food (102)

Blog entries about my favorite topic, food :-) Includes food journals and other food-related entries.

Sorted chronologically, newest first. 102 posts.

Life as a hunter-gatherer must be hard
10/9/18
After many years of thinking that I ought to gather mushrooms one day and learn to identify those sought-after chanterelles, I finally wound up doing it. It was an ordinary morning. Margareta thought she's take a walk, I tagged along. And she brought a basket — just in case. Read more>>>

Bag of baguettes
10/8/8
We haven't been much of bread-eaters until recently, when we discovered how to make our own baguettes. The recipe is from our friend Per, who makes all sorts of complicated breads. This recipe is relatively easy to follow though, and make lots of good, dense baguettes – perfect for dipping in olive oil with a pinch of salt. Read more>>>


Good eats in Gothenburg
10/7/22
I also add the abundance of restaurant choices, many of them with reasonable lunch prices. For dinners, you should be prepared to shell out a bit — dinner out is expensive in Sweden anyway — but the variety is enormous and the quality of food out is better than anything here in Norrköping we could afford. Like I do, Gothenburgers delight in seafood, so seafood- and sushi restaurants are also in abundance. Food, relatively cheap, mostly seafood... what's not to love? Read more>>>

A Swedish camping classic at home
10/7/4
This is an oven-made version of a classic camping dessert that's supposed to be prepared on a campfire grill. Maybe it's the only kind of banana dessert that Marcus would eat (he's not a fan of bananas), and it was a great way of getting rid of leftover baking chocolate that we had lying in our refrigerator. Read more>>>

"Slow mode"
10/6/29
We mostly sit out in the balcony these weekends and evenings, staying clear of celebration obligations and just using the time to enjoy "slow mode" (Since our move at the end of January this year, we had been fixing our balcony just for enjoying it this summer). We're not even in the mood for cooking heavy food, so even our lunches are prepared slow mode-style. Read more>>>

Food journal number 60: Beef Wellington
10/5/7
Beef Wellington. A fancy name for what in plain Swedish, would just be called a baked-in tenderloin, literally: inbakad oxfilé. And as that name suggests, Beef Wellington is nothing else than tenderloin wrapped in something. The outer layer consists of puff pastry; the middle layer can be anything from paté to duxelles (another fancy name for mushroom paste, which is what we made and used). Read more>>>

Greetings
10/4/4
... And my first cupcakes, without frosting (didn't have cream cheese at hand and was too lazy to go to the store). Glad Påsk and advanced happy birthday, mom! Go to post>>>


What I think about after Waffle Day
10/3/28
You bet I've been thinking about eating waffles all week long. I was thinking about it when I read ads for cheap waffle irons; I was thinking about it when I passed the local café specializing in waffles; I was thinking about it when we gave a waffle iron to a colleague as a bridal gift this week. Waffles were on my mind on Waffle Day, and even after Waffle Day passed three days ago, when I was contemplating on my waffle-lessness. I thought: I must eat waffles! I want a waffle maker! Read more>>>

Meanwhile... cakes!
10/3/12
Our adaptation of Black Forest cake and Nutella cake. The cake bottoms were not from scratch, but we made "everything else", i.e. the filling and decoration. We browsed recipes and let ourselves be inspired, but we didn't follow any any recipe in particular. Read more>>>

Metro shopping fun a.k.a. Philippines 2010, part 2
10/3/2
As far as we observed, only two items were more expensive in the Philippines than in Sweden: pizza (costed at least a third more), and oatmeal (seven times more expensive). Oh, need I mention that alcohol is, in comparison, dirt cheap in the Philippines? Rum and brandy are also available at any drug store, which in the Swedish alcohol-monopoly point of view, is beyond bizzare. Read more>>>

Food journal number 59: Taco pizza
10/1/9
Besides that, taco pizza is exactly as the name proclaims. A strange Scandinavian cross between the taco and the pizza - two import foods the Swedes love. I'm pretty sure that this bastard son of a dish would be disowned by Mexicans and Italians alike. Read more>>>

