A Few Of My Favorite Things

I’ve been up since too early for consciousness.  I mean, I’ve been awake since about an hour before the sun bothered to peek up over the horizon.  I’ve consideried going back to bed.

Why would anyone in their right mind do this (be up) if they didn’t have to?  Normally, I’d say they’d have to be out of their mind, but as it happens, T has gone to Canada for a seminar and his taxi to the airport was leaving at 6:40am.  So we’ve been up since 5:40am, and I made him coffee and then shared it, and so here I am, waiting for a text message, missing him already, and not asleep.  Normally, however, I would be.  Asleep.  I love sleeping.

And so, with my brain running mostly on neutral (and how well does your brain function this early in the morning?!), I’ve decided to write about things I love.  Other than sleep, that is.  The inspiration for this post came from the blog of the illustrious Sophie, which had a post somewhat like it, which I enjoyed reading.  A lot.  And not just because Sophie is a friend, but because reading the post way back last summer, I realised that it’s a list that is very much worth making for myself.

Why?  Because we all have a busy life.  Really busy.  Even me, studying from home as I do, I don’t actually have that much “free” time.  I have time to do things I want (read, write, study, cook, cuddle T, water my flowers, etc.), but I don’t have time I don’t have anything to do with.  In fact, I’ve always wondered about people who go “I’m bored…” and expect the world at large or their friends to entertain them, but that’s a story for another post entirely.  Back to the list of favorite things – after reading Sophie’s, I came to the conclusion that if one writes one’s favorite things to do, eat, have, look at, etc. down, they are on paper, and then they are much harder to forget about/ignore in the hamsterwheel of day to day life.  And before you protest that you don’t forget about your favorite things – I don’t know about you.  I know that when I think about it, I realise that I do, and if I don’t think about them, I don’t do them – the things that I enjoy.  Which is, let’s face it, pretty silly in a not-good way.

Another thing which I’ve talked to a friend about recently is how a lot of people have one favorite everything – a favorite color, a favorite flavor, a favorite X.  I realised that while I do have preferences, I don’t actually have singular favorites, and so listing the variations became even more of a good idea, in the sense that perhaps I am overlooking something I’d like if I thought about it more.

Also, reading someone else’s list made me think of a handful of things which I hadn’t ever considered, but which really ought to end up on my list.  And so, I am writing it.  In no particular order.

• Coffee.  A lot of it, medium-roast with loads of milk, sweetener, and possibly whipped cream.  Or a good latte made so it’s not bitter.
• Sleeping.  Sleeping well, at night, in a cool but not cold room, in a huge pile of bedding.  Preferably with T to curl up next to.
• Tea.  Green, oolong, black.  No, rooibos (red ‘tea’) is not tea!
• Really good shampoo and conditioner.
• Long black dresses which, when worn, make T stare happily.
• Writing.  Blog, poetry, prose, nonfiction, whatever.
• Reading.  A lot.  I’m a very fast reader, so fat books are a plus.
• Sharp bladed weapons (swords, daggers, that sort).  I guess good kitchen knives go under this category, too.
• Cast iron cookware.  Also doubles as blunt weapons or home bread oven.
• Really good lip balm.  Or just pure shea butter out of a jar directly onto lips.
• Cacti.
• Leaves turning in the autumn.

• Quinces.
• Coconut ice cream and saffron-honey ice cream.  Also, fresh strawberry ice cream.  And … ok, good ice cream in general.
• Bath+unlimited hot water supply.
• Bras in correct size.  Pretty ones.  With matching undies.
• M&S hold-ups with lace tops.  Black.
• Meat.  Preferably beef, preferably not very cooked.  Steak cooked bleu or rare is amazing!
• Cured meats (charcuterie) – French, Italian, Hungarian, Spanish, you name it, I want it.  Let’s not leave out the Germans and the Austrians, either!
• Oil paintings – mostly of pre-1930s.
• Mushrooms.  The sorts you eat, not the sort you get high on.
• Apricots.
• Outdoor swimming pools (with weather/climate to match).
• Candlelight.
• Beautiful ceramic dishes and vases.

• Dragons.
• Arugula (aka rocket or rucola)
• Curling up in a warm pile of blankets on sofa when it’s snowing or raining outside.
• Skinny dipping in natural bodies of water.
• Fancy dress-up events.  Or any rason to wear beautiful clothes.
• Cats.
• Tobias.
• Citrus trees.
• Soup.
• Wide-brim hats.
• Spending time with friends.
• Long dresses in colors other than brown, beige, pink, turquoise or teal.
• Really high heels.
• Fur.

