single-bone anderssen.

Another trip to Umeå, this time to pick up the rental car. Above: the biggest rainbow I've ever seen, you could see the whole thing.

Below: dinner in Umeå here, one of the best things I've eaten in Sweden amidst a week of good eating. The menu said: Knäckepizza med confiterade tomater, västerbottensost, bakad Harr från Vardofjäll och färskostkräm.

It committed several grave culinary sins (seafood + cheese, calling itself "pizza", having carrots on it) but was cooked perfectly by someone who either really knew what they were doing or had a terrific stroke of luck. Basically: great homemade crispbread topped with parmesan-esque cheese, oven-dried tomatoes, red onion, roasted carrots and potatoes, and baked fish, with herbs on top and lemon creme fraiche served alongside in a cute little jar.

Trying to walk dinner off.

We were trying to end up in Umea first thing in the morning. Hanna, a friend of Anna's said "Yeah, you can stay in my room, I'm out of town hiking in the mountains, I have to warn you, it's a little messy."

Hanna's apartment was populated by extremely friendly militant vegan lesbians. Below: piece of art in Hanna's room with a funny text I will translate soon; a cartoon in the bathroom; the kitchen.

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how i love to taste your spicy meatball.

Above: the toolshed. Below: köttbullar, or Swedish meatballs to you and me. With lingonberries and mashed potatoes.

Below that: last night we biked 2km to what Anna had been referring to as "the sea". I was expecting waves. Instead there was an extremely clear and calm bay. The first picture is taken from the top of a ladder coming from the beach up to an outcropping of rocks where ships used to anchor. The clouds at the top of the frame are actually the reflection of the clouds in the water; the second picture is the view from on top of the rocks.

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planning.

Above: sunset in Sikeå, photo by Anna.

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This is crazy, but apparently, very true.

We're planning our weekend adventure of driving up north and camping, and we talked about spending one night in civilization so we could have dinner and drinks somewhere, and Anna said, "Yeah, but you can't drink too much or the cops will pull you over." And I said something like, "Yeah, but we're not going to be driving, we're just walking back to the hotel," and she said, "No, the next morning." You can imagine the few minutes of ensuing confusion as I tried to come to grips with the concept of the morning-after roadblock breathalyzer. That's some cruel shit.

As my dad would say, "This would never fly in America."

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bären.

This is going to be a post about berries.

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classic swedish cinema.

This post is in progress. Since I've known I was coming here, I had great plans to fill in the gap that is my knowledge of Swedish cinema. It's a gap that's a trifle odd, considering the number of movies I've seen that would be filed in the "Scandinavian" section at Silver Screen...but I guess these were all Danish and Norwegian.

So yesterday, since the weather here has been pretty uniformly autumnal (you probably can't use this word this way, can you), we started in on a mental list of "must-see Swedish films", a list of course tailored to my own tastes, and one that started with En kärlekshistoria (1970), but contained a lot of other things which I am already forgetting, so here is where I am writing them down.

A Swedish Love Story was very good: wistful, wry, and with a fantastically detailed attention to sound...I'd watch it again today.

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1. Through a Glass Darkly (Såsom i en spegel).
   
2. Songs from the Second Floor (Swedish: Sånger från andra våningen).
   
3. My Life as a Dog (Mitt liv som hund).
   
4. Everlasting Moments (Maria Larssons Eviga Ögonblick).
   
5. The Hunters (Jägarna).
   
6. Fanny and Alexander (Fanny och Alexander).
7. Jalla! Jalla!
   
8. Kopps (Cops). OK, this I've already seen, but need to see again, it was very funny.
   
9. The Simple-Minded Murder (Den Enfaldige Mördaren).
   
10. Show Me Love (Fucking Åmål). Seen this too, but am ready to see it again.
    
11. The Adventures of Picasso (Picasso's Äventyr).
    
12. All Things Fair (Lust och fägring stor).
    
13. I Am Curious (Yellow) (Jag är nyfiken – gul).

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diverse.

Now is the time on Sprockets when we post a disconnected jumblage of images with very little accompanying text, because our number of pictures is beginning to far outstrip our time available to write anything meaningful about them.

