a party by myself.
But Malin and her Finnish boyfriend Tomas were top notch hosts, and their friends were as gracious as they are. The crowd reminded me of Northern California -- fewer Stockholm
sailor stripes, more sleeve tattoos, heavy gauge piercings, and blunt
cut bangs. The table by the entrance had a Peter Beste photo book of Norwegian black metal bands.
I was totally civilized for the first three hours -- drinking wine spritzers, eating tiny canapes of chanterelle cream on croutons, button-sized Welsh rarebit, lox and cream cheese, and Finnish liverwurst with cornichons, all while discussing content management systems and iPhone apps with a developer.
But at some point, I broke out my party Swedish (at least, I think I did). I probably repeated myself a lot, as I am wont to do after knocking a few back. And I even sang along to the Swedish födelsdag (birthday) song, which I don't actually know.
Towards the end of the evening, Tomas poured me some Minttu. Minttu is a Finnish clear liquor, probably a kind of peppermint schnapps. It tastes like a liquid Breath Saver. I may have drained my glass in two gulps. I may have invited myself over to someone else's party in two weeks. I may have put my sunglasses on.
I woke up at 6:45am today with cotton mouth. I was surprised to discover that I had left myself a pitcher of water and a glass on the side table (how thoughtful of me!). I had also managed to take off my clothes before getting in bed, except for my ring, which was squeezing the life out of my swollen finger. I found my door knocker earrings under my pillow.
Besides having a kick ass time at the party, it was also a productive night, because I dreamt up a Drunk Guard iPhone app like the Google mail goggles:
If your typing is getting atrocious, or if at any time you type in the phrases "fucked up" or "crunk" or "I love you so much" or "why did we break up", the Drunk Guard pops up and asks you to do some dexterity tests. If you fail, Drunk Guard gets activated automatically. It prevents tweets, e-mails, chats, status updates on Facebook, as well as SMS, MMS and calls to certain pre-specified numbers.
It also has one big button for calling the taxi number of your choice, which will use GPS to scout your location and trigger an automated voice recording to the taxi operator. Message says: "Hi, this is the iPhone Drunk Guard for Glenda Sleuthipakarom. She needs to be picked up at 10 Main Street. She lives at 1432 Skid Row." And then if the iPhone could somehow pay for the cab ride automatically, that would be awesome, too.
Oh, and if you try and use any of the forbidden functions like Twitter and Facebook, you get a set of rotating messages that could include:
Drink a glass of water Take your contacts out Do you have your keys and wallet? Wait to see if you still feel like calling tomorrow.
Doesn't that sound awesome? Show me the venture capital!
Um, also, apologies to anyone whose personal space I invaded last night, online and offline.
From this experience, I have surmised three things:
1. No tweeting after drinking. 2. Be careful with the Minttu. 3. Finland is going to be awesome.
The crocuses have sprung! Crocuses are not like groundhogs. They do not bullshit you. Spring is here!
They all told me it would happen, that spring would arrive and Stockholmers would bloom with it. And I thought, yeah, okay, but really?
When I went out to run some errands in the morning, I felt the shift.
It was as though someone had lifted the lid off of the city. All of a sudden, the city felt
so much brighter, aired out. I started noticing things I hadn't really
noticed before. Like hey, all the buildings around here are the color
of Lauren Davis's bridesmaid dresses.
And the filigree of the bare-branched trees on the canal matches the filigree of the melting ice. So pretty against the sky's oil paint blue. .
My neighborhood, Vasastan, is full of what are called "småbarnfamilj", or little children families. They were out in full force on Saturday. It was a little insane. I mean, I didn't realize there were that many people in my neighborhood. Where have they been hiding? They were straight up loitering everywhere. On the sidewalks, in the streets, on park benches.
Every cafe had become an outdoor cafe overnight. I sat with some friends in front of Ritorno on Odengatan, drinking bottomless cups of brewed coffee and soaking in the northern sun.
There's still a giant pile of dirty snow in Vasaparken. The trees are just barely budding up. Still, I saw lots of folks eating ice cream. Ice cream!
And am I blooming? Mm, not yet. We're back to April showers today. But maybe my lack of enthusiasm has more to do with being hungover. More on that later.
Vegetables with truffle oil, cottage cheese, hazelnuts and cashew nuts! Delicious. I also ate a bulle (bun)... [I think I ate four bullar today. I need for those bullar to disappear from the kitchen already. --Ed.]
What do you never eat?
Blodpudding (black pudding)! Even though I ate it all the time when I was a child. Well, that might be the reason why...
Complete this sentence: In my refrigerator, you can always find:
Yoghurt, soya milk, tomato paste, tomatoes, carrots, green peas and some kind of fish (well, the latter ones are actually in the freezer)
World ends tomorrow. What would you like for your last meal?
Tagliatelle with Mum's pasta sauce, made from carrots and tomatoes and some other stuff. (It's SO delicious but I've never succeeded to make it taste exactly the same way when I cook it...)
I worry that at work, I'm constantly interrupting other people's conversations mid-flow because all I hear is singsong gibberish. Here's a typical example of how I willfully ignore the existence of words I don't know:
From Solveig to Ganda:
Ganda,
Don´t be sorry that you didn't bring lunch
today. I tried to cancel the delivery of ordered lunch for your meeting today,
but it was too late, they were already on the way to us. So if you want
you have lunch today (Oxbringa).
Solveig
From Ganda to Solveig:
Yay, what's for lunch?
From Solveig to Ganda:
Oxbringa - Cooked
meet, earlier a typical Swedish home cooking.
----
(BTW, oxbringa is some kind of corned beef thing, served with boiled yellow potatoes, carrots, horseradish and cream sauce. Tasty, but not very good for having a productive afternoon. All I gathered was that it was from some "front part" of the cow, though my co-worker Stefan said, "It's better not to ask about where it comes from.")
All the Swedes know, but maybe you don't -- the only place to buy alcohol in Sweden, including beer,* is at a System Bolaget. The government has a monopoly on the sale of alcohol here, which means that you can only buy alcohol from one of their shops. Legal drinking age is, I believe, 18, but legal buying age is 20.
So say I'm interested in getting Pimm's Winter Cup (which I am) -- if the government hasn't decided to import it, I can't get it anywhere in all of Sweden. If it's not in the catalog, you can't get it. Maybe you can get it from a restaurant, but you can't buy it for personal consumption.
Bottles are all kept behind the counter, except for locked-up display cases where
you can read little write-ups and see prices for everything there.
Different System Bolagets have different selections and specialties,
but you can special order anything in the catalog and have it sent to your local.
The nice thing is that the people behind the counter have good recommendations. But they all have to wear these drab khaki long-sleeved polos for uniforms, so it feels like you're taking wine recommendations from your UPS guy.
Remember when you couldn't buy bottles of wine in New York on Sundays? Here, System Bolaget stores are open on weekdays from 10am-6pm (that's right, before you usually get off work), and Saturdays from 10am-3pm. Closed Sundays.
That means on Saturdays at 2:30pm, every System Bolaget is like a block party. All the wastoids in the neighborhood can be found there, stocking up for the week.
All this finger-wagging is a buzz kill. I know the idea is that people will cause less trouble on the weekends, but all alkies know that where there's a will, there's a way.
I have decided to just have my own personal System Bolaget at home. That way, if I ever have to go to a dinner party, I've got something to bring. Being the hoarder I am, however, means that I now have the equivalent of 15 bottles of wine in and around my fridge. And I almost never drink at home. And, um, I've only been to three dinner parties since I got here. But hey, I believe that if you buy the dress, the invitation to the ball will come.
P.S. This post took me 1 1/2 hours to get up because mobile dial-up keeps kicking me out. I really hope broadband arrives on Monday. It better come. Seriously losing my mind. WTF, Tele 2?
--- *UPDATE: My friend Anna-Kari tells me that beer at System Bolaget is Class III beer, which is about 5% alcohol. Class II beer, which is 3.5% (about the same as your average American beer), can be purchased at the grocery store. Class I beer, up to 2.2% according to this site, is technically considered non-alcoholic.
"Amerikansk Dressing" -- basically ketchup and mayo in a tube
Every writer is a student of their language. It's natural to learn a bit about Swedish culture by looking at their language structure. But being in Sweden has also given me a different perspective on English, and what it says about us.
One of my tasks at work is to take English text written by Swedish speakers and to massage it so it sounds natural to an English speaker's ear. What I've found is that Swedish tends to rely on nouns and passive verb forms. I'll often come across laid-back sentences like, "It is indeed true that the trees are affected by the cold weather." And the way I change them to make them more "natural" is to grab the verb, crank up the volume, and hinge everything on it: "The cold weather brutalizes the trees."
Americans are "doers", and our language reflects that. Our English is very verb-oriented. We make verbs out of everything -- whereas a Swede might "have an interview with Tom Cruise", we "interview that crazy Scientologist". We like verbs so much that we turn everything into a verb -- "Google" the noun becomes "google" the verb; an adjective like "intellectual" becomes "intellectualize"; sometimes we even turn nouns into verbs, and turn the verbs back into nouns, like "institution" into "institutionalize" into "institutionalization."