• Old buildings.  Or ruins.
• Men in formal wear.
• Jewellery.
• Food magazines.
• Expensive scented candles.  Good perfume in general.
• Sunlight – at any time of year.
• Very cold prosecco in crystal flutes.
• Waterlilies.
• Restaurants that cook better than I do.
• Milk chocolate.

Meet my ORANGE dress. Also in this photo, an orange soup I met last summer.

• Really bright colors.  Especially purple, crimson red and orange.
• Egyptian cotton sheets.
• Being right.
• Libraries, bookstores, and any place full of books, old or new.
• Roses.  In any color that’s not pink or dyed.  Also to eat.
• White star chrysanthemums.
• Stationery.  Preferably Italian, preferably very pretty.
• Cast iron things other than cookware.
• Shiny, sparkly lip gloss.  I just wish it’d not get all over T’s face when I wear it.  (I swear, teenagers get away with this sort of stuff because they don’t actually smooch anyone a whole lot!)
• Boots No. 7 eye shadow and mascara – they stay where you put them.  Really, I kid you not!
• Cooking for people.
• Lanterns.
• Fresh blue mussels, cooked by me.
• Cashemere scarves.
• Leather gloves.

• Orchids.  Looking at, owning, growing.  Getting to bloom.
• Things made of terracotta.
• Koi ponds.
• The way I feel after a yoga class.
• Seeing new places.
• Canadian maple syrup.

I could go on.  And on.  And perhaps at some point I will, but this has gotten long enough already to make me think of things I should do, should do more, or haven’t done in a while because I’d not thought how much I enjoyed them in ages.  So, I am going to rectify that, starting with making myself some lunch.  Involving arugula.  And some prosciutto crudo as well, why the heck not?  Life’s too short not to do, see, eat and enjoy your favorite things.

The Art of Happiness

The morning dawned a perfect August day – none too hot, but warm, slightly breezy and with bright sunlight under the ridiculously blue Stockholm sky.  And, sitting in the view of an open balcony door with my huge mug of coffee (I ingest the holy-bean beverage in half-liter installments, including loads of full-fat milk), I came to think of how sometimes people do not appreciate moments (or days, or times) of happiness when those happen – and that it is not necessarily due to the lack of such moments.  And I came to think of the fact that many people, despite not starving or being abused, and in generally having a decent life, are not happy – simply because they do not know why.

Beauty in shades of purple

You’d think – “easy for you to say, lazy blogger, I have problems…“, but before you say that, remember that said lazy blogger is also a human being, and, by definition, too, has had problems.  In fact, I’ve had scores of them, some brought on by my own stupidity, and some visited upon me by misfortune and other people – in short, I’ve had a normal life, problem-wise speaking.  I still have problems, too.  What I have also had – and still very much do – is a happy life.  And though, like anyone, I’ve had times when I’ve wanted to whine and been miserable, that makes it no less so.

Though, it has taken some effort, and time.

The quest for happiness, for me, started years ago.  Like any teenager, I was searching for a place in the world, and it was then that, in my incessant reading, I came across the quote “Two men looked through prison bars – one saw mud, the other saw stars.“  I no longer remember where I’d read it, and chances are that it was not even the original author, as a search on the net suggests the author is either unknown or one of a number of 20th century self-help quacks who attribute it to themselves (yeah, right!).

Being teenage and even more impressionable at the time than I am now (hard to imagine I was even more so!), I took the words very much to heart, and have decided that I will not waste my life being unhappy – and to such end, that I will make sure to notice the proverbial stars, and all other beautiful things around me, day in and day out.  And I’d promised myself that I will not stop noticing the beauty of everyday things, no matter how dragged-down by aforementioned problems I’ll become.

... I tend to photograph them, too

It hasn’t always been easy keeping that promise  (I’m human, remember?), but it has certainly been worth it, for in all the places I’ve lived and all the problems I’d gotten into, I refused to stop seeing the sky, the flowers, to stop enjoying the new and interesting food found there, and to reject the good things about the place (however many or few they have been).