Got a Chinese food craving!
09/12/7
I love, love, love Chinese food. It doesn't matter what cuisine it is (Sichuan, Cantonese, etc.). I'm pretty sure that I could eat anything. Except chicken feet. And frog's legs. And snakes. But you get the picture. As long as it's normal Chinese food, I'd love to eat that. Read more>>>


Food journal number 58: A better recipe for saffron buns
09/11/28
Baking saffron buns without quark is not only possible – the result is actually more delicious (and traditional!). These are definitely the best saffron buns I've made so far. If, like me, you don't have a kitchen mixer, be prepared to knead for 30 minutes. Some regard it as therapeutic ;-) Read more>>>

microwave lunch
09/10/28
Fiskgratäng = White fish pieces in shrimp-dill sauce, in a bed of baked mashed potatoes = Salvation for the lazy and hungry. Go to post>>>

One of my favorite things
09/10/9
Just wanted to say that my favorite cookie brand of all time, Ballerina, came up with this new seasonal flavor, pepparkaka (gingerbread) in time for the Yuletide season (Yes... even here, there's a bit of Christmas air as soon as months begin to end with -ber)... Read more>>>

Food journal number 57: Skaldjursfrossa, with a recipe for Västerbottenpaj
09/9/27
Skaldjursfrossa – a happy Swedish word. The mouth, which opens for the first syllable, puckers as if for a kiss for the second, and the two last vowels jump out of the mouth with a joyful intonation. True enough, the mouth also puckers and lets out sighs during a skaldjursfrossa. The word means a seafood feast –literally "seafood reveling"... Read more>>>

Food journal number 56: Crayfish season with baked Norway lobster
09/8/16
Norway lobster is called "sea crayfish" in Swedish, but is actually a close relative of the lobster. It is smaller, longer and resembles big shrimp but has small claws. It's fished in the Atlantic from northern Norway to southern Portugal... Read more>>>



Food journal number 55: yet another pie (it's blueberry)
09/8/7
I'm pretty proud of this food photo. The lighting that afternoon was perfect and the shapes and textures on the white plate just feels right. I'm pretty damn proud of that pie too, because I did everything myself, including picking the berries... Read more>>>

Food journal number 54: sweet Finnish buns
09/7/25
I would have never tried the recipe for these sämpylä if I hadn't tasted them up in Ljusdal. It requires lots of bread syrup and butter, but that's the charm: you don't need any jam... Read more>>>

Thanks for the strawberries, Margareta!
09/7/1
We could have eaten them plain, but I had a better idea for half of the box. Now I think we'd have to eat cake for the next three days... GREAT!... Read more>>>

Food journal number 53: Citronpaj
09/6/27
Citronpaj is Swedish for lemon pie. I've been craving for this for weeks! This recipe is from Annas pajer (Anna's pies), a cookbook that I bought some months ago together with another baking book. A lovely pie, sweet and tart... Read more>>>

First grill plate of the season
09/6/9
Last week's grill lunch, the first of the season: Pork , onions and tomatoes grilled in foil and grilled skewered zucchinis, served with fries and Béarnaise sauce. A gazillion calories. Yum!... Go to post>>>

Food journal number 52: Carnegie porter
09/6/2
It seems to us that vacationing in Prague and drinking beer to every meal there creates an addiction – or shall we say, appreciation – for beer. A new world of beer opened up for us, where we suddenly weren't limited to drinking Spendrups light beer. Here's a beer with a history, that tastes good with chocolate cake... Read more>>>

And I discovered that I liked liver
09/5/8
In Prague, we decided to try a "today's special" in a menu that was only written in Czech. We found out that the dish consisted of a pork chop and a piece of liver in a dark sauce with mashed liver and herbs. The verdict? They know their liver!... Read more>>>