It's interesting to know that about your writing; it's not just how you say something, but how your culture shapes the language you use -- the terroir of tongues. What does it mean to be a good writer? How much of it is a personal expression, and how much of it is distilling cultural group behavior into strings of words?
Right now, I feel like an outsider in two ways -- obviously, I'm a stranger here. I can't understand the radio or local TV programs, I don't know who their celebrities and politicians are, and I can't read the daily newspaper. Things that are big here -- the Eurovision song contest, Princess
Victoria's engagement to her personal trainer -- wouldn't even be blips
in the American zeitgeist. At the same time, I'm an outsider to my own culture back home. I have no idea who's on American Idol, or if it's still going on; much to my dismay, Hulu refuses to let me watch 30 Rock because I've crossed borders; mobile dial-up has made reading the NYTimes nearly impossible from home.
The respite from the noise of all pop ephemera is nice in a way, because, let's be honest, it's all pretty meaningless. I'm not knocking media as a way for people to relate to each other.
But since I can't rely on it, I've got to find other common ground. What kind of human connection do we have outside of media and entertainment?
I keep inviting myself over to people's houses to cook dinner for them. How else can I connect? Weather? Shared experience? Like what? Hm, didn't George Saunders warn us about this kind of thing?
Back by popular demand (or at least the demand of one commenter), You Are What You Eat, Stockholm edition! But don't pressure me. I don't know how long I'll be able to keep this up as my list of contacts here is rather short.
Name: Niklas Sessler
Occupation: Corporate Editor at Bonnier AB
Neighborhood: Vasastan
Relationship status: Married
What did you eat today?
Caesar salad
What do you never eat?
Cucumber [Really? But there's cucumber in everything here. --Ed.]
Complete this sentence: In my refrigerator, you can always find:
Last Tuesday, David Byrne was in town with my buddies Mauro, Paul, Graham, and a giant crew of 26 for his Everything that Happens Will Happen Today tour. (The show was fab, and if you have a chance to see it, you must go and you must dance.) I took a bunch of them to Rosendals Trädgård, which is like Rivendell plus locavore porn. They use mostly organic ingredients, offer a crazy fika spread with cookies and pastries, and serve it up in two converted greenhouses with long benches and tables. It's right in the middle of Djurgården, which is a big park/zoo/circus/island in the eastern part of Stockholm. And behind the cafe, there's an enclosement with wolves. It's totally surreal.
Roasted apples with cloudberries, beet soup with cumin and creme fraiche, chickpea salad with cabbage, veal with dill, and a whole spread of really civilized food, all for 125 SEK (about $15). And the perfect, perfect bread! I want to live there. I can't wait to see the gardens in bloom. I think I'll have more to say about it when spring pushes all the plants into action.
The butik next store sells totally irresistible nosh, too. David picked up some crazy delicious carrot marmelade with Persian spices for the bus, Mauro got some of their baguettes, and I got some fig marmelade with saffron for the cheese party I'll have whenever I make friends.
Speaking of which, it was so great to see some familiar faces. I've known Mauro for many years now, from our days in bands together. I haven't seen him in a year, but it was wonderful to jump right in, and not have to think about things like personal space, humor translation, manners, etc. And the show was such a crowd-pleaser -- I love that kind of full sensory celebration, pleasure for pleasure's sake. That's very American, isn't it?
The loneliness is creeping in. I expected that to happen, but that doesn't make it any easier. This week, I finally reached out to the friends of friends I've been meaning to get in touch with. I'm forcing myself to go out much more than I would at home, saying yes to every invitation. So I'm signing off to go out, but I'll try to write again soon. I should be getting broadband at the beginning of next week THANK GOD, and reporting will resume in full (with less crybabying, hopefully).
One of the exciting things about moving to a different country is finding all new and creative ways to feel bad about yourself.
My new favorite is going into Weekday, the Stockholm store that carries the Cheap Monday line of jeans which Swedish legs look amazing in. Okay, so here's how you do it -- go in and pick a style, doesn't matter which. (The labels range from "narrow" to "tight" to "skinny".) Pick up the largest pair you can find and take them to the saloon door style dressing room. Try and stick your rice paddy calf into a leg opening the size of your esophagus. Thrash around the little room trying to strip the jeans off. Then salve your ego by buying one of those shapeless, oversized, monochrome Swedish tunics so that no one has to see your figure ever again. Bonus: you'll remind yourself of this moment every time your virtuous fiskgryta (fish soup) arrives with an infernal ice cream scoop of aioli. Tjohoo!
What's that you say? You haven't had enough of me talking about myself? You're in luck! Cookthink has put up a Q&A I answered. (No major surprises, except maybe the fact that, like, I say like, like, a lot. #Californiagirl)
You're just a 15 minute city bus ride from Stockholm's center. The double wagon bus weaves along the water, passing frozen waterways covered in ice and snow. Occasionally, the flat white expanse between the banks is cleaved by footprints, double dotted lines where a brave soul has walked on water.
Out at the Nacka nature reserve, you are surrounded by 180 degrees of bright, blinding snow on ice on lake. Across the frozen water, the evergreens stand stark and silent against the white. To your left, a family bundled up in hats and Gore-tex steps confidently onto the ice as a man hand drills a hole for fishing. In the distance, around the lake's edge, you see a pair of joggers in spandex weaving their way through the muddy slush. There's nothing to hear.
You are standing at the end of a wooden deck, at the edge of a 15-foot hemi-circle cut into the snow-covered lake. There is a ladder descending into the dark, clear water.
You are in your bathing suit, because you have just spent the last fifteen minutes in a sauna, baking yourself with half a dozen non-amateur Swedish ladies, two of whom are wearing felt caps and nothing else. Your skin is red with spidery splotches, steam rising from your pores.
You grab the sides of the stainless steel ladder. They are cold, but they are nothing compared to the maddening chill your first foot feels when the frigid lake swallows it. You drop into the darkness, wet your face, and jump out, shocked and pulsing.
And then you stand there at the edge of a frozen lake, with wet hair and nothing but your bathing suit. You feel relaxed, comfortable, invigorated. Your friend reminds you that this is the first time you've felt the wind against your bare skin in months. You stay for a minute -- not hot, not cold -- just enjoying the way the breeze licks the icy droplets from your arms.
Finally went out and got properly sloshed last night. After five glasses of white wine (!), three of which were imbibed at my friend Anna's office (!), I was well soaked. On my walk of shame, I started hiccuping like mad. Like full body, high pitched hiccups. I haven't hiccuped in years.
As I walked on a deserted street near my apartment, hiccuping, I passed a street punk of the expensive studded black leather jacket and multiple face piercings ilk.
Commenter Rachel asks: Is it
the custom to just leave your bike outside and let it get snowed on all
winter?
Yes. But people also ride after a heavy snow. Lots of people have either super big city bikes or mountain bikes. You rarely see road bikes with thin tires. Clearing all the snow off was no fun, though, and I have no idea how to care for a bike that's been subjected to snow like that. And the roads are full of rocks, which I guess keep the snow from icing over.
Of the many things in Swedish culture that I embrace (and there are many -- sandwiches for breakfast, equality, 16 months PAID parental leave per child), perhaps my favorite is the cookie culture. Lots of people know about fika, the Swedish coffee break, but part of fika is enjoying your strong cup of coffee with kakor, or cookies.
This book's title, Sju sorters kakor, means "Seven Kinds of Cookies", and it's my co-worker's wife's favorite cookbook. Back in the day, if you had someone over for fika, it was bad form to have less than seven cookies for your guest to choose from. The cookbook is fab, and I plan to pick one up before I leave. Apparently, it's very popular and old school -- like The Joy of Cooking for kakor.
You may have heard of pepparkakor, the spicy, thin gingery cookies, sometimes shot through with slivers of almond. There are also drömkakor, or dream cookies, which are pale, airy vanilla cookies with crinkly, brittle tops. I still have to try mazarin, the almond paste-filled tartlet cookies filled in with smooth, white icing. There's much to explore.
It seems to me that the Swedes like their cookies crunchy -- I don't think chewy oatmeal would fly here. It makes sense in the context of the fika. What's nicer than a crunchy, sweet bite washed down with strong coffee when it's cold? Now if only I could get used to drinking coffee in the afternoon and still sleep at night.
A useful Swedish word to use in this context is smulig -- smulor is the word for "crumbs", and smulig is the adjective form. So after stuffing my face with sju sorters kakor at Mormor's house, I was totes smulig. My co-worker Linnéa is teaching me all the fun language flotsam.
LINNÉA:[After we've eaten breakfast sandwiches]Smulor, it's like this, crumbs.
ME: Ah, yes.
LINNÉA: And smulig, you say, "Jag är smulig." [I am smulig.]
ME: Oh yeah, like crumby.
LINNÉA: Yeah, crumby. [She writes down "smulig = crummy" on a Post-it for me.]