This philosophy has also translated into my love of food, which, considering that my teen years ended in the ’90s – heyday of the starving models – was unintentionally rebellious and against the common trend of problem and difficult relationship with food and weight, and the fact that having an eating disorder was in vogue among the trendier of my classmates.

Along with the refusal to hate my body, food, the universe and everything, I also decided that I will not be afraid to pick myself up and move.  Why is this important?  Because moving around, in many ways, has made me who I am today.  Moving between countries since I was quite young, and between houses and apartments before and after that, and then moving to another continent and then countries on my own has taught me that there was actually no reason to have been afraid – and that there is far more happiness to be had from going to where you want to be, than from staying where you do not wish to stay (and complaining about it).

Another large aspect of learning to be happy was, and is, the willingness to embrace what is simple and silly – the colors I love, squeaking and hopping when I am happy (ok, maybe not in formal settings, but any other time), and not being afraid to ask for what I want (if you don’t ask, you don’t get) if I want something.  It may sound silly, or simple – but that is because it is.  It is also rather great to feel happier just because there is something purple, or orange, or red (or whatever colors make you happy) around.  This led to not being afraid of bright colors – in one of my previous apartments, my bedroom walls were painted a medium purple color just because I liked it that way.

Phalaenopsis supermarketensis

I grow orchids.  Not professionally, the way some collectors do, and not any difficult sorts of them – just the regular run-of-the-mill supermarket Phalaenopsis hybrids.  Why?  Because they are large and showy and beautiful, and because seeing them come into bloom in my own home (rather than buying them that way and then disposing of the plants when the flowers have faded) makes me happy.  They aren’t actually difficult to grow – but I think that in a way, they symbolise one of the most important things I’ve learned on the way to being happy: the fact that in order to be happy, one should first learn to not be afraid.

In the case of orchids – one should not be afraid to get one and try to keep it alive.  It’s a learning process, but if you don’t try, you’ll never get there.  And, to reflect on things I’ve mentioned above – one should not be afraid of surrounding oneself with bright colors.  One should not be afraid of moving from where you don’t belong to where you do.  One should not be afraid of food, and of other pleasures in life, or of seeking them out.  And, most importantly, in order to be happy, I think one should learn to not be afraid to seek and keep happiness in whatever form it comes to you.

In parting, I will share a Jewish joke with you:  There was once a good and pious Jew who prayed to God over and over so that he may win the lottery and become rich.  And because he was such a good Jew, one day the clouds parted, God looked down at the Jew, and yelled: “Yes, yes, I will let you win the lottery – but do me a favor, and at least go buy a bloody ticket!“

Those who do not seek, will not find.  And gods help those who help themselves.

Of Food and Hospitality – In Social Context

That thing you do when you invite people over, suggesting there’ll be food?

There is a reason it’s usually referred to as “entertaining”, regardless of whether any other entertainment is provided beyond the conversation expected to develop in-between the happy munching.

I categorically disagree with the approach that entertainment (be it spiritual or intellectual) is more important than food eaten before or during said entertainment.  This is not to say that the food is the more important of the two, but rather that before entertainment can be enjoyed, the food is necessary, else joy of said entertainment is consequently diminished.  The disagreement in this case is not one of principle, but rather one of simple and down-to-earth practicality.  I am a happy and social creature and I love to spend time around other happy and social creatures, preferably in a good mood and with entertaining conversation in the mix.  Where does food and its importance come in?  Well, that is actually really very simple.

Hunger is one of humanity’s basic drives – one like fear, lust, thirst and others which are just as imperative.  By the virtue of being such, and not an emotion, and it is not ignorable even in comparison to those – at least not if one wants to remain in a happy and pleasantly relaxed state of mind, which is the one that is desired in one’s guests in the context of entertaining.

I by no means insist that any gathering requires a gourmet four-course-plus dinner to be good.  Not at all.  But I do believe wholeheartedly that if your guests spend hours hungry, it is not going to turn out to be a pleasant evening no matter how good the planned activities were.  If the guests (or yourself) end up hungry, they simply won’t care about much other than where and how to find some food – and none of the intellectual and stimulating conversation is likely to develop or proceed over any significant amount of time.

Expectations vary, and such invitations usually carry with them some indication how much food there is to be expected for a reason – “coffee/tea and dessert”, “party food” or “dinner” or some other hint to the attendees whether they should arrive after having eaten a large meal, or whether they should come in anticipation of eating five courses.