Food journal number 51: post-Easter post
09/4/20
I love ribs. I discovered that I loved ribs about three years ago when we ordered one from a food court and I smacked my oily lips in satisfaction after I licked the bones clean. What's even better is we found out that if you prepare them yourself, they turn out more delicious for the fraction of the price of store-bought... Read more>>>

Food journal number 51: Swedish-style French fish soup
09/4/10
Frozen fish in a soup is today's topic, in the form of a Swedish-style French fish soup taken from one of Margareta's cookbooks. Frozen fish are not so good on their own (a bit on the dry side), so soups are in my opinion the best way to cook them. Another good thing about this particular recipe is that the bulk of it can be prepared beforehand.... Read more>>>

Food journal number 50: Sunday steak
09/3/28
This entry is about our Sunday steak, our weekend specialty. We've been cooking variants of this since forever, but each time I eat it I still think it's a better version of the last. The meat is the star of the show, but even there we're tried variations. We've tried this dish with entrecôte, sirloin, and lately – the cheapest cut still good for this purpose in these hard times of rising meat prices – nicely-cut parts of the chuck (a.k.a fransyska).... Read more>>>


I interrupt my studying for...
09/3/10
...food! My cookbooks have arrived in the mail! I've been drooling over these cookbooks for half a year now, and since this month is booksale month in Sweden, I could finally buy them at the price I'm willing to pay for them (I considered buying them in the store, but I saved 100 kronor buying them online during the sale)... Read more>>>

Exercise, semlor are here!
09/2/10
No, the lenten season isn't actually very near, but it is where bakers around Sweden is concerned. The last of the New Year's dust hardly has time to settle before the lenten "fasting buns" are sold all over the country. Supposedly eaten on Mardi Gras before the long period of religious fasting, they're in bakeries by mid-January and selling like – don't mind the pun – hotcakes... Read more>>>

Small informal housewarming thing!
09/2/1
Since we moved to the new apartment, the question of whether we should hold an "official" housewarming party came up in my mind. Who should be invited, keeping in mind that I had English-only speaking friends, Swedish-only speaking friends, and friends who are bilingual? What should we eat? Should it be lunch, dinner or fika? Potluck or all-home cooked?... Read more>>>

Gull-Britt's health bread
08/12/21
Gull-Britt is a real master in the kitchen so I hear, and this bread really is "hers". She adapted it from a recipe that originally had only flour and wheat bran in it, turning it into a healthy bread with not less than 4 more kinds of seeds and grains... Read more>>>


Food journal number 49: French garlic soup
08/12/21
It's not exactly frightful weather out yet, but it's colds season so I thought I'd blog about this garlic soup which we made recently. The healthy properties of 4 whole heads of garlic hopefully keep diseases at bay, not to mention vampires... Read more>>>

A traditional Swedish julbord
08/12/05
This year's julbord was at Sörgårdens Gästgiveri, an old 1920's school building that was transformed into a roadside restaurant in the 60s. The food was nothing less than superb! The restaurant boats of having one of the best julbord in Östergötland county, and although I can't be an objective referee, there must be a basis for this reputation... Read more>>>

Food journal number 48: Lussekatter (saffron buns) and company
08/11/29
No pumpkin, no pumpkin pie. Thankfully, advent season is also nearing, so I had an excuse to bake something traditionally Swedish as a replacement for Thanksgiving. Actually, the only thing the two pastries have in common is their bright orange color. The Swedish buns though, instead of getting its color from pumpkin, takes its shade from saffron... Read more>>>

Food journal number 47: Smörgåstårta
08/11/2
Smörgåstårta – basically a giant 3-layer sandwich cake – is one of those traditional food served for these special occasions. It's almost a staple in birthday buffets and potlucks. Most bakeries also have smörgåstårta for ordering for these occasions – just like any regular cake. We made this one ourselves... Read more>>>