ME: Oh, no, not like crummy. Like full of crumbs. Crummy is something different. But maybe it isn't?
LINNÉA: Oh yeah, but you know what I mean.
From left: Italian cantuccino (which I see everywhere here), singoalla, pepparkaka
In an effort to assimilate and truly understand the people of this
land, I have stocked my larder with three kinds of cookies. My new
favorite is the little bullseye one, called Singoalla. It's like a
linzer cookie and a Vienna finger rolled into one. Which is just
what I had hoped "Mördegskex, creme med vaniljsmak och hallonfyllning"
meant. I have been regularly eating a second dinner of cookies as I
wait for the internets to load. If I come back fat, I'll blame the mobile dial-up.
When I saw this, I decided I had to save my baby bike from the elements. So this morning, instead of doing yoga, I decided to try to shove the bike into the elevator again. I had one of those post-sleep eureka moments Malcolm Gladwell talks about. "I know, I'll put the bike in UPSIDE DOWN! Then the handlebars will fit no problem. A good night's rest has made me a GENIUS!"
Except you know how sometimes those AM thoughts are more morning wood than morning revelation? Well, the bike did not fit because -- GOOD MORNING! -- the laws of geometry did not magically change overnight.
I sucked it up and carried it up the five flights of stairs. But at least I got my exercise in for the day.
Lunch at Bonnierskonsthall: this was probably the heaviest meal I've had here to date -- Wallenbergare, a giant veal* patty in a pool of mashed potatoes, what I hope was olive oil, a smattering of peas and a bowl of lingonberry jam, which is like a runny cranberry sauce. I like how everything is round. The veal wasn't very spiced -- it was just kind of mildly seasoned and fried. Yums and snoozes.
The cafe also had slice-your-own crusty bread with färskost, the snowy, fresh cream cheese you find next to the butter at a lot of places. Sometimes the färskost is flavored with chives. This one had flecks of parsley in it. I would like to slather everything in färskost.
The Wallenbergare is named after one of the richest families in Sweden, the Wallenbergs. It's quite a popular dish. I don't know why it's named after them. Maybe they made their fortune serving Wallenbergare to their competitors and putting them all into a food coma.
*I know veal is cow. Sometimes you just want to try the thing you've never tried, even if it means breaking the rules to do it.
I got a bicycle! I'd been searching on blocket.se for about 7 weeks (yes, before I got here!), looking in bicycle shops, putting all kinds of bicycle websites through Google translate.
But yesterday, I finally was like, fuck it, I'm going to the used bicycle shop. If I leave work at 5, I can get there by 5:15 and have 45 minutes to shop before it closes. Because it's not open on the weekends. Or before 9 am. Or after 6pm. (For those of you who wish you were here, don't forget that New York is a glorious, glorious place where you can get things done both after work AND on the weekends.)
Anyway, I got to the shop and asked for a light bike. Swedish city bikes tend to be quite heavy, with tons of accessories (rack, basket, lock, skirt guard, fenders, big ass lights) and big frames. I wanted something a little lighter, at least as light as my hybrid. At first we talked mountain bikes, but I tried one and realized it probably wasn't ideal with my nice work dresses.
Then we looked at some women's frames. The first one I tried was a really speedy little Danish number. It was white, a little beat up, with two top tubes in a V shape and really responsive steering. The shop owner told me the handlebars were Danish-style. They weren't T-shaped handlebars, not bullhorns, but something kind of in-between; a slightly narrow grip on an angle with an upright seating position. If my legs were just two inches longer, I would have gotten it. (I am jealous of all the long legs here.)
The second bike I tried was an old green Crescent, which is a very common brand here. It was pretty light, a very steady ride with a step-through frame, but there were no gears -- not ideal in this hilly city.
And the last one I basically rode for 30 seconds. It was 5:46 at this point and I was like, fuck it, this is it. Am I going to find something better for a better price? Probably not. And I don't want to be running around town for the next three weeks as the weather gets better and prices go up in all the shops. This feels pretty good, I think; it's comfy and it's a good price. SOLD!
So here's what it looks like:
It's a Puch Elit, made in Austria. I can't find much info on it. Does anyone know from Puch bikes?
When I got home, I tried to get it in the elevator, but the damn sit-up-and-beg handlebars wouldn't clear the elevator gate.
<Not complaining, totally lucky to have such a cool job, etc. etc.>
Most of the time, I am still like, wow, two bunches of ranunculus for $6, look at that woman's cool coat and tiny waist, the ice on the canal is melting, pretty. But yesterday, I was like, where do they keep the paper towels in this country, and I miss my friends and why is it still cold here? But I did see a bird outside my window on a tree I had heretofore not noticed. Spring, I eagerly await you.
I've solved the problem of making this place homey by moving everything into the kitchen. I like small spaces, so this is perfect for me. I moved the second kitchen table chair out by the entrance so I have something to sit on when I put my shoes on, and I get a little more clearance around the refrigerator. I set my ranunculus on the table next to the butter. Everything is within reach. It's kind of sad bachelorette style, but it works.
Some homey things I brought which me which I almost didn't bring for lack of space but which I'm so glad I did:
My fuzzy slippers
The All-Clad (curry, soup, eggs, stews, seared fish -- all good in the All-Clad)
My two fave knives
My pretty apron
What I wish I had brought:
More sweats
A warm and comfy robe
A travel clock
Alright, I'm going out to get a new lightbulb and a pint of ice cream, sad bachelorette style. The word for ice cream here is glass, not to be confused with glas, which is the word for glass.
So I've only got one working burner. Major bummer, as you can imagine. I'm hoping the handyman will come and fix it, but I don't know if I can count on that happening.
But I'm up for the challenge. What can I cook with one working electric burner, an oven that's a little larger than a toaster oven, a microwave, and my newly purchased rice cooker?
I think lots, actually. As my aunt said, sometimes you can only handle one thing at a time, anyway. (En sak i taget, as they say here -- just learned that one today.)
Unless specified, the dishes in the one burner series are meant for one person. I'm not sure it would be comfortable to have dinner in my apartment with someone else. You know, unless I were in succubus mode.
Here's my first foray -- green curry salmon over kanom jeen. We always eat green curry over kanom jeen, a type of soft white noodle which is called somen in Japanese. It's a one-burner dish because you cook the kanom jeen in advance and eat it room temp, ladling the curry on top.
The kanom jeen is twirled into little half-serving bundles; that way, the noodles can stick together in a pleasant, untangled way.
Tomorrow, all I have to do is sear off another piece of fish and heat up the curry. Dinner in 5 minutes with all the food groups covered. Way easier and tastier than it has a right to be.
Salmon and Green Curry over Kanom Jeen
For the kanom jeen: 1. Cook kanom jeen (somen) according to directions. 2. Pour off most of the hot water. Add lots of cold water to the pot. Grab two fingers full of kanom jeen. Wrap the loose ends around your two fingers to form a little skep. Place onto a plate lined with paper towels. cover each layer of skeps with wet paper towel. Set aside until the curry is ready.
For the curry and salmon: 1. Salt and pepper the salmon. Sear salmon on all sides in a hot pan with a little oil. (I used some coconut oil which Megan left in the pantry -- is there a more delicious smell than melting coconut oil? Nej.) Pour off the drippings and remove salmon skin if desired. 2. Add a few tbsp. of coconut cream to the hot pan and fry 1-3 tbsp. of green curry paste until the curry paste bubbles up and incorporates the coconut milk. Add one cup of coconut milk and 4 quartered Thai eggplant. (You can substitute purple eggplant here or add sliced bamboo shoots, your choice.) Add kaffir lime leaves if you have some. Douse with a 3-second squirt of fish sauce (about 1 tbsp.?). Simmer about 10 minutes. 3. Add the salmon back into the curry along with two small cut-up broccoli crowns. Add Thai basil leaves if you have some. Cover and simmer til salmon and broccoli are cooked through. 4. To serve, set two skeps of kanom jeen into a bowl. Place salmon on the kanom jeen and ladle veggies and curry on top. Makes a Sunday night serving and a Monday leftover serving.
---
Incidentally, I went over to my friend Niklas's house to cook Thai food for him and his family this weekend. (MAE: Huh? How did you get invited over to someone's house to cook already? ME: Um, I invited myself over. I need friends!) I made four dishes, one which was excellent, two that were okay, and one that was kind of a fail. When cooking Thai food, sometimes I forget that you really have to over-season it. Thai food is meant to be eaten with a lot of plain rice or noodles. If you taste it at the stove and it tastes fine, you need to add more seasoning. Otherwise, the flavor gets lost on the starch.
UPDATE: Dude, the super brought me a whole new burner/oven combo! I can now have hot pasta AND hot sauce! What luxury.
After two weeks of living like a bag lady, I've finally moved into the apartment I'll be staying in. It's definitely modest, but considerably bigger than the hotel apartment. Actually, it has more storage space than I'm used to in my wee Brooklyn bedroom. The few clothes I brought are free to really stretch their limbs in the two closets and the big IKEA chest of drawers.