What happens when food is not considered important?  Well, you invite several people over on a winter’s evening to play games, have a party, or just talk.  People arrive – cold, having travelled some distance or other, and likely hungry, or getting that way, and reasonably expecting there to be hot drinks, and at the minimum some snacks.  It is reasonable – and if there is nothing to eat, then people end up sitting quietly unsatisfied, or, even worse, wandering off to elsewhere than your gathering, in search of something to satisfy the hunger.  What is worse, is not just that some people would come over and then leave – no, the damage is worse than that, because quite unintentionally, those people are also not going to come back to your place.  That is not because they do not like you at all – but because invitation to your place will become subconsciously associated with being hungry, and people will avoid something which may cause them to spend the evening hungry.  And because it is not conscious, they won’t rather pack a sandwich and come visit anyway, but find other things to do, or just not feel like going, without quite knowing why.

In fact, when you think of it, people go out and meet friends to socialize, and pay rather exorbitant amounts of money (comparable to cost of ingredients) at restaurants to be fed good food.  Why?  Because it puts them in a happy frame of mind, because very simply and unambiguously, people love eating good food, and they associate the feeling of being well-fed with most of the memories of worthwhile pastimes – and respectively, of the times when they spent the evening hungry, they will hardly remember the entertainment, as it will be overshadowed by the memory of having been hungry.  In this sense, hunger works as any other unpleasant and pervasive condition – being cold, having sore feet, etc.  No matter how lovely everything else was, the primal discomfort memories tend to dominate the memories of the day or evening as a whole.

With the above in mind, I am sure you can agree that starving one’s guests – by intent or accident, is to be avoided, unless you do not want them to be your guests in the future any longer.  And besides, it is both, satisfying to you and the guests, to be able to offer them something delicious to snack on while sitting and discussing literature, philosophy, art, or the universe and everything.

All Measures Are Approximate (All Butter Is Real)

Butter. With a side of red-hot chili flakes

If you are reading this blog in a tense diet-rules-ridden worry about healthy eating and weight loss (I am all for the former for all – and for the latter, for the people who need it only), I have one word for you: relax.  There is nothing more likely to cause you stomach ulcers than stress – and getting those stressing over food issues is just sad – not to mention totally unnecessary.

To borrow a derogatory term from one of the cookbooks from my collection, I can’t stand diet dictocrats.  Not only have they done little other than help plunge the Western civilization into the depths of an obesity and diabetes II epidemic (do the words “metabolic syndrome” mean anything to  you?), but to add insult to (the very real) injury, they have systematically tried (and in the cases of too many people, managed) to take away the joy and love of good – and healthy! – food.

Regrettably, I do not exaggerate – neither the size of the problem (individually or population-statistic wise), nor the amount of food-related neuroses I have encountered.  Oh the sad people at the supermarket, staring wistfully at the butter display and then picking up a tub of light margarine, if you only knew how much better for you that coveted block of butter is than the over-processed box of “healthy” junk you hold in your hand!

So, in the spirit of revolution against the above (and because it fits with what I like, know and believe), the recipes in this blog are written with as relaxed and anti-dictocratic and politically incorrect attitude as possible.  After all, who am I to tell you how much parsley you want in your pasta (or how much pasta you want in your fresh-ground black pepper for that matter), and in what proportion you like your bacon to your beef.  It would be both rude and presumptuous for me to try to tell you how you should like your food and what constitutes the perfect this, that or the other – and I do not hold cookbooks or cooking shows by celebrity chefs that exhort you to do things “just so, else it is a waste of whatever and time” in any sort of good regard.

Therefore, from the very start – and until further notice (nor foreseen anytime at all) – all measures in recipes are given approximately.  They are a guideline and a suggestion of good consistency and usually above-average (for a Northern European taste) amount of seasoning (the way I like it), but when following any recipe, I would strongly urge you to modify it to your own taste and preference – since it is far more likely that you will be the one eating it, or maybe your friends, rather than I.  Food, like sex, is neither a competitive, nor a spectator sport.  Or, I don’t think it should be.

