the us

sweden

no air conditioning there

I guess my 'morning rush' is pretty tranquil. caffeinated, but tranquil.

my favorite film scene ever. (thanks monica for reminding me.)

here's a cool project

Everyone in America is invited to capture everyday life in photos for the project America At Home 7 Days. How much fun is that? They also collect essays, 200 words maximum.

Today's theme is 'morning rush', so I took a picture of Dan as he put on his t-shirt. (He didn't like it but the photo turned out blurry and kind of artsy so you can't recognize him anyway.)

Thanks JaCal for the tip!

ok. I'm done with the math. thanks google.

KRONANS KAKA (CROWN CAKE)
borrowed from ICA
150 grams (5.3 oz) almonds
3 eggs
2 deciliters (6.8 fl oz) sugar
75 grams (2.6 oz) butter or margarine
200 grams (7 oz) cold boiled or baked potatoes
the grated peel from half a lemon

use: 9 inch pan
bake: in 175C (350F) for 45 minutes

1. Butter a 22 cm (9 inch) pan (or larger, but then you will have to shorten the cooking time), and swirl breadcrumbs/corn flour/something else you prefer/ around inside.

2. Blanche, peel, and grate the almonds finely.

3. Grate the potatoes, or use a potato press.

4. Whip eggs and sugar until light and foamy.

5. Whisk in the softened butter and the grated almonds. Alternate between the two. Some bits of butter, a little almond, and so on.

6. Stir in lemon peel and potatoes.

7. Pour into pan, smooth the top, and bake.

Note: The potatoes have to be cold, like cooked the day before cold, or else they will melt the butter and the entire thing will end up too dense.

The recipe says to bake in the lower part of the oven. Ovens are different, tho, so trust your judgment.  You don't want direct heat as it burns easily. It’s done when it pulls away from the sides of the pan.

I’ve used google to calculate the American measurements. That’s why they are so anally exact. I am sure you can round them up and down, whatever seems reasonable.

unexpected success

I made Kronans Kaka (Crown cake) for a potluck that in the end I wasn't able to attend. But Dan came home with an empty dish and requests for the recipe.

There are recipes for this cake from the 1880's onwards. There is no flour in the thing, but grated almonds and grated boiled potatoes instead. So if you don't use breadcrumbs for the pan but something like corn flour it's gluten free, as far as I understand. And it's super good. I will go transform the metric measurements into American ones now. That will take a while.

don't get me wrong

It's horrible when little children disappear, or die. But I can't help wondering why those stories only ever get the around the clock media attention when the missing child is a blonde little girl?

I don't know who these people were

Or where they went.

oh you swedish people you know what these are

This is good stuff. On the inside: oats, sugar, butter, cocoa powder, vanilla, coffee, pinch of salt. Mix and roll into little balls. On the outside: shredded coconut.

It's the first "cooking" kids get introduced to, and it never goes out of style.

imagine that

I just learned that in Belgium, voting is compulsory. Mind boggling, huh?

no, I am not driving a tractor

I googled '1972 Karmann Ghia Convertible', because I wanted to show what my car looks like all clean, and I am too lazy to go out in the street and take a picture. And it's dark now anyway. Google images came back with this.
It wasn't their first option, or their second. But on the 4th page or so, there it was.

I am tired

I got a bottle of this product today. It's called Once a Year Car Polish. I thought it would be appropriate. It's been about that long since I cleaned the pretty red car.

My neighbors came home from work, left for the gym, and came back from the gym again while I was buffing. My face was sweating.

The car looks OK now. I hope my shoulders and upper arms will too. Maybe that will be a reason to do it sooner. It is a great workout.

I like alice cooper

miso soup i rörstrandskopp

my new favorite pillow

My grandma embroidered this piece of fabric a long time ago. Possibly as early as the 1920's, my mom says. It's been sitting in a drawer since then. First in grandma's own drawer, and then lately in my mom's. It came out this summer, and was given to me.
I made a pillow out of it. All that was needed was a seam around the three sides. It was pretty obvious it had been meant to be made into a pillow all along. No creative credit to me.
My grandma's embroidery was always bold like this. Which is kind of surprising, because she was not particularly bold in person. It's pretty, huh?

The fluffy insides is made up of an old pillow that had originated with my other grandma. So, here I have it: comfort from two grandmas, in one go.

Which reminds me of another story. Last spring, every day one of my students would proudly wear a large cross outside his shirt. At one point when we were talking about identity and self expression I asked him about it. He said the cross had been a present from his grandma. Since cultural studies is a detail oriented activity I asked him about the chain too. He said it had been give to him by his other grandma. So, symbolically he had joined his two grandmas and was wearing them around his neck. I thought that was rather sweet for a twenty year old boy.