Food journal number 46: Beets – I like mine plain
08/10/25
It's not the pre-fab stuff this time. We actually bought some beets from the grocery, scrubbed them, halved them and boiled them... And that was pretty much it, actually. Beetroots. Plain. With butter and salt. Who would have thought that it would taste like corn with butter?... Read more>>>


Food journal number 45: Meatball and beetrood salad sandwich
08/10/15
One of the first Swedish à la fast food items we prepared at home when I was new here was the meatball and beetroot salad sandwich. It's a Swedish classic that appears in anything from the local gas station's hotdog counter to Christmas buffets. And it's simple, actually. You start with beets... Read more>>>

How could you resist?
08/10/11
Had a frog pastry for fika last week because I couldn't resist it's blogging potential. It actually tastes a bit like (and resembles) a regular princess cake, but this "frog prince cake", as I like to call it, has green pistachio cream inside and a bottom of thin chocolate... Read more>>>

Food journal number 44: Isterband
08/10/7
Q: What's long, fatty, and explodes in your pan? A: Well, it's that thing in the picture above. Although I recently grossed myself out with a picture of calf nuts and can see a slight resemblance, I can assure you the things on my pan are nothing else but sausages. Lard sausages... Read more>>>

Food journal number 43: Potato-cheese pie at our crayfish party
08/8/27
For our crayfish party, I made my first ever pie with my first ever pie crust. This recipe calls for aged cheese, and for this I used nothing less than Svecia, or Swede cheese. Bet you didn't know it really existed, because neither did I despite having this blog address!... Read more>>>

Food journal number 42: Meet our cast iron pan
08/8/12
The Swedish company Skeppshult makes fine bicycles, but they also make top-quality cast iron pans. Guess which one we bought? Cast iron pans don't only last a year or two –not even for just a few decades – but literally for more than a lifetime, which, even if we're talking about Swedish life expectancy, is more than 83 years... Read more>>>


Where every day is Christmas day
08/8/6
There won't be fat Santas and silver bells at the summery streets of Gränna, but there will definitely be candy cane. Lots of candy cane. They love their peppermint candy canes here. In fact, a yearly town contest is held where the local candy producers compete for the reputation of having the best-tasting candy canes... Read more>>>

The saltiest fattiest food you can eat
08/7/16
In the village of Orrefors, is the Swedish National School of Glass. Their website describes glassmaking as the hottest education program in the country -- with the pun intended, as ovens here reach more than a 1,200 degrees C! As a traditional activity here, tourists can go here or in other glassblowing halls on some evenings to partake of the Hyttsill, a traditional dinner with old-style meals from Småland... Read more>>>

Beans, beans, the musical fruit
08/7/7
I'm always excited when I see "exotic" ingredients in Sweden that I know from childhood, like Lee Kum Kee mixes, chinese mushrooms, and most recently, mung beans. Recently, I found out that this sweet mung bean soup wasn't actually a Filipino concoction, but a Chinese one... Read more>>>

På kolonilotten, and a recipe for cheese scones
08/7/1
Allotment gardens in Sweden have been popular for the last 100 years. As cities became more dense, there was a lack of housing and people began to move to concrete jungles. The thought behind allotment gardens was that even apartment residents who didn't have yards of their own could go out too their little gardens and plant fruit and vegetables, thus also keeping their costs down... Read more>>>

Food journal number 41: Sockerkaka
08/6/28
If you happen to believe on gospel of low fat, this cake recipe for sockerkaka (lit. sugar cake) is for you. With only 50 grams of butter, dieters can literally have their cake and eat it too. As the magazines like to say, paradoxically enough: "You can indulge even while dieting!"... Read more>>>


Food journal number 40: Smoothies and shakes
08/6/11
Summer is without doubt the best time for shopping food up here in Sweden. There are simply more fruit and vegetable choices, and they look fresher and are cheaper than they are at any other time of the year. I had the idea of making milkshake out of strawberries bought from a local farm... Read more>>>