But we'll try, because the weather is pretty Amsterdammish again today (55°F and cloudy) and we don't have anything terribly ambitious planned for the day. If it gets any warmer, we'll bike to the sea (3km away), if it doesn't we'll stay here and allow me to strike a few more entries on my list of Classic Swedish Movies.

When we were in charmingly collegiate Umeå a couple days ago, among other things, we went to Konsum, which, aside from all of the interesting groceries and extra commas that this sentence is generating, is pretty fascinating in itself in that many people think of it as the "other" giant Swedish retail chain.

We ran into an acquaintance of Anna's in Umeå outside of Konsum (she lived there for 4 years), and he described the situation as being a tale of two retailers, one good, and one evil. He didn't say which one was which.

When Anna was growing up, all of the products really had this generic packaging. Everything. At some point in the 90s, they rebranded and remarketed everything, but they've now relaunched the old-school socialist packaging as a sort of ironic gesture and it's become quite trendy. Here is a much better picture.

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Cut to some real Northern Sweden shit here. If you were bothered by the pig's blood crackers the other day, you may want to skip ahead here. But this tasted really good and I'm sure you'd enjoy it very much if you didn't know what it was. It's called (insert forgotten Swedish name here), and it's something that's only eaten at Christmas time, only eaten in Northern Sweden, and Anna's the only person in her family who eats it.

So, you take these crackers we bought the other day, and you soak them in warm chicken or beef broth with a little sugar added (or vegetable stock if you're a vegetarian, ahahahahahah), and then you carefully take them out of the pan and put a couple pats of butter on them and serve with a big dollop of lingonberry preserves. If there were Waffle Houses in hell, this is what they'd serve. It was, frankly, delicious.

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efterkälken.

Above: gado-gado leftovers from last night. Below: 9:30pm in the backyard. Details on everything to follow soon.

lätthet.

 Above: the street where this house is. Below: the view of the same street from the bus stop (you can see the same red house off to the left, and the blue Sikeå sign off to the right). Below that: Umeå today: a boat where we didn't eat; leverpastej (sorry piggy) on the almost unGoogleable tunnpaltbröd (crisp rye cracker made with, eh, pig's blood, sorry again); Swede with böckling; the view from the riverbank. More soon I hope, but it's getting to that point in a vacation where my pictures are outnumbering the non-vacationing minutes I have to write about them. 

Umeå:

mörker.

Introducing the cast of characters. Above: imposing, dramatic raincloud-based scenery 24/7. This is 11pm. Below: Britt, bemused by the fact that she's about to be the first person to ever eat pom in Robertsfors commune, possibly in the whole Västerbotten region; Anna picking berries in the yard; lax waiting for my knife to turn it into breakfast.

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några ljusa gnista.

This is the wood-burning oven in the kitchen. Made by:

Who I know as motorcycle makers. Don't I?

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Today, we biked 5 km to the big city (Robertsfors, pop. 2500, vs. Sikeå, pop. 400? Anna and Britt guess that there are 250 houses in Sikeå) for groceries. On the way, we saw a marshmallow farm.

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för en nyckel till en dörr som är vidöppen.

Possibly the best discovery of the trip so far is that Anna's mom Britt can seriously cook. She cooked last night, I'm cooking tonight, and frankly I'm a bit worried. Above: mini Västerbotten pie wih rose peppercorns and baby asparagus (Västerbotten is the name of the region we're in).

Below: baked salmon with boiled potatoes (not pictured are the two critical sauces: one dill cream and one saffron cream) and an especially good rhubarb-oat crumble with Greek yogurt and honey. The rhubarb came from the garden, which I'll talk more about soon.

sätta på den dansande hästar.

Getting to Stockholm was totally painless. Getting to Sikeå (which is the name of where I am, not Robertsfors as previously thought) was...not totally painless.

My flight got into Stockholm at 8pm, and then I needed to take a bus to Umeå, which left at 9:45pm and arrived in Umeå eight hours later at 6am. After which I needed to take another bus to Sikeå, which left at 8am. Aside from not sleeping at all, the first bus ride wasn't so bad.

There was one point where it almost became much worse, when I awoke from a half-sleep to find a handful of people getting off the bus for what I thought was a gas/food/smoke/pee break, so I followed them off the bus. After ten seconds of standing outside, the bus at my back, just kind of waking up and admiring how in-the-middle-of-nowhere we were, trying to figure out where the gas/food mart was...the bus started to drive away. Was he re-parking the bus? my mind tried to compute. No, he was heading for the exit. Ehhhh.....dude?