So help a sister out -- what should I do to make the place feel more like home while I'm here? I've still got some unpacking and cleaning to do this weekend, but I also want to get some things to help brighten up the place. (On the cheap, of course -- I am not planning on buying any side tables while I'm here.)
Got any suggestions? Leave a comment here or on my Flickr page.
Daglivs is one of the biggest grocery stores in Stockholm. Here's their full selection of peanut butter:
And here's just part of their selection of yogurt:
I bought rhubarb vanilla, but they've also got lingonberry apple, cloudberry, lychee, mangosteen, carrot orange, blood orange, and more flavors than I will have time to try while I'm here. They come with sugar, without sugar, lactose-free, Turkish, Greek, super high fat, almost no fat, light, drinkable, spoonable...
We had a little going-away fete for Megan on her last day. Of the little hors d'oeuvre platters, this was my favorite -- white bread cut into two-inch circles with fluted cookie cutters, topped with a dab of mayonnaise, a perfect slice of hard-boiled egg, soft lettuce, a sprig of dill, a super-thin wedge of lemon, and cooked baby shrimp. So elegant, no? I will have to make them for my next party.
I forgot to tell you -- one thing I found very interesting when I went to Allt Om Mat was hearing that certain types of fish were off-limits in their recipes because of concern for overfishing. Recipes with tiger prawns and cod were both out. I don't know where these baby shrimp are from, but since I've eaten them all over town, I hope they're kosher. They're deeeeeeeeelish.
(For an up-to-date guide on what seafood to eat, consult the Monterey Bay Aquarium's Seafood Guide. And if you're near Monterey, go to the aquarium -- it's really spectacular.)
This is apparently as Swedish as it gets. Snus is sort of like chewing tobacco, except you don't chew it, and you don't need to spit it out. You stick a packet under your top lip and let it sit there.
A: You could leave it in there all day, but it gets a little soggy. I go through half to a full canister a day. ME: Does it give you a buzz? Is it like a stimulant?
A: Well, for you it might be. But for me, it doesn't do anything. It's like coffee. I drink so much that it doesn't do anything to me anymore.
If you think about it, the major brands of dipping tobacco are Skoal and Copenhagen. It never occurred to me that there might be a tobacco product that didn't originate from cowboy-tended Virginia fields.
Snus is actually illegal in the EU, which is funny to me considering how distrusting Swedes are of self-medication. The majority of snus aficionados are in Sweden. Snus is also popular in Norway and parts of Finland.
No offense to my friend A, but the appeal of sucking on a packet of soggy tobacco escapes me. And I'm not about to try and figure it out. I'm happy to say that Stockholm is, in general, a smoke-free town -- no smoking in bars or restaurants.
I got to go to the test kitchen at the Allt Om Mat (All About Food) headquarters today on Sveavägen. Megan wrote a piece for them which will come out at some point during the year.
The recipes were Megan's, and the food was excellent. Everyone came and sat down for lunch at noon, family-style, with real plates and silverware. Can you imagine? So civilized!
You'll have to wait til the issue comes out to hear the whole menu, but the dish that got the most eyes-closed ecstasy face was this empanada. Beef stewed for hours in rum, fruit, sugar and spices. Yes, I had one, and yes, it was worth it.
If you pester her from her site, maybe Megan will slip you the recipe.
--
I'd better get to bed, though. I seem to be coming down with something. I've been going hard since I got here. I need to have a quiet weekend.
Did you know that it's hard to get some of the more effective over-the-counter drugs here? Apparently, they're frowned upon. My Swedish co-worker says that when she goes to England, she stocks up on cold medication, because what they have in Sweden just doesn't cut it. They don't mix meds. (Excedrin, for example, is aspirin + caffeine. Nyquil = acetominophen + dextromethorphan + doxylamine succinate. Sudafed = don't even think about it.) And all of the pharmacies are owned by the state, who have a total monopoly and get to charge an arm and a leg for these not-very-strong meds. (The monopoly, however, may be coming to an end soon.)
I took a Berocca, but I don't think it did anything. I'm not much of a pill taker, but I have to admit that I wish I had some Nyquil right now.
Today was a big day for Swedes. First of all, the Crown Princess of Sweden got engaged! My co-workers were abuzz with the news and very happy for her. After all, she's 33 years old and has yet to produce an heir. I was told that her husband becomes a Prince, not the King, and he has to walk one step behind her.
Secondly, it's Fat Tuesday (Fettisdagen), also known as the official semla day! Semlor were traditionally made in celebration of Fat Tuesday, but apparently, people are so obsessed with them here that they start making them around Christmas time. And they keep on making them for a while after Fat Tuesday.
Are you sick of semlor (plural of semla) yet? The Swedes aren't. 5,000,000 semlor will be eaten today. That's like 2/3 of Sweden's population. And when in Rome...
A semla is made with a pretty plain, soft yeast roll, very lightly sweetened and speckled with coarsely ground cardamom. (Seems important not to grind your cardamom too finely.) Normal semla size is about the same as an egg sandwich roll. You can also find much more manageable minis, about the size of a Valencia orange.
The top of the roll gets carved out in the shape of a triangle, the way you might for a stuffed baked potato. The cavity is filled with some sweet, sticky almond paste and a healthy piped beehive swirl of barely sweetened chantilly cream. The top of the bun caps the cream and the whole thing gets dusted lightly with powdered sugar.
I had my first semla some time last week at work. It was a bit stale, but I could sort of see the point. A little gooey, a lot creamy, I really dug the sweetness level.
I had to try a fresh one, of course, so I went to Vete-katten on the way to Kalle's house and picked up half a dozen for the dinner party. Kalle and I each had a mini with a hot cup of milky tea. This one was better, the bun sturdy but very tender. It disappeared after five quick bites.
I had a third one today, and now I'm starting to get the obsession. They're here for a limited period of time. The flavor is quite subtle, pale and ephemeral next to a strong cup of Swedish coffee. And by the time you've nearly figured out how you feel about it, POOF! You've eaten the whole thing, and all you have left to show for it is a little powdered sugar on your cheek.
Unless, of course, you go out and get another before Fat Tuesday's over. And you eat one that someone's left in the kitchen at work. Or you go and buy half a dozen from Vete-katten before a dinner party for four.
It's fun to hear Swedes talk about semlor:
VIVECA: I don't like them. I prefer cardamom buns. Some older people like to serve them in a bowl of hot milk. [VIVECA: makes a face.]
---
CO-WORKER: You know, a king died from eating too many semlor.
OTHER CO-WORKER: Yes, I guess there are worse ways to go.
---
NIKLAS: Vete-katten is the best. They won the competition again this year.
---
KALLE: Vete-katten is the best. That's where my mother buys semlor. You know, some people like to eat them in a bowl with hot milk. [KALLE makes a face.]
Later that evening:
OSCAR: OHHHHH, who brought the semlor?! You got any milk?
JANES:[Laughing] Are you serious? You eat them in milk?!
OSCAR: I wouldn't think of eating a semla dry!
[KALLE laughs hysterically]
OSCAR: What?! One in three people eats them that way!
Even later that evening, KALLE and OSCAR set their semlor in bowls of hot milk, spooning the milky dough into their mouths:
OSCAR: [Swedish] ---
KALLE: He says you have to eat it fast, otherwise it gets soaked.
OSCAR: [Joking in Swedish] ---
JANES: [Laughing] Now he's saying it's soft and warm, the same temperature as your mouth.
---
I tried to see if anyone was serving semlor in New York. Sorry, couldn't find anything, but IKEA Singapore is selling semlor as "The King Killer"! They're available there from Feb to April. Dude, somebody in IKEA U.S.A. has got to get that shit together.
For you curious cooks, here's an AllRecipes recipe for semlor that looks pretty good.
I take back all that romanticized snow blather. After a major weather dump yesterday, it's a dirty, slushy mess here. Like a turtlehead on a tighty whitey. (If you don't know what that means, I'm not going to explain.) The streets seem to get sprayed with sand and rocks instead of salt. Better for the shoes, but not so pretty.
Oof, sorry for the absence. I went to work on Saturday and left my power cord in the office. Believe me, the lack of internet hurt me more than it hurt you.
Last night, I hung out with La Doug's cousin Kalle and his friends in
Gröndal, which is kind of like a quieter Astoria -- just outside the
city center, lots of families and nice houses. The only people who go
there are residents, and the area is well-served by a bus that picks up
directly from the train station. His apartment is on this peninsula
just south of the city. It's total winter wonderland right now.
As Kalle's friend spun Sunday evening records on the decks in the
living room, we had a lovely domestic evening snacking on blue cheese
and homemade pineapple chutney on fancy knäckebröd. The occasional
razor thin ship would pass silently, carving a swath through the icy
white bay outside his window. The snow fell all evening, undisturbed
by wind, leaving five-inch tufts on the balcony, the naked trees, and
the eaves.