The Pinoy Erasmus Mundus website. Check it out!
08/5/9
I thought of writing a series of miscellaneous recollections from the Erasmus Mundus year that I wished I could have written about before I started this blog. My first contribution to the Pinoy Erasmus Mundus blog is of course, on food. In an inspired moment, I made illustrations for it too... Read more>>>

Food journal number 39: Kålpudding
08/5/7
My favorite eating way of eating lots of cabbage is in the form of this classic Swedish dish. Kålpudding seems to be a lazy variation of kåldolmar, which are meat and rice mixtures individually wrapped in cabbage leaves, which I wrote about here before. The difference is that the cabbage here is cut, leaving out the need to peel individual leaves whole... Read more>>>

Fika: how quaint!
08/5/3
"Fika" is an institution in Sweden; there's no direct one-word translation for it, but it means to have coffee or to have a coffee break ("Fika" is both verb and noun, then it usually connotes both the coffee and the pastry you eat with it). Closest in meaning is probably "afternoon tea", except that there may actually be several fika breaks throughout the day... Read more>>>

Food journal number 38: Eating weed
08/4/23
The weed in question is called kirskål (or sometimes kärs) in Swedish. In English, it's called ground-elder, and it's a pesky weed of the carrot family whose long roots reputedly make ornamental gardening very difficult. Eating them naturally serves a double purpose of getting rid of the weeds and getting a hearty lunch at the same time... Read more>>>


Food journal number 37: roast beef and homemade bread
08/4/11
Since beef probably wouldn't be as cheap once the EU stops beef imports from Brazil (to support EU farms), we just couldn't resist buying our piece of "farewell Brasse-beef". The happy Brazilian cow had to be prepared in a manner worthy of the cause of course -- which is why we decided that it should be roast beef (rostbiff)... Read more>>>


Something in the mail
08/4/9
I got a slip in the mail yesterday. The post office had received a package that couldn't fit in our mailbox and I was requested to go to Nya Torgets kiosk to pick it up. I was excited. I knew I was going to pick up ... a box of Tabasco!!! ... Read more>>>

Food journal number 36: an adventure with asparagus
08/4/8
Between late April and early June is asparagus season. Or more correctly, it is spargel season, as the Germans like to call the vegetable. Germany is the biggest grower and exporter of the plant in Europe and by spargel, according to Wikipedia, the Germans refer more often than not to the white, not the green kind, of asparagus... Read more>>>

Food journal number 35: linssopa
08/3/27
Marcus mentioned that they ate a delicious lentil soup (linssopa) in their last military exercise -- He never eats lentils. He wouldn't even touch a bag of those with a 10-foot pole! I guess he was definitely hungry then. Besides, they didn't really have a choice. But neither did he when I brought home a bag of lentils announcing that I would try to recreate the famous lentil soup using the recipe from my new cookbook... Read more>>>


Happy Easter!
08/3/23
I figured that lentil soup (which was supposed to be up next in the backblog) wasn't exactly festive enough for an Easter day post, so instead I am posting a recipe of some goodies I made in time for Easter. Told you that cooking was one of the things I've been doing during my quarantine period! Find recipes for knackerli, pineapple cake, and deviled eggs here... Read more>>>


Food journal number 34: Cured salmon (gravad lax)
08/3/19
the prospect of me staying at home for a while made me inspired to leaf through cookbooks, and so far I have made a delicious lentil soup -- even Marcus was surprised that he could suddenly like lentils! -- and he and I tried our hand at curing our own salmon to make gravad lax ("buried salmon") or gravlax... Read more>>>

Food journal number 33: Marcus' birthday cake
08/3/1
As I said in my last food entry, I borrowed Maria Öhrn's book on kladdkakor from the library. Since it's Marcus' birthday today, I picked out and made "Favoritkakan" (lit. the favorite cake), which has its name because it was the author's father's favorite... Read more>>>