So I ran across the parking lot and managed to flag him down, and got back on (we exchanged no words), and from that point on managed to be slightly more thankful to be sitting upright and awake in the almost-dark at 3:30 in the morning surrounded by dozing Swedes.

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Upon arrival in Sikeå, things improved dramatically. I'm staying with Anna and her mom, in their extremely attractive and spacious house that their family has lived in for the last 20 years or so. Of course there was Swedish breakfast, featuring the standard cast of 15 or 20 characters (among them, knäckebröd and caviar in a tube):

And there were some new friends as well: homemade gravad lax, which I was nominated to slice since Anna's brother Gustav was sleeping. I didn't do too badly, but only managed to take a photo of the scraps.

sätta på myggen.

My laptop's battery is acting all funny, so I have to write quick, which means writing worse than usual.

Some quick impressions. After five minutes of being on the flight to Stockholm, I was confronted with the fact that Svenska, or perhaps more realistically the accumulation of Nordic languages that were being spoken on this flight at this moment, is/are beautiful. As languages go. I mean, I think english is beautiful in its expressiveness, but maybe not in its sonic properties. Swedish, or Norsk, or Dansk, or whatever....just sounds like a song. Before we took off, it sounded like the whole front of the plane was calmly singing 45 or 55 different lullaby-like songs to each other.

And then the stewardess came on the intercom and the illusion was a bit shattered...her highs and lows were shaved off in the interest of businesslikeness, but still...entertaining as far as ununderstandable languages go.

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Part two: my in-flight meal. No pictures this time, I was in an aisle seat, but I'll try to rectify this on the way back. It was probably the best in-flight meal I've ever had, and this has everything to do with my taste. I ordered the "Danish Selection Plate", which was designed to be a DIY smørrebrød. So you got: rye bread; nicely spiced roast beef; a meatball of sorts, some pate; some herring in mustard sauce; a gherkin; butter; and of course a hard-boiled egg. And you made your own bites. Thoroughly enjoyable.

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Part three: Stockholm airport (Arlanda). The most deserted friday night airport I've ever seen. It might be worth mentioning at this point that I used to be a relatively serious flyer. No million miler or anything, but I was definitely some kind of level named after a precious metal (platinum, gold, etc) and I was for sure one of those annoying fucks who got to board before everyone else, and, if the occasion warranted it, I got to, er, demand things, like upgrading me to first class.

Of course, you know me (ha), I never did that, but people to whom I was professionally bound did this all the time and yes I possibly went along with it if we were traveling together (I was young! They were my bosses!). I could rationalize it at the time.

Anyway, it was nice at the time, before I realized what it meant. Those days of flying are probably gone now, I don't know since I don't fly professionally anymore. The point of all this is: I've seen a lot of airports. And this one is deserted as fuck on a Friday. Compared to like Atlanta.

I also feel compelled to mention: this is the only airport I've ever been to with lots and lots of flies. Foreshadowing?

This was my beer. 69 SEK. Tasty. And this is where I finally am now.

More soon.

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skål, yo.

Above: an actual preview of where I'll actually be based, Robertsfors, 30 minutes north of Umeå on the eastern coast (photo by Anna). This was taken yesterday at 11pm, so apparently it is now starting to get dark for a few hours at night this far "south".


View Larger Map

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Haven't found too many wonderfully comprehensive sites about the cuisine of Sweden, but Carovin, a Stockholm-based foodservice supplier, has a pretty nice overview that doesn't seem too distorted by marketing.

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detour.

Before we go full-bore Nordic, I need to mention last night's dinner.

This is something that the lovely and talented HBFstone has been making kind of regularly, and when she first told me about it I thought it didn't make any sense at all.

But since I trust the tiny commander's tongue and the taste buds thereon, I remained open-minded. Then she made it for the Mara, who said it was most excellent and certainly bore repeating.  

And last night, the Mara made it for the Me. Before I go any further, let me tell you what it is: it's an open-faced tempeh sandwich from a place called Angelica Kitchen in NYC. Their menu describes it as follows: "Slices of sourdough baguette topped with lightly marinated & baked tempeh, napped with savory mushroom gravy. Served on a bed of raw spinach, garnished with ruby kraut. With a scoop of mashed potatoes." Further cooking notes here.