The point of the story, however, is that my student's two grandmas had both of them been opposed to his parents' marriage. One of his parents was of Mexican decent, and the other one came from an Italian family. When they met and married, no one was happy. The grandmas didn't speak to each other.

So even more powerful their grandson's statement in joining their gifts.

swedish coastline (look at that trees and water to houses ratio)

I took my new lens up the mountain (look at that close up of the serpentine)

look here, anne

So this is my one remaining and damn it hard to photograph orchid. If you look closely though you can see that it has two bud things going on. Those appeared after the poor thing hadn't had water in a very long while, and the dirt was getting seriously low around its feet. I put more dirt in and started watering it earlier this week. Since then the buds have grown like crazy.

I have read that orchids thrive on neglect. Maybe that is so. When I think of it, this one seems to just go ahead and bloom every September, no matter what. Previous years I have given watering people lots of credit and thanks when I've returned from holidays to enjoy the pretty flowers. This year I am not to credit Dan for neglecting it for me. I am just going to accept the inner workings of nature, and take pictures.

summer still

Evidence:
Fan is still out.
Candle holders are dusty and have no candles in them.

more from mayka. the girl sure knows her way around the internet.

Little Paris in China.

thanks mayka

Always with the useful info.

sorry, "funny"

This is a funny blog for those who enjoy punctuation.

looks like a dark and stormy night could be really dark and stormy over there

This is Sofiero Palace, just outside Helsingborg in the south of Sweden.
Denmark is right across some narrow water from Helsingborg.
And across the water from Sofiero is Kronborg Castle, which Shakespeare used for Elsinore Castle in Hamlet.

dahlias at sofiero palace

Sofiero Palace was built in 1865 and has beautiful gardens. It is open to the public and no longer a royal residence.

geraniums at sofiero palace

man buying a plant at sofiero palace

sweetpeas at sofiero palace

there is no such thing as unskilled labor, she says, and of course she is right

When you go on really long plane rides you need really good books. This is what I read going from San Francisco to Amsterdam a few weeks ago. Nickel and Dimed was first published in 2001 and it is just great. In it Barbara Ehrenreich tells the stories of what she learns as she, an highly educated woman, is working low wage jobs.

Nothing I could say would do it justice. Read it.

sfo aug 31 2007

If you want to see and smell people smoking in America, try the curb outside international arrivals right after a 10,5 hour flight has landed.
In Sweden duct tape= silver tape.

amsterdam airport schiphol aug 31 2007

go see this movie

Los Angeles Times says: "I hope it's not damning the movie with the wrong kind of praise to say that for a film so deliriously smutty, Superbad is supercute."

it's like with the eskimos and the snow, but the other way round

It seems to me cultures have their own individual default colors. In the US things are often a burgundy kind of red. In Korea I saw a lot of green a shade I didn't understand until I saw rice fields for the first time.

In Sweden things are blue.

(I should add that those photos are from three different cities too.)

to the right there was the hotel where I broke coffee cups by the dozen, straight out of the dishwasher. waitressing was not for me.

Göteborg was laid out and built by the Dutch. And they do like those canals.

not my best work, but it's heartfelt

Grattis Pelle!

I suggest a light birthday dinner

My nephew and I made a marängsvisstårta for his brother's birthday. He had asked for marängsviss but we figured you should have cake for your birthday so we made it into one. It was very good. Even the grown ups had seconds.

For this very special treat you make meringues and a meringue cake base, and then you layer the meringues, whipped cream, vanilla ice cream, bits of banana, and chocolate sauce on top of the base. Ice cream and bananas are optional, but the birthday boy likes them. His big brother put extra optional bits of banana around the edge (and fewer inside, we can assume).

If you want hints on making meringues, just ask me. If you know how to use 6 extra egg yolks without ruining your low cholesterol diet, please tell my mother.

just one of the things that didn't fit into the suitcase

I got this at my parents' small local Konsum super market. It's an example of that 'ethnic' trend where you mix cultures, flavors, and traditions every which way you like. I really wanted to know what it tastes like. My mom really wanted to know how she was supposed to pronounce it. That is, she understood the idea was to make the Italian word English sounding but that made her confused.

And yes you may wonder why it has to be English at all.

But the reason is, obviously, that the Swedes are not offered anything Mexican here, they are offered something acutely American. So, next time someone asks that question 'what is American food anyway?', you have your answer: It's Mexican Lasagne, sold in Sweden, in a box. Add your own milk, beef, and cheese. The Mexican part is the spice packet.