In line with my education in food and biochemistry, and my hate towards political correctness – especially in food and other items of personal preference – I refuse to use butter-, milk- and meat-substitutes, regardless of whatever “ethical” and health claims (both usually unfounded beyond superficial advertisement hype) they make.  Quite aside from the fact that they all taste like… well, not like what they claim, but rather much like shit – thus violating not just the “good for you” but also the “good to eat” rules of my food philosophy.  I like my food unfucked-with and natural, and thus tasting of actual food, thank you very much.  And while on the subject of ethics, I would rather finance small dairy farmers than large vegetable-oil processing plants with my butter habit.  Loved-and-cared-for Daisy the cow tends to give far better butter than vegetable oil-and-water-plus-emulsifiers goo that comes out the pipe at said industrial facility.  I won’t even speak of meat and milk substitutes in any detail to avoid ruining your appetite for a week.

And thus the butter is real, and usually (for cooking with) unsalted.  I will use good quality gourmet salted butters for eating, especially when prepared with sea salt and the like.  Likewise, meat is preferably fresh, bloody, non-Kosher, and whenever possible, free-range and bought from someone who raises it and sells to small butcheries.  Or at least from a good butcher shop or counter – easier in Sweden than most places, with its good livestock welfare standards.

I refuse to feel guilty about eating things which were produced without inflicting undue cruelty on animals, and I refuse to make quality compromises regarding what I eat – we are what we eat (and look like it).  So please do read, try, change, cook, eat and most importantly, relax and enjoy it.  Else what’s the point, really?

The Expanding Apartment And Filmjölk Scones (in bed)

Three weeks after I have moved to Stockholm, and about two weeks since my luggage has arrived here.  The apartment, to my discontent, is not yet entirely in order, as about four out of twelve boxes are still packed and not all things are put in places.  The reason for such lack of speed is simple – the move and being ill while moving and packing, and then subsequent change of climate and stress has landed me with a nasty case of bronchitis, which is now blissfully and finally gone – thank the little green apples, Niklas and a 4L capacity humidifier (you wouldn’t believe how dry the air can get indoors at -12°C outdoor temperature and 3rd floor elevation)!

As I am slowly unpacking (which has been resumed now that I am no longer so ill) and trying to organize two sets of, for lack of a better term, things into a space of one apartment, Tobias has noticed that, to use his expression, the apartment is expanding.  Suddenly there are rooms in it that he had not realised were living space before – namely, bedroom and kitchen.  Why?  Well, for a guy living alone, kitchen is not any sort of living space (unless he is a cooking aficionado, which Tobias, for all his varied accomplishments, isn’t – though he certainly is a happy eater!), and bedroom is a place where one goes to sleep, rather than spends any time in – or, agian, at least this bedroom was.

But, since I am very much a happy amateur chef, and also a rather committed bed-dweller (I write, read, and generally like to spend a lot of time in bed, which certainly beats many other places for comfort), to me those spaces very much are living space.  I love hanging around the kitchen with a book (cookbook or otherwise), and reading while something delicious is coming to edible readiness.  I love the warmth and smell of spices, and the bright halogen spotlights (I had those in my previous kitchen as well).  In fact, just because I have the spare time, and love being in the kitchen, I have taken up baking more.  That, and the no-risk-of-weight-gain Scandinavian boyfriend is a convenient person to feed whatever I come up with (which may or may not be potentially ruinous to my figure, but certainly isn’t for his).

One such thing happens to be fresh, buttered sourmilk scones (preferably with black currant preserves, mmm!) – fluffy, light and wonderful to eat, but oh-so-likely to stick to my behind in the form of said behind!  Eminently wonderful to feed a scone-loving man, however!  This particular recipe does not use eggs to bind the dough (unlike most American scone recipes), which is great for me, since T is allergic to eggs – nor is this in any way a compromise on quality: sourmilk (filmjölk) gives the scones an amazing light and airy fluffy texture and they rise as well as any I’ve made with egg binding!

Ingredients:

• Approximately 4-5dl plain white wheat flour
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 – 2.5 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 (not heaped) tablespoon sugar (white or demerara)
• 50g sweet (unsalted) butter cut into 1-2cm cubes
• 2dl sourmilk (filmjölk) or buttermilk mixed with a bit of cream
• Optional additions:  1dl raisins and/or zest of 1 orange (I prefer both together!), a good sprinkle of ground cinnamon into the flour.