Food journal number 32: my first cinnamon buns
08/2/22
Yesterday though, it was my first time to make them myself all from scratch. The idea to do this came along because we had leftover flour with wholemeal (Kärnvetemjöl med Fullkorn). I used to make dense and healthy fruit-and-nut loaves out of that flour, but I guess we got tired of eating healthy so we decided to put the flour to use on some sweet fluffy pastry instead... Read more>>>

Food journal number 31: Tacos
08/2/10
Let Anne from the Swedish food blog Anne's Food explain: Swedes love "latin" food. Well, here, we pretty much call it tex-mex. And let me tell you, Swedes love their "tex-mex". Which means, in a nutshell, tacos." ... Read more>>>


Food journal number 30: Pannkakor
08/2/7
Since Marcus was down with tonsillitis, the only thing I cooked the whole week were pancakes (pannkakor, singuar: pankaka). And since Swedish pancakes are actually more like crepes, it was something both Marcus and I could eat at the same time... Read more>>>

Food journal number 29: Lutfisk
08/1/5
New year, new experiences! For our New Year reunion, Mats and Margareta cooked some lutfisk for us. For their part, it's their first time to cook the traditional Christmastimely fish dish. For my part, it's the first time to test the notorious Scandinavian delicacy, which literally is air-dried fish reconstituted in lye solution... Read more>>>

Food journal number 28: How not to do a Christmas ham
07/12/6
When we run out of lunch ideas at this time of the year, the answer is simple: buy Christmas ham, have food for two straight weeks. So, we did that and bought the smallest hunk of ham (2.5 kilos) at Willy:s... Read more>>>

Food journal number 27: The gourmands of the Carribean
07/12/4
Once again, I've made a reputation for my myself with my homongous appetite. After three plate-fulls of food, a beer, schnaps, three rounds of desserts and finally tea, I was just about ready to burst... thankfully discovering that all I needed to do was burp... Now I understand why people eat a julbord only once per year. Read more>>>

Food journal number 26: Princesstårta
07/11/9
I completed another year yesterday and I was sung the Swedish birthday song for the first time in 24 years. Hihihi :-) Thanks to family and friends and all the well-wishers! :-D Here's a virtual cake for those I can't share my real cake with. It's a princess cake (princesstårta), the most common type of cake you will ever find here in Sweden... Read more>>>



Food journal number 25: Ode to the Crayfish
07/8/20
Well yeah, it's crayfish season again. My sister actually called from Germany the other day -- the traditional Swedish crayfish parties have become a hit there too, apparently -- just to gloat that German IKEAs were serving all-you-can-eat crayfish for 15 Euros (130 kroners) a person... Read more>>>

Hungry as a day laborer, andra delen...
07/8/18
... a.k.a. "Some good things come in instant packages," because, in the weeks working in the boat which seem so distant to us now, we actually discovered just that. Actually, if you were also working from 9am to 9pm, you'll find that instant food is just made for people like you!... Read more>>>

Food journal number 24: Danish, err, Wienerbröd
07/8/13
A Danish is a Danish... but apparently not in Denmark, nor here in Sweden for that matter, where it's called by an Austrian allusion, wienerbröd (Danish, wienerbrød). Labeling food by place is actually an interesting thing that I've noted with other foodstuff... Read more>>>

Food journal number 23: Grilling
07/7/27
Windows of good weather have allowed us to go out and get grilling here at the countryside (FYI at Mat's and Margareta's place) where I write this entry. We have the house to our own for a whole week, so we invited our friends Kai, Lian, Estella and our friend Per to a grill party a.k.a. pork fest today. Read more>>>

Hungry as a day laborer, part 1: Leons
07/7/08
The week's work left us no time for grocery shopping (not to mention cooking) despite working with our bodies and feeling as hungry as bears by the afternoon. Apparently, when you're working like a laborer, you've got to eat like one as well... Read more>>>