Tonight, I had dinner with my co-workers at the newly opened Melander's Fisk in Vasastan. The place had a surprisingly artful mix of high Stockholm design and Swedish countryside charm.
We shared a plate of sill och strömming, the famed Swedish pickled herring. The herring was sweet and boozy -- our plate had an oily tomato herring, a traditional sweet herring with minced onions, a curried herring, and a creamy vodka and garlic herring. The little tiles of fish came with a triangle of västerbotten cheese. (The Swedes love strong cheese with their fish.) I liked the herring. I mean, I can't say I'll be ordering it all the time, but it was silky soft and not strongly fishy. Curried herring always tastes a little musty to me, like they've mixed a little photo album dust in with the turmeric. Ultimately, it's the sweetness that weirds me out. But it's def. not unpleasant.
For the main, I had a really excellent seafood stew. The waitress brought out a huge, shallow bowl with some poached fish, those very Swedish baby red shrimp and mussels. Then she came back and ladled a divinely spicy, gently sweet tomato-based stew over the whole thing. So many vibrant colors and flavors -- that umami tomato rounded out by sweet, crunchy carrot, fennel, tarragon, and a little dill, all sexed up with a little capsaicin. Came with a side of aioli and little disc croutons. It's hard to order anything but fish -- the Swedes do seafood so well. I'm sure I'll get tired of it, but for now it's super novel and tasty.
No snaps with our sill, though -- gotta be ready to work tomorrow. We're about to launch the new site, and I'm going to need all brain cells on deck. Actually, tomorrow is Fat Tuesday, the official semla day. It will be my third semla of the week (oink oink). More on semla tomorrow.
So before I came, I thought I'd basically be like a stubby brown meatball on a plate of pale spaghetti. But plenty of American friends were like, "No way! You are going to go to Stockholm and you are going to find yourself a husband -- some tall, blond guy named Sven!" The funny thing is, people also told my predecessor Megan that she'd be seduced by a Sven.
Now that I'm here, all the Swedes tell me that the only guys who are named Sven are 90 year-olds. So I guess this whole Sven thing would be like a Swede going over to the States, with his friends telling him, "You are going to the States and you are going to meet some hot American named Gertrude."
Anyway, I shouldn't have worried about being a meatball. Yes, people here are gorgeous, but people in New York are gorgeous, too. I don't feel any more intimidated by the beauty on the street than I do in NYC. And people, especially my new co-workers, have been so genuine and friendly. Soooooooo nice. I watched two different front desk people at the hotel deal with very demanding guests with serious grace.
And in case you were wondering, everyone speaks impeccable English, and they love to practice it with native English speakers. It will probably be hard for me to learn Swedish, actually. I'm certainly going to try, though.
At dinner tonight, my coworker told me that the best way to learn Swedish is to take a Swedish boyfriend. This is, like, the third time I've been given this advice in the last month. I'd like to think that all this talk will make it happen, but I ain't holding my breath for old man Sven.
One of the best things about foreign supermarkets is seeing just
what the greatest amount of shelf real estate is devoted to. In France,
there are always two aisles of yogurt; in Italy so many kinds of pasta,
of course; in Switzerland muesli, in England baked beans; and in the
US, cereal. What's the deal in Sweden?
As I replied in the comments, the deal in Sweden is tube food. Lots and lots of food in tubes. My friend Chris told me to look out for baconost, or bacon cheese in a tube. But why stop at baconost when there is a whole refrigerator case filled with squeezable food?
*They work! Oh marvel of marvels.
Here's classic Kalles Kaviar, a tomato potato fish roe mixture that's supposedly good squeezed onto a boiled egg. I will try it before I go. I learned to love Marmite, so why not this? I bet it's total umami.
Here's some salami cheese and crab cheese (that sounds dirty) in a tube. I'm not sure what "ren" is. But it comes with cheese.
These are a bunch of different kinds of cheese tubes, including mozzarella and olive cheese in a tube. Very strange and exotic.
Today after work, I trekked uptown to check out a bicycle for
sale on blocket.se, the Swedish version of craigslist. (Didn't get
it. It was too heavy and tall and had a total hemorrhoid seat. I miss Ice-T.)
While I was waiting, it started snowing. Again. The snow here is so varied. It's less wet, and because it's so GD cold, it just kind of collects in the crevices between bricks and cobblestones.
Sometimes it's fine and grainy, like someone is tapping a salt shaker over us. Sometimes it falls in drifts, like parmesan from a microplane. But I must say, it's pretty. No dirty slush, no doggie bombs. Just hushed snow.
I've moved into a new hotel apartment, where I'll be staying for two weeks. After work, I went to the hotel I had been staying over the weekend, called a taxi and lugged my belongings over to the new digs.
When you're in a foreign country, the real adventure is not in the big picture -- it's in the little mundane tasks of everyday life. Shopping at the grocery store is like one big mystery waiting to be solved. Like, could there really be that many varieties of lactose-free dairy products here? Why does this passata look suspiciously like ketchup? Is this bottled water going to have fizz or no fizz? Could a single person really buy a wedge of cheese that big without shame?
Subsequently, the act of feeding oneself can feel like a major mountain climb. What can I make with the basic tools in the apartment and the knives I brought from my own kitchen? I've been desperate to make myself feel at home, if only for a night. I get home with my mysterious groceries and start prepping my food.
The hotel apartment is decidedly less well-designed than the hotel room was. The kitchen is small, but big enough for one person. There's a microwave underneath the cabinets, lots of dishes, a coffee maker, a toaster, and a little two-burner stove. I turn on the stove and noxious gas just pours out -- but no fire. I search all of the drawers for matches, trying not to contemplate going back out into the freezing cold to get some, before I finally find them in the cabinet above the stove. The little wood matches are stubby, and I hate lighting stoves. I'm sure I'll singe a finger or lose my bangs. It takes me four matches to light the back burner, and another 5 or 6 to get the front.
So thirsty. The largest glass I have is smaller than a pint. I pour myself some water -- extra fizzy! I open up the pre-sliced Präst cheese -- pretty much tastes as expected. But wouldn't be good on my spaghetti.
The salt -- I think it's iodized. Do Swedes do kosher salt? Cause I didn't see any on the shelf. But at least I didn't get rock salt. Is there dishwashing soap? Damn, should have bought some while I was at the store. What kind of filters does this coffee maker take? I guess I'm having tea tomorrow. I hope that pot was clean.
Finally, the pasta water boils, the ketchupy tomato puree simmers, and at 9pm, I get a meal on the table. It's a bit goopy and no frills, but it's hot and it's on a real plate. I'd never dream of serving it to a guest, but it tastes like a mighty fine success to me.
--
By the way, there is no can opener in my apt. (sorry, tuna), but -- surprise! -- there is a cheese slicer.
Comments don't seem to be working. Sorry! Also, feel free to e-mail me about these things so I can go and whip the webmaster.
Self-flagellatingly, g
UPDATE: Okay, now I can't figure out how to turn the comments back on. Feel free to harass me via e-mail: ganda {at} eatdrinkonewoman [d o t] com or Twitter: twitter.com/ganda
UPDATE 2: Okay, they're working again, but they're a little slow to publish. It only took me three hours before I did what I always do -- I restored my databases. Hooray!
This is what I will dream of after I leave Stockholm, I'm sure of it. Meet the enormous kardemummabulle (cardamom bun) from Cafe Saturnus, a swirl of spice and pillowy dough in the shape of a double-D knocker. I'm not just being crass -- it is the most breast-like thing I've ever eaten. Not like taut porno boobage, more like soft mamma bosom. Once you get past the crisp, golden exterior, sprinkled liberally with white rock sugar, there's this downy yeast dough center. I want to bury my face in it.
The cardamom is coarsely crushed, so when you crunch on a bit of the swirl, the spices release their mildly anesthetic oils on the tongue. It is a thing of beauty. I have to thank my Swedish friend Lina for introducing us.
Also, I personally LOVE all things cardamom, but if it's not your thing, their kanelbullar (cinnamon buns) are made of the same manna dough and seem to have won all kinds of local awards.
I was sitting there admiring the pretty details -- bright mosaic-tiled floors, classic typeface, warm lighting, French signage with handwritten blackboards. It was all Parisian-ish, but with a brighter, sunnier vibe. Then I recognized some Balthazar paraphernalia on the shelves -- a box here, a postcard there. I asked one of the adorable aproned men behind the counter if there was some relationship to Balthazar.
He smiled and said, "Funny you should ask that. The owner went there about ten years ago and was really inspired by Balthazar. Then he opened this place." (The napkins say "Depuis 1960", though, so perhaps he just renovated at that time?)
How meta -- a Stockholm boulangerie/patisserie inspired by a New York brasserie/boulangerie inspired by French boulangeries/brasseries. Also, if that ain't a reciprocal wink from my valentine, I don't know what is.
I'm a little loopy. I'm trying to stay up as long as I can so I crash out tonight. I need to quickly reset my clock so I can jump in at work on Monday. Here are a couple of snapshots from my first day.