Instructions:

• Preheat oven to 210°C.
• Mix all the dry ingredients together (except raisins but including orange zest if using).
• Drop cut up butter into the flour mix and rub in with fingers untill coarsely crumbed.  Do not overwork.
• Add raisins (or chopped dried fruit of your choice) if using.
• Make a well in the middle of the mix and pour in most of the filmjölk (sourmilk).
• Mix with a wooden spoon gently, then mix gently by hand, until combined.
• Add remaining sourmilk as needed to create a soft and slightly sticky dough which picks up all the dry bits from bottom of bowl.  If dough is too sticky or wet (clings to hands excessively), add a very light sprinkle of flour.
• Knead very gently and quickly, and form into a ball.
• Place the dough ball on a saucer and put in the refrigerator for 3-5 minutes.
• Lightly flour a baking sheet or use a sheet of baking parchment (no flouring needed if using this).
• Take dough out of refrigerator (it will have expanded very slightly), place on a lightly floured surface and flatten with palms of hands into a disc about 2.5-3cm thick.
• With a large chef’s knife, cut the disc into halves, then into quarters and then each halfway into 1/8ths.
• Place dough wedges on the baking sheet/parchment and bake for about 15 minutes or until risen and lightly golden brown on top (I recommend watching the scones after 10 minutes have passed and checking frequently – ovens vary, so will the baking time.)

Serve warm.  I like mine with a bit of salted butter and fruit preserves.  Or fresh and sharply tangy labneh (homemade yogurt cheese – will post recipe for that later on).

Preferably eaten in bed.

Mmmm!Eat! (Confessions of a happy carnivore.)

I make no secret of being a carnivore.

I am, and have been for as long as I can recall, carnivorous – happily, and without qualms or ethical dilemmas.  I believe that humans are omnivores who are meant to have a good amount of meat in their diet.  If pressed about it, I’d rather give up chocolate than meat.  I also know that at least for my own self with my low blood pressure, tendency towards iron deficiency, and sugar sensitivity, meat is one of the optimal things to eat (alongside a large pile of good greens and vegetables of course).  Meat has iron, it has good quality protein, and it is satiating and above all, to me – meat is absolutely and undeniably wonderful to eat.

Some people have taken upon themselves to explain to me at some length that meat is parts of dead animals, and as such a horrible thing.  I disagree.  Animals eat other animals.  I am an animal.  I have the right to eat animals, so long as I do so with a reasonably good approach in terms of farming and environment (I do prefer ekologisk/free range meat and the like and buy it when possible).  I give respect to the farmers, and more importantly, to the animals that die so that I may eat them and feel healthy and well.

I eat meat a couple of times a week.  Note, that does not mean I eat meat as such daily, several times a day.  No, my love of meat is such that I prefer to buy a really good piece of meat every other day and enjoy it, rather than compromise quality for the (rather questionable, in case of food, as it is in case of many other things) sake of quantity.  (Besides, there have got to be days to eat things that swim in the sea, or birds too!)  In case of meat (and seafood and birds, actually), quantity over quality also means compromising on how well raised and treated the animals were, so there’s a double bonus.

I love meat in all of its culinary permutations, with the possible exception of boiled-till-it’s-overcooked one, which I reject as a culinary approach, and recognize only as a way to ruin perfectly good meat.   Which, incidentally, brings me to the medium-rare slab of cow pictured above.  The picture was taken after more than two-thirds of said tenderloin joint were already consumed, as my guests and I were too busy masticating the food to photograph it before that, but should you wish to replicate it for your own munching pleasure, here’s the (very simple!) recipe.

Ingredients:

• Beef tenderloin joint (in this case, about 1.2kg)
• Salt
• Pepper
• Streaky bacon (or whatever bacon your heart desires, so long as it has enough fat to baste the meat – salt-cured pork fat sliced thinly will do just as well!)
• Small amount of oil (your pick, I use rapeseed or peanut because they are rich in monounsaturated fatty acids)
• Aluminium foil
• A heavy cast iron or cast aluminium oven-safe pan large enough to fit the meat with a good margin

Instructions:

• Preheat oven to about 170°C
• Rub about a tablespoon of oil all over the joint
• Season with salt and pepper to taste
• Preheat your pan on stovetop with a small amount of oil in it to a medium-high heat
• Sear your joint in the oil on all sides and turn the heat off
• Drape your bacon or pork fat over the meat in whatever pattern (or lack of) you like
• Place pan into the oven for 30 minutes for rare or more as you like – use a meat thermometer if unsure (you can also turn grill on for the last 10 minutes of cooking to crisp up the bacon if it is being slow)
• Take out and tent in aluminium foil.  Let rest 10-15 minutes for juice to redistribute.
• Carve.  Gorge yourself.