Food journal number 22: Matjessill and Dill
07/6/27
I know I wrote about herring just recently, but this type (soused herring or matjessill) is not to be confused with the pickled herring (inlagd sill) of the earlier food journal. They have two notable differences... Read more>>>

Food journal number 21: Strawberries and new potatoes
07/6/20
wo swallows don't make a summer but strawberries (jordgubbar) and new potatoes (färsk potatis) do! One of the things that I find very interesting in a place with four seasons is how the food -- yes, not only the clothing -- changes with the time of the year... Read more>>>

Food journal number 20: Knäckebröd
07/6/16
Another something on my back(b)log is an explanation to my blog title's icon. I think I managed to mention it several times in different blog entries but haven't yet been able to write an entry devoted to that ubiquitous brown bread, the knäckebröd... Read more>>>

Food journal number 19: Lakrits
07/6/8
Ooooh, my posts keep on coming like ketchup from a bottle. It's a sure sign that I've finally started my summer vacation from school. Yes yes, yehey! This post was inspired by a comment from Toni that salmiac (salty licorice) is available at IKEA in Germany... Read more>>>


Food journal number 18: Sill, Gravad lax and Nyponsoppa
07/5/23
Kristine is now back in New York, and Marcus and I are back to our workaday world. Things are now moving along the same routine, though I'm convinced that I've gained a kilo or two over the past week. Kristine, we miss you and your Mexican cooking! This calls for a food blog!... Read more>>>

Inventive inventions #2: The Tetra Pak
07/4/24
According to observation and statistics, it seems that most Scandinavians drink milk with meals throughout adulthood. Finns reportedly drink 117 liters per capita per year and Swedes (at number 4 in the world's milk consumer list) consume almost 94 liters per capita per year, compared... Read more>>>

Food journal number number 17: Waffles
07/3/25
The International Waffle Day, according to this article, actually began in Sweden, apparently from something being lost in translation. Actually, there were two things lost in translation, both of which turned... Read more>>>

Cold days call for hot drinks
07/3/22
I'm supposed to be in the intensive spinning class right now (a 75-minute session of pedalling to different tempos, similar to interval training) but instead, I'm home suffering from dysmenorrhea. I feel lazy, my legs feel... Read more>>>

Bread and biking
07/3/18
The apricot- and nut bread was a success! Half of it is now in the freezer and half of it is ready to eat for tonight's sandwiches. Perhaps if the ingredients were easier to find, I would have posted a recipe, but it calls for all sorts of weird healthy things... Read more>>>

Food journal number 16: Semla
07/2/15
I arranged a party here at the apartment with Marcus' friends, in which we baked and ate semla (pl. semlor) together. (They're the same set of friends whom be baked cinnamon buns with in last October's Cinnamon... Read more>>>



Food journal number 15: Pizza, continued
07/2/15
Before I forget, here's the second installment for the pizza entry. This time, I will talk about the so-called pizza salad, and our attempts at making homemade pizza... Read more>>>

Watch out for the Asian bus!
07/2/10
'm still not done with the second part of my pizza entry, but I'm calling for an intermission. I just couldn't resist, and I might as well write about this before it becomes old news: Last Thursday, I was at Ivy and... Read more>>>

Food journal number 14: Pizza
07/2/4
I didn't know pizza was such a big thing here in Sweden, but you slowly get to realize it as you walk through the streets and encounter at least one Pizza-Kebab store every 200 meters or so. Sometimes you don't... Read more>>>

Home again
07/1/8
I'm back from Germany with a boxful of chocolate (thanks Liz and Rob!), Christmas gifts from home (thank you lovely folks!), and--unfortunately--a cold. During the past days, my cold has... Read more>>>

Food journal number 13: Glögg and cookies
06/12/20
(part 4 on Christmas food) Funny that I have the most posts this month, all because of the food journal entries. This will probably give me a challenge next December, when I have to find new Christmas food to write about (or new angles... Read more>>>