Hit the Östermalms Saluhall, a famed food hall in the east part of Stockholm. It's kind of like every awesome food hall I've been to (see Ferry Plaza, S.F., Winterfeldplatz, Berlin and Central Market, Adelaide), except this one has lots of seating for whole families who want to sit down, order a meal and drink wine.
Here are semla, Swedish buns filled with cream and almond paste. Part of me wants to go try all the semla I can, including the ones at 7Eleven, so I can report back to you on whose is best. But such a project would wreak serious havoc on my lactose intolerant innards. Sorry.
Lisa Elmqvist's seems to be the hot spot in the Saluhall. It was the only place with a serious line. I watched a woman at the Lisa Elmqvist bar eat a plateful of tiny ruby red crustaceans, washing the bodies down with a buxom glass of cold white wine. She had lined the discarded heads up in the most neat, diabolical way. I'll go back another time and report on the food.
This is my tiny little hotel room. It's actually quite cozy. Everything is tucked into the perfect place -- the coat hook, the desk, the skinny closet. I won't be here for long, so I don't mind. Doesn't the bed look super comf? I'm so bleary-eyed. I can't wait to get in it.
What is this chair? Is it a famous Swedish thing? I saw them in a couple of places. I quite like them. They look comf, too.
Check this out -- it's, like, 19 degrees Farenheit and this cafe's outdoor seating is completely full. There are heat lamps out and sheepskin rugs on the seats, but still -- you couldn't convince me. These Swedes are hardcore.
Going to Newark airport: I haul my two suitcases, carry-on and backpack down to the bottom of the stairwell. The car service driver honks. I start dragging my giant luggage towards the back of the car. He pops the trunk and steps out to help me. He's wearing a khaki salwar kameez and a skull cap embroidered with rainbow thread. He's also rocking an impressive beard. The wavy salt and pepper strands cascade from his chin to his paunch.
CAR SERVICE GUY: You're not coming back?
ME: No, I'm coming back. In six months.
CAR SERVICE GUY: Where are you from?
ME: My parents are from Thailand. But I'm from California. Where are you from?
CAR SERVICE GUY: Pakistan. I'm not Taliban.
ME: No, I didn't think so.
CAR SERVICE GUY: You married?
ME: No, not yet.
CAR SERVICE GUY: [Gives me a stern, incredulous look in the rearview mirror] Why not?! Get married! Good. Have family. Live together. [Takes his hands off the wheel and hooks the index fingers together.] Together.
ME: I'm working on it.
CAR SERVICE GUY: What working? You find good person, good family, get married. I work work work. I get married at 22. I have 3 girls, 2 boys. Oldest is 31 years old. Your people work hard. Get married. Good family.
ME: I'm trying.
---
On the cab ride from Stockholm-Arlanda to my hotel. I have a chatty cabbie. He looks like Super Mario. I learn he's from Kurdistan, has five brothers, and he really likes the Kista shopping center, which, he stresses, is open until 9pm.
CABBIE: Where you from?
ME: U.S.A. But my parents are from Thailand.
CABBIE: You marry?
ME: No.
CABBIE: No good! You get marry. Then you have someone go to disco, to restaurang. I am alone, I know. No good.
[Silence]
Stockholm beautiful, yes?
ME: Yes.
CABBIE: Like you, beautiful.
ME: Thank you.
CABBIE: You call me, I drive you to see Stockholm. You call, I come in one hour, I take you to disco, to restaurang after working. You no give me money, understand?
ME: That's very nice of you to offer, but I will be working hard. I will not want to go to the disco.
CABBIE: You not working at night. I give you my phone number, okay? You no have to give me money, okay?
ME: [Lying] Um, I have a boyfriend in U.S.A. I don't think he'd like that.
My co-workers bought cupcakes for our office bon voyage party on Friday: LAUREN:[deadpan] Doesn't it suck that you have to go so far away to find yourself?
I was thinking about this, and I think I'm too old to consider this the kind of sojourn where the tribe sends the young warrior into the bush with a flint and a dagger so he can learn survival skills.
I just hope I'm not old enough to be the barren maid the tribe abandons in the bush because her ovaries have passed the sell-by date.
Here's my single-serving parting gift to my co-workers. Really only useful if you work in our building, and totally one big inside joke, but sharing with you anyway. Images made with the help of picnik.com, my new best friend. I am totally not shilling for them, I just LOVE the product. Super intuitive UI and it's free. It's everything I need from Photoshop, without all of the over-my-head whiz bang shit.
An epic wind is blowing through Brooklyn today. It's a bit heavy-handed, but the symbolism isn't lost on me. I'm just back from the Swedish consulate, where I finally got my passport stickered in order to make our temporary separation official.
May 2 would have been our 10 year anniversary. By now, my memory of the day we met is all technicolor. I've replayed it in my head many times. I took the red-eye on Tower Air, with two suitcases and the expectation that I would stay for two months. It would be my post-college, big city adventure, and I'd bring back some of that street savvy to easy, breezy San Francisco.
But a funny thing happened at the luggage carousel. I ran into an acquaintance, and we were surprised to discover that we had been on the same flight. I told him this was my first time in New York, I was here for a sublet, and that I didn't know very many people. The acquaintance, a lithe black dancer and a New Yorker himself, smiled knowingly. We exchanged cheek kisses, and as we parted, he said, "Welcome home, baby."
How can I not think of that day again today? When I came here, I had a return ticket for July 2, 1999. I never used it, and Tower Air went out of business. I don't think that will happen to me with Stockholm, because I can't imagine having the kind of relationship with that city that I do with you. Still, my two suitcases are packed, and coffee churns in my empty stomach.
I know all this nostalgia is over-the-top. But think of all that we've been through together over the last ten years -- the public, the private, the major, the minute. Fuck what all the haters say, you are still a place where magic happens. Anyway, that's between us -- other people will either get it or they won't.
So this is just to say Happy Valentine's Day. I'm jumping into this new adventure with both feet, but I sure will miss you. In September, we'll pick up where we've left off. For now, I'll leave you with a favorite poem by one of your famous sons.
With all my heart,
Ganda
MESSAGE
Since we had changed rogered spun worked wept and pissed together I wake up in the morning with a dream in my eyes but you are gone in NY remembering me Good I love you I love you & your brothers are crazy I accept their drunk cases It's too long that I have been alone it's too long that I've sat up in bed without anyone to touch on the knee, man or woman I don't care what anymore, I want love I was born for I want you with me now Ocean liners boiling over the Atlantic Delicate steelwork of unfinished skyscrapers Back end of the dirigible roaring over Lakehurst Six women dancing together on a red stage naked The leaves are green on all the trees in Paris now I will be home in two months and look you in the eyes
Come see our last gig before I leave for the land of herring!
My bon voyage party! where you will be forced to listen to The Solitary Cyclist
Friday, February 6 10:30pm Monkeytown 58 N. 3rd btwn Wythe & Kent Williamsburg L to Bedford Ave.
FREE, but reservations recommended. (It's a small place.)
Well, first I wanted to see if it was actually going to happen. Whenever something exciting happens to me, I feel like I've stumbled upon a fairy. I'm worried that if I move too quickly, or get too excited, Tinkerbell will flitter away. I won't have any proof that she ever existed and no one will ever believe I saw her.
But barring a rejection of my residence permit (which is still in the hands of the Swedish Migration Board), I'm moving to Stockholm for six months.
What?! I know. Crazy, right?
I work for a Swedish publishing company, and I'm going to Stockholm to work on a special project on the mothership. You can read about the lovely lady who currently holds the job on her blog, Artificial Swedener.
I'm sorry to spring this on you like this. It's a great opportunity, and I'm really excited to do some travel writing for you. But I'm leaving my beloved NYC on the eve of our 10th anniversary. How do I feel about it? Well, a little like this:
(Oh god, that Leontyne Price makes me weep and weep!)
And a little like this:
I'm leaving on Feb. 13th. Anybody got some good Stockholm tips for me?
Breakfast: a banana and an apple (Macintosh). Lunch: pastrami on rye, Katz's. Pre-dinner: slice of DiFara's pizza (very thin crust Neapolitan, with lots of torn basil thrown on just as the pie emerged from the oven). Dinner: In an Egyptian seafood café, four mullets crumbed and deep fried, a porgy coated with whole wheat flour and sea water and grilled to blackness, and a shrimp and calamari tajine. Snack: pink grapefruit
What do you never eat?
Human flesh
Complete this sentence: In my refrigerator, you can always find:
pickles, mayo, several rinds of cheese, buttermilk (for pancakes and dressing), assorted outdated and generally useless condiments
What is your favorite kitchen item?
tongs
Where do you eat out most frequently?
Gray's Papaya World ends tomorrow. What would you like for your last meal?
Fettucine with butter and truffles
Robert Sietsema writes the Counter Culture column for the Village Voice.
La Doug has an article on HuffPo. It's a really thoughtful piece on responsible reporting of the recent finance-related suicides. It's on the HuffPo homepage in the left rail at this very moment. Go read it.
If you can't find it on the home page, here's the direct link.