You can also remove the meat from pan and tent it on a board, while deglazing the pan with some red wine, or go further and cook some chopped garlic, thyme and/or shallots in the pan juices and then deglaze with the wine to make sauce. To be honest, we were too intent on the bloody piece of meat on our stovetop that we hadn’t bothered with sauce, and just ate it with butter and lemon wedges.

Mmmmm! Eat!

Snow

I have arrived in Stockholm two days ago to be greeted by metres-high snow piles on street corners, a blanket of sparkling white everywhere, and twinkling snowflakes falling slowly onto my hat (and nose) through the dark air.

Somehow, while in England the snow felt like a disaster and bad weather, here it feels different – appropriate and right: this is what winter looks like.  The temperature is not at all arctic at the moment – it hangs a bit below to a bit above zero, but not enough for the snow to melt, and the cloud cover has just shifted, letting sunlight in.

Yesterday’s blizzard has persuaded us to stay indoors and write and read to candlelight, curled up around a succession of pots of tea – from Tie Guan Yin to black rose-petal flavoured Persian.  We ended up eating whatever we managed to drag in on Wednesday after our flight (whole-wheat spaghetti with bacon, fresh arugula, sliced and seared garlic, and a hard Swedish cheese as it happened).  But, now that the sun is making the world almost painfully white, I think it is time to pull my ankle-length coat with its huge fur collar out of the closet and remind it that real winter does come sometimes (at least to these shores!).

We are on our way out to find some small (and large) edibles.  The hitherto empty pantry must be stocked!

Of Travelling Light

When thinking to go far, travel light.

The above words have proven to me to be sound advice both spiritually, and in terms of packing boxes.  One learns much of oneself when the time comes to decide what to take to keep, and what to leave behind.

As I am packing my current household up in preparation for my soon-upcoming move back to Sweden, I end up sorting my kitchenware. One of the reasons for that is that while I have lived in places with electric-plate, gas or glass-ceramic stovetops, my boyfriend’s flat has an induction stove, and thus a lot of my much-loved hard-anodized aluminium professional cookware won’t work on it. Another reason is that everyone accumulates a lot of unnecessary things while they live anywhere – and while those things are ok to drag around when you aren’t actually going very far, they are cheaper and easier to give or throw away than to ship any significant distance.

The initial conclusion that I make from surveying my little kitchen kingdom is that there are only a number of things there which are important and valuable enough to bother taking along:  the beautiful though eclectic knife collection (I am not a fan of buying “a set”, I’d rather pick and choose the ones that strike my fancy), my crystal champagne flutes and hand-blown wine glasses, huge fire-engine red cast iron casserole large enough to feed ten to bursting, hand-painted Japanese bowls and rectangular sushi plates, two tea and one coffee sets, a few plates and an army of imposing face-immersing-sized coffee mugs (given to me by a friend from work a few months ago – her comment was that I’m the only one she knows who needs mugs of coffee that large).  My much-adored blue-glazed Alsacian terracotta pot.  My grill pan and two frying pans.  A couple of soup pots that would work with induction stove.  The tall postmodern crystal vase with etched dots that goes with any decor.  Two steel mixing bowls and two smaller glass ones.  Perhaps also my collection of glass storage jars and my four place-settings of nice cutlery, but that is about it.

Then there are the few aforementioned and much-loved cookpots which I am going to give away to a good home of my friend Sophie as they are not induction-friendly.

The rest of the things in my kitchen are transient – there are plastic boxes, rolls of greaseproof paper, and less-pretty or chipped plates, and somewhat aged cooking utensils.  Things which are familiar and useful, but simply not important enough to bother dragging with me.  In essense, what I plan to take along no longer looms as a “kitchen full” of things, but rather it will fill a couple of shipping boxes, perhaps as much as three, but probably not even four.

What does that tell me about myself and my life (and kitchen)?  I suppose, surveying it all makes me feel content.  In all my travels around the world, if I have learned one thing, it is that it is far better to have only a few amazing things (cookpots, friends, champagne flutes, shoes, clothes) than many worthless ones.  That way, should I decide to walk the world again, I can take these along with me, and they are a joy, not a burden.  (The only exception to the rule is books, but one can never have too many books.  Ever.  So the practical solution there is to store them someplace while wandering, and just retrieve them when deciding to settle, which is what I am doing.)