Food journal number 12: Julbord
06/12/20
Here goes my entry on the julbord, so hang on to your seats! There are two words in English that I can think of right now that has a direct Swedish origin. One is "ombudsman" (representative); the other is "smorgasbord"... Read more>>>

December 13 is Sta. Lucia day
06/12/13
Sweden, though a protestant country, celebrates a feast day of St. Lucy (Sankta Lucia), a Catholic saint. Like most other fiestas I can imagine, this is day is highlighted, (among other things), by eating. In this... Read more>>>

Food journal number 11: Rice porridge
06/12/10
(part 3 on Christmas food) Another Christmas goodie: Christmas porridge (risgrynsgröt)! We have been having it for breakfast food foor a week now, since it's very traditional Christmas food--the kind grandmothers make... Read more>>>

Food journal number 10: Christmas ham
06/12/4
(part 2 on Christmas food) Finally, the stores have stocked up on Christmas ham (Julskinka, which in the Joy pronunciation guide is read “Yule-whinka”)! As soon as we read about it in the grocery’s weekly digest... Read more>>>

Food journal number 9: Venison
06/12/2
How morbid is it to eat reindeer at Christmastime! So, this is not part of my Christmas food feature, but just another foodie blog entry :-) I couldn't find the Gary Larson cartoon where a sinister-looking Rudolph... Read more>>>


Food journal number 8: Kåldolmar
06/11/22
We Filipinos have lumpia (spring rolls), the Swedes have kåldolmar: a ground meat-and-rice mix wrapped in cabbage leaves. I took a picture of it from a cookbook called Annas svensk kök, since the it looked much... Read more>>>

Food journal number 7: Pepparkakor and Julmust
06/11/12
(Part 1 on Christmas food) Yup, Christmas in the air! — In the chilly air, that is. We had a big snow storm last week too, and the sunset is now somewhere past 3pm. With darkest period coming fast (the sun rises at past 7am now)... Read more>>>

Food journal number 6: Kalle's Kaviar
06/10/30
Yes, I love writing about food, especially food that are "new" to me such as (tah-dah!) Kalle's Caviar... Read More>>>

Kanelbullar day
06/10/4
October 4 is Cinnamon bun (Kanelbullar) day. Just came back from a small party where we all just basically took turns making cinnamon buns. Then ate the whole lot afterwards. Many other students in the corridor... Read more>>>

Food journal number 5: Candy
06/10/01
There is candy here in abundance. Gottegrisen, a candy store near our place, boasts a variety of more than 400 candies in their 3-room store. (Their other smaller branch has only 300, shame shame!) There are... Read more>>>


Food journal number 4: Chickpea soup and crayfish
06/9/25
I know, I know, it's about food again! This time the food is really something unique, though, at least for me, since I have never had chickpea soup with mustard or crayfish before... Read more>>>

Food journal number 3: Blood pudding and pytt i panna
06/9/24
Back in Sweden and back to school... The trip back was (happily) uneventful, except for a 30-minute delay in Frankfrut airport due to a very thick fog and low visibility in Stockholm. I actually felt a bit paranoid... Read more>>>

Reminds me of a picnic (backlog, 1 of 2)
06/9/4
Back to the topic, and to updating my backlog (or backblog, hohoho)... I'm planning on a couple of more entries (including this one) before my flight next week; otherwise I'll never get these entries done!... Read more>>>

Food journal number 2: Kladdkaka and Chokladbollar
06/8/29
Hej! I'm still writing this from Quezon City, but in a fit of Sweden-nostalgia, I've decided to update my blog on some of the events that I wasn't able to put up here in the past (which include a picnic... Read more>>>

Food journal number 1: Dairy
06/6/8
As some of you may know (and you have to excuse me for repeating myself, Val, since something interesting is coming up), I've discovered this year that I'm lactose intolerant. I don't mean... Read more>>>