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kan du visa mig var myggorna är?

Above: Last August's adventure, featuring Roy Paci's sun-dried tomatoes that A/V brought from Puglia to Sardinia. The best sun-dried tomatoes I've ever tasted.

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Can someone pleeeease remind me why it is front-page news to report what the "average American" thinks about things? Am I missing something here: a media outlet reports the news every day to average Americans, then asks those same average Americans what they think about the news, and then reports that info back to the same average Americans, which helps those same average Americans decide what they think or how they feel about the news. I mean, yes, I understand this from a mind control perspective, but...is that all it is?

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My prediction turned out to be, well, "spot on": I am leaving for The Land Of Invisible Eyebrows in a few hours, and I barely know anything about what I'll be doing for the next ten days. Except for being bitten by mosquitoes. And driving a rental car into the midnight sun. And, eh, visiting a long-abandoned sanatorium that's not open to the public. And...fishing? Camping, possibly? Did I mention the mosquitoes? And finally: Kalles.

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codebreaker 2.

Unexpected various leftover ingredients in fridge required a bit of Googling (how unusual!) to translate them into something sensible. This was a Nigella recipe that solved for X in a way we barely had to mess with, and it was delicious...nowhere near as sweet as you'd think. Here are the barely-messed-with results.

UPDATE: Downgrading this from Thoroughly Repeatable because...we didn't finish the leftovers. Since when do you not eat a leftover curry? They (the leftovers) just weren't compelling.

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sweet potato and shrimp curry with mango and scallions.

2 tbsp oil
2 scallions, chopped
2 tbsp red Thai curry paste, or a bit more to taste
1 400ml can coconut milk
300ml chicken stock (made from concentrate)
1 tbsp fish sauce (nam pla)
1 large sweet potato, cubed
2 cups/400gr shrimp, deveined
juice of 1 lime
150g mango, diced
3 tbsp fresh coriander, chopped

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codebreaker.

This dinner is a mystery solved. A trusted food friend brings you foodstuffs back from an exotic location, but you can't read the package. You can't even type the language to Google Translate the shit.

Closer inspection reveals that there are in fact a couple of English words, so you Google them. Eventually you manage to find out that what you are holding is a starter kit for making hoba miso, from Takayama, Japan. Here's Wikipedia Japan's article, Translated.

This is hoba miso with catfish in place of the usual beef and/or mushrooms (I know, it looks like tofu). It was really really good, we were licking the magnolia leaf at the end, but it's quite unphotogenic, no? Apparently it can be made to look better.

Basically: I pan-fried the catfish in butter and sesame oil for 3-4 minutes per side, with a tiny bit of salt and raw sugar added at some point in the cooking process. Then I rigged up a fake hibachi (grill pan with foil on top), slathered the magnolia leaf with miso, placed it on the fauxbachi, added the fish and scallions, and waited 10 minutes or so (over low heat) until the miso was bubbling and starting to caramelize. Serve. 

surströmming.

Above, a sadly typical scene from The Life Of VDuck July 2011. Much-needed detox in progress.

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I leave for Sweden on Friday, which is turning out to be one of the least-planned trips I've ever taken. Part of it is that I need a break I think, so I've got almost zero interest in trying to fill my days with activity. And I'm staying with locals, so I don't have to figure out how to do anything before I get there.

Nope, my goals are pretty simple: I want to go to a nice grocery store and fill my pockets with Swedish kaviar and beyond that I'm not too sure.

I am very lazily keeping an informal list of other things I might want to put in my pockets. Watch this space.

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"A Japanese study has shown that the smell of a newly opened can of surströmming is the most putrid smell of food in the world, beating similar fermented fish dishes such as the Korean Hongeohoe or Japanese Kusaya (Wikipedia)."

The opportunity will present itself by the weekend for sure. The question is: will I or won't I try it?

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soothness please.

OK, really, I'm done now.

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This is my diet for the week: chicken phở. Mara made it as an attempt to heal a brother on Sunday, and I don't know if it totally did that, but it was very good and I think we're going to make it again tonight.

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