Damn! I'm running out of See's Peppermint Puffs. I stole some from my
cousin's house when I was in L.A. Apparently I didn't sneak enough
back with me -- I'm almost out. They're like those butter mints --
crumbly and chalky, with just enough mint to cool the tongue. What am I going to do
when I run out? Are they just a Christmas thing? I don't
even see them on See's website. WHY, GOD, WHY?
---
Also, after a few weeks of being intimidated by inclement weather and padding my ass with Peppermint Puffs over vacay, I got back on the bicycle again this morning. It was a bit rough. I found myself huffing well before the bridge, which is really a disgrace.
However, I did discover that they've finished paving the upper half of the East River Greenway. Take your bike (or skates or skateboard) for a spin up there. Riding on the fresh, flat pavement is such smooth pleasure -- like digging a hot spoon into a bowl of cold lard. The lower half of the Greenway, though, is still a craggy, bumpy mess. Beware the pot-abysses!
Do y'all have an opinion on which bridge is toughest to cross? I've never crossed the Williamsburg Bridge, which I believe is the longest. And I've never gone up that super long approach to the Brooklyn Bridge from the Brooklyn side.
I'm terrible with recipes. TERRIBLE. I always miss a step, or put the wrong ingredient in. To me, it's like following dancing instructions from a book. I get impatient and want to freestyle.
Freestyling is fine when it comes to stir-fries or the sort of everyday brown and green food I make for myself. But baking's a little more complicated.
The last time I was in Chicago, my cousin's sister-in-law gave me the recipe for her mom's lemon bars (as given to her by her friend Mrs. Gibson). I've been sitting on the recipe for ages -- I don't want to make a whole batch of lemon bars if I'm going to be the only person eating them. But I decided to give them a go for Christmas. I figured I'd just type up the recipe and e-mail it to my cousin. Here's what I typed:
From Ganda to Lynda:
Should we make Steve's mom's lemon bars? Here's the recipe: 1/2 cup butter 1 1/4 cup powdered sugar 1 cup flour 2 Tbsp. fresh lemon juice 1/2 tsp. baking powder Rind of one lemon 2 Tbsp. flour 2 eggs 1 cup sugar 1 tsp. melted butter milk
1. Mix together butter, sugar, 1 cup flour, bake 15 min. 350 degrees 2. Mix together lemon juice, rind, baking pdr, flour, eggs, sugar. Pour on crust, bake 25 minutes at 350. 3. Frost while warm with powdered sugar, butter, and enough milk to spread.
When I got to my cousin Lynda's, she had some Meyer lemons from the farmer's market ready. I threw together the shortbread crust but...something wasn't right. Why was it so floury? Why wasn't it coming together like a proper dough?
And then a cup of sugar for the lemon layer? On top of the 1 1/4 cups of powdered sugar in the dough?
And oh shit...how much powdered sugar goes into the icing?
And what size pan are we supposed to use? At this point, I appealed to Steve to try and recall the pan size. "Big. Glass. I think." We went with the 13 x 9 -- theirs was metal, but I figured it wouldn't matter.
About halfway through cooking the crust, I realized -- shit, the editor in me had combined the powdered sugar total but didn't denote the correct separate amounts in the directions. The proper ratio was 1/4 cup powdered sugar in the crust, 1 cup for the icing. By the time I figured that out, though, the sugary crust was burning and looked hard as a rock. Because I am a vain cook, I decided to chuck the whole batch and start fresh.
For round 2, the dough came together nicely. I turned the heat down because the crust seemed to be cooking too quickly on the first go -- maybe because of the metal pan vs. glass pan? I also thought the Meyer lemons weren't strong enough -- I missed the zing of standard lemons. Steve said the results were "right on", and since he was really the only one present who had any sense memory for it, I was satisfied.
I e-mailed the recipe revision to my cousin:
From Ganda to Lynda:
Revised recipe for lemon bars. I reduced the temp because the edges were too brown on the first batch, and I think your oven is a little hot. This one has clearer instructions.
1/2 cup butter 1/4 cup powdered sugar 1 cup flour
2 Tbsp. fresh lemon juice 1/2 tsp. baking powder Rind of one lemon 2 Tbsp. flour 2 eggs 1 cup sugar
1. Mix together butter, 1/4 cup powdered sugar, 1 cup flour, bake 15 min. 310 degrees 2. Mix together lemon juice, rind, baking pdr, 2 tbsp. flour, eggs, 1 cup sugar. Pour on crust, bake 25 minutes at 310 degrees. 3. Frost while warm with 1 cup powdered sugar, 1 tsp. butter, and enough milk to spread.
But I just got home and looked at the recipe again:
Damn! Did you catch that? It says 8" pan! That's why it was cooking too fast! And the bad cook blames it on the oven! Oh well, I'll get it right someday.
In case the picture is too hard to read, here's the revised revised e-version of the recipe (I think I got it right this time, but I make no guarantees. Apparently, I am a terrible recipe transcriptionist.)
Mrs. Gibson's Lemon Bars
My cousin Lynda's husband Steve's favorite lemon bars, as xeroxed for me by his sister, Susie. Technically, it was xeroxed by Steve's brother-in-law, Carl. This is the recipe Steve and Susie's mom followed, which was given to her by her friend Mrs. Gibson. But the recipe card says Sheila Mueller 1968 at the top. So maybe it's Sheila Mueller's recipe? The optional extra lemon juice tweak is mine, so if you add the tweak, maybe you can write Ganda Suthivarakom 2009 at the top of your recipe card. With apologies to Steve, Susie, their mom, her friend Mrs. Gibson, and Sheila Mueller, whoever you are.
As you can see from close-up, this is less of a lemon curd-y lemon bar and more of a iced lemon rind shortbread bar. Though maybe yours will look slightly different if you use the correct size pan.
1/2 cup butter (I used salted butter, because it seemed right to add a little salt to the crust) 1/4 cup powdered sugar 1 cup flour
2 Tbsp. fresh lemon juice 1/2 tsp. baking powder Rind of one lemon 2 Tbsp. flour 2 eggs 1 cup sugar
1 cup powdered sugar 1 tsp. melted butter 1-3 tsp. milk (traditional recipe) OR 1-3 tsp. lemon juice (Ganda tweak)
1. For the crust: Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Mix together butter, 1/4 cup powdered sugar, 1 cup flour. Press into the bottom of an 8" glass pan. Bake for 15 minutes at 350 degrees.
2. For the lemon layer: Mix together 2 Tbsp. lemon juice, rind, baking powder, 2 Tbsp. flour, eggs, 1 cup sugar. Pour on crust, bake 25 minutes at 350 degrees.
3. For the icing: Mix 1 cup powdered sugar, 1 tsp. butter, and enough milk (or lemon juice) to spread. Frost lemon bars while warm. Cut into smallish squares, maybe 2" x 2". Makes 16 lemon bars.
I am ready to be home in Brooklyn. All this sunshine and sitting in the car is making me soft. I have gotten to eat a few truly spectacular things during this trip, though:
The waiter lays a fresh sheet of waxed butcher paper on the table and ties plastic bibs around everyone's neck. The basic concept: you buy seafood by the pound, they boil it and toss it in a big plastic bag with your choice of sauce ("Rajun Cajun", garlic, lemon pepper, or "The Whole Sha-bang", which is all of the above). Then they dump the bags onto your butcher paper with a few wedges of lime.
Next: Time to get ugly. (Hopefully you and your compadres have already shed the shackles of modesty and decency, because if you haven't, that hymen's about to be broken.) We ripped into those sea creatures like a bunch of ravenous sharks. Peel, suck, dip, crack, munch. No utensils or manners required, though before they leave you to your carnage, the waiters are kind enough to place a roll of paper towels at every table.
Huge head-on shrimp are incredibly fresh, super sweet and meaty ("The most meat for the least work," as my cousin said). I find crawfish a little too cockroach-like to really enjoy tearing away their leggy armor, but everyone else seemed to love them. We preferred the Dungeness crab to the Alaskan King crab legs for the sweeter, more flavorful meat. But be careful with those sharper shell bits -- a cut on the hand or near the mouth means spicy, stinging pain for the rest of the meal. That said, don't resist double-dipping into that garlicky, spicy sauce -- after all, you and your dining companions are family now.
I even loved the sides. The sweet potato fries are the best I've ever had -- crunchy, sweet, not burnt, and totally addictive. And the corn cobbettes they drop in with the seafood soak up all that buttery, spicy juice. (What's in that stuff? My best guess: many sticks of butter, a chopped up head of garlic, a bottle of sriracha, a canister of Old Bay, and a liberal dose of magical oxycontin THC crack dust.)
After seven pounds of crustacean devastation, the carcass mountains get piled high. If you've done the job right, the sauce gets under your fingernails and into your eyebrows, staining the creases of your wrists. At the end of the meal, I had to soap up all the way to my elbows. A lunch there rides the razor's edge between totally awesome and totally disgusting. Which, of course, makes it totally awesome.
2. Flan King -- What, you don't like flan? Yes you do. You just haven't met the right flan yet. And Flan King's flan is the most righteous flan in all of God's creation. Super creamy, but not too eggy, it's heaven from the tip of the wedge all the way to the back. There's no velvety mouthfeel like it in the world, and yet it's so thick, you can stand a fork upright in it. It's kind of like the silkiest handmade tofu you've ever had, only denser and more resistant to the tongue, but luxuriant and creamy once it does give way.
What's the secret? Some sneaky gelatin? Letting the custard settle so there are no air bubbles? Extra condensed milk? No egg white? A certain type of egg? I have a feeling I'll never know. But I know I have a new request for my yearly visits to L.A.
If I had any complaint, like a teeny-tiny-please-forgive-me-for-my-treason-great-Flan-King complaint, it's that it's too sweet. But if the Flan King made a half-sweet flan, heaven would be here on earth and I would have no reason to resist sin.
You can buy Flan King flan at farmer's markets around L.A.
3. Lax-C Supermarket -- By the way, I hear that the cooks have changed at my former fave restaurant Ruen Pair, and it's no good anymore. This breaks my heart. Happily, the papaya salad (som tam) made in the parking lot at Lax-C supermarket is pretty good. The woman who makes it takes forever, and she's a little heavy-handed with the sugar for my taste, but she offers little preview cups of the sauce and she'll gladly adjust the flavor until you're satisfied.
Wash your som tam down with the other vendor's excellent coconut rice cakes (kanom krok), which are better than the ones in Thai Town, according to my Mae. Mae Ting's kanom krok are little hot, glutinous cups of coconut batter, cooked in a special cast iron implement til crisp around the edges. They're lovely, a tiny bit salty and not too sweet, and they're stacked to look like a tray full of bivalves. They must be eaten while hot or you will not understand why I told you to eat them. (Actually had these over Thanksgiving, but I think the review still holds.)
I'm about 8 years late, but I love this song so much. It's from Yo Gabba Gabba, which my friends' kids all go crazy for. My cousin thinks the host looks like the fourth member of Deee-lite. I am totally putting this shit on my iPod.
And in case you forgot how irresistible this jammy jam is:
Occupation: Writer, though that's not much of an occupation, is it? Borough: Reppin' the QB, baby. Relationship status: I'm in love with a girl. Happily, she tolerates me. What did you eat today? Noodly things made by Thai people. What do you never eat? Mid-grade fake food. How do I explain? Take macaroni and cheese: Macaroni with real cheese? Delicious. Macaroni with orange powder made into a buttery slurry? Delicious. Velveeta? Fucking atrocious.
Complete this sentence: In my refrigerator, you can always find:
mayonnaise; eggs; apple cider reduction; very fine jams; a chunk of Parmigiano; butter; cooking oils because I'm terrified of rancidity...oh, who am I kidding? I never cook at home anymore.
What is your favorite kitchen item?
Cutting board and towels. I know knives are sexier and pans more satisfying to hold and stoves and ovens more hearth-like and gadgets more clever, but tell me: what would you be doing without a cutting board and towels? Where do you eat out most frequently?
Lately, a fantastic little new Thai place I can see from my bedroom window (see above). The food is really excellent, and I've been going so often since it opened that I have actually stopped myself from going more than once because I didn't want them to think I was a loser or just homeless.
World ends tomorrow. What would you like for your last meal?
Organ meats harvested from George W. Bush.
See whose organ meats Francis is currently eating at Gourmet.com.
Number of times I cried during the 30 Rock Christmas Special: 3
1. When Liz Lemon explains how Colleen must have put out to get presents under the tree. 2. When Jack and Colleen sing together at the end. 3. During the NY Lotto commercial when the guitar comes in and the lady hands the scratcher tickets back to her vaguely ethnic kiosk guy.
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Good god, why does Christmas make me feel so emotional? Seriously, it's like PMS jacked up on performance enhancers up in here.
Thanks to all who came to the gig last night! Our gig at Spike Hill was preceded by a Christmas office party for a bunch of burly, middle-aged men drinking steins of lager and Jameson's. (Sample conversation: "Gimme a Stella Ar-twah." "Don't call the bartender a twat! Ar-twat!") They had just exchanged Christmas gifts and one guy was excitedly swinging his double-ended Penthouse dildo around on stage.
Minutes later, we launched into this Christmas classic (script and all) and cleared out half the room.
Ah, Christmas! Wring me out! I'm not gonna lie, I see you -- yes, you! -- standing under the mistletoe and I am secretly fantasizing about making out with you. I'll never have the guts to actually make it happen, though.
Here's to Christmas fantasies and unlikely pairings!
Name: Jenny Miller Occupation: Freelance food and lifestyle journalist Borough: Manhattan Relationship status: Single What did you eat today?
I've had very graze-y eating schedule lately. Half a Trader Joe's muffin and some Total yogurt and half a grapefruit for breakfast; Dumplings (frozen ones I get from Vanessa's) as a mid-morning snack; Miso soup with veggie and an egg that I made for lunch; Seaweed and rice with Sriracha for a snack - basically a vehicle for spiciness - and now I'm hungry for dinner. I eat a lot of Asian food because I live near Chinatown and across the street from a great Chinese supermarket.
What do you never eat?
I was a picky eater as a kid, but now I'm pretty omnivorous. I like most things if they're well prepared. That said, I don't care much for mayonnaise-y salads - potato salad, macaroni salad, etc. The slimy texture still gets me, I think.
Complete this sentence: In my refrigerator, you can always find:
Eggs, butter, something to throw in an omelette, Alvarado Bakery sprouted bread, Sriracha, Amy's Goddess salad dressing, half and half for my coffee.
What is your favorite kitchen item?
A big, sharp knife.
Where do you eat out most frequently?
Mamoun's on St. Marks - I generally go there for a falafel after yoga class.
Also am lamentably addicted to the Vanessa's location on Eldridge (they bought Dumpling House), which is near my apartment. Though I fear for my sodium levels, I crave their boiled shrimp dumplings, fried pork dumplings, and hot and sour soup. Actually, the soup's not excellent - if I bring it home I usually add vinegar - but I love even mediocre hot and sour.
And when I get red-meat cravings, I head to Blue 9 Burger for a cheeseburger.
World ends tomorrow. What would you like for your last meal?
Can we do a last day?
Breakfast: Chips and Salsa and the migas from Curra's in Austin. I used to live in Austin, so there'd have to be some Tex-Mex involved!
Lunch: Pho with everything from Pho Tu Do
Crispy spring rolls
Thai iced tea
A dozen West Coast oysters on the half shell [West side! --Ed.]
Sushi - a bunch of those specialty rolls made with spicy aiolis and tempura batter and such
Greenmarket salad with that miso-vinegar dressing from Whole Foods
A grilled medium-rare steak
Good red wine
Haagen Dazs coffee ice cream
Shortbread cookies Jenny's online portfolio can be found at JennyMiller.org.
Come see my band The Solitary Cyclist.
Pretty please? It's our unofficial holiday party. I'll wear my high
heels. There will be plenty of cheese and whine (har har). Besides,
we're totally better than you remember us being.
Tuesday, December 16 8 pm Spike Hill 184 & 186 Bedford Ave., right on top of the Bedford L stop in Williamsburg FREE Save your ducats and buy yourself a recession cocktail
Joe's Honey-Nut O's (they taste surprisingly similar to honey nut cheerios)
Joe's English muffin with Kerrygold butter
Harney & Sons "Boston" tea
Fish oil & vitamin pills
Leftover kale with anchovy and olives for lunch, with rice on the side, sriracha on top
For dinner, chicken breast stir fried with cabbage, those Chinese canned mushrooms, and lots of ginger, garlic, jalepeno, scallions and cilantro, on top of rice, topped with a fried egg and more sriracha.
Apple cider
White wine
What do you never eat?
Bitter melon
Uni
Milk chocolate
Dark chocolate below 70%
Junk food aisle
Complete this sentence: In my refrigerator, you can always find:
Lots of salty, often slimy items that can be tucked into just about any item to make it taste better: capers, cornichons, kalamata olives, tubes of tomato and anchovy paste, sriracha, Tabasco, etc.
What is your favorite kitchen item?
I am into durability. I love my knife and pot, but I have a wood block cutting board that a friend made for me, and it's lovely and will last a long time if I take care of it. His dad is a carpenter who recreates classic American furniture, so I picture the two of them gluing this thing together in the studio, alongside some really expensive highboy.
Where do you eat out most frequently?
around Grand Street in Manhattan
World ends tomorrow. What would you like for your last meal?
Something very fresh. Great sushi, a beautiful salad, etc.
But for dessert, the bread pudding from Matt Murphy's pub in Brookline, MA
Name: Björn Jeffery 
As I replied in the comments, the deal in Sweden is tube food. Lots and lots of food in tubes. My friend Chris told me to look out for baconost, or bacon cheese in a tube. But why stop at baconost when there is a whole refrigerator case filled with squeezable food?