And, I am content with my life from a spiritual standpoint.  It is important to me that my opinions and principles are compact and have no “gaps” between them, so that if and when I argue about an issue, I can feel on solid footing in what I say – conversely, I prefer to not argue if I do not feel on solid ground about a given topic, rather than argue badly.  So the sorting of cookware and the packing of it mirrors my mind – “...this is why I value this item.  I will polish, cherish and take it with me.  This one used to be useful, but no longer applies to my circumstances – give it away, be it good advice or a lifetime-warrantied stewpot.  Let someone else benefit.  This other one I can live without – and is to be discarded and not wasted time or effort on.”

It does make for a smaller international-luggage shipment – and a clearer mental landscape for me to live with.

The Grapes of Trust

There is a fruit and vegetable stall that is erected daily at Williamson Square in Liverpool City Centre around 8 in the morning. It’s just about put up when I walk by it on the way to work, and likely operating throughout the day, but by the time I walk home after 17:30, it is already gone.  I tend to buy apples there during the colder part of the year, and stone fruit (peaches, apricots, nectarines) during the summer, to eat at work.  The guys keeping the stall know me by now, and have, in fact, let me have fruit in the past without paying immediately when they had no change for my freshly-disgorged by the ATM £10 bill - “just bring it tomorrow or whenever“, they’d say (and I obviously would).

The amount they trust me to pay them back is inconsequential – it is usually less than £1, but it is not the amount that matters, but the fact that I, the person, would be happier with my lunch than without it, or having to go to the supermarket (which would have change… and also wouldn’t care, nor ever let me have a couple of apples on trust).

Today, during my usual trek workwards through the city centre in the chill haze of a mid-October morning, I stopped to buy apples as per usual, and while the stall attendant was wrapping them up for me, I admired the huge translucently yellow-green pile of grapes, large and with wax-dusted skins making them look matte, and beautiful and utterly delicious.  I commented that the grapes are gorgeous, and that it’s a shame that they’re not too practical to buy for work, upon hearing which the attendant picked up and wrapped a small bunch for me, saying that I should take them even if they aren’t practical.

It was a small gesture, and in the overall monetary scheme of things, probably is not a huge cost to the stall, but it made me smile all the way to work – not the fact that I had a small bag of grapes that I could have easily paid for, but that someone bothered to give me something for nothing (it’s not like I’d have taken my patronage away had they not offered me free grapes!), just because it’s nice to do that for people sometimes.

The existence of the fruit stall, and what it stands for in terms of personal contact that is all too rare in the world of supermarkets and chain stores of all kinds – the occurrence of episodes like the one this morning at all, makes me feel a little better than my usual (rather misantropic) view of humanity at large.  The Taoists teach, “trust, and you become trustworthy“.  It is a semi-inversion of that truism, that by being trusted, I become trustworthy to these people – after all, I wouldn’t consider not paying them the 60p back for the occasional apple.  Why?  Most immediate answer would be, because they trusted me to do so – the first time, when they knew me far less than even the “unnamed girl who walks by here on the way to work for the past year and a bit” that they know now.

If and when people do such things that bring them no added profit, and no publicity either (I very much doubt that the guy had it in mind that I’d write a blog entry about him when he did it, nor do I even know any of their names), simply because they are nice things to do, I feel hopeful that perhaps there is some good in people that is not motivated by personal gain.  And it makes me think that perhaps I, too, should sometimes be more considerate and kind (until the next person disappoints me again, anyway).

A Weekend Without Plans

I have no plans made at all for the coming weekend.

There are several reasons for that, despite my general hyperactive bouncing modus operandi that usually causes me to have too many rather than none – not the least of which being that it is Friday and I am exhausted after the sort of week I’ve had, the Boyfriend™ is out at a conference as of this morning and till Sunday afternoon, and I miss him.  The weather is promised to be good, and I have no pressing errands to run.

Which means that I will spend the weekend mostly sleeping, reading and writing (may actually finally finish the post about heat transfer surfaces I’ve struggled with for a week!), and cooking cold-weather comfort food.  Not sure what yet, but probably a hearty soup or stew.  I am a firm believer in relaxing when you need not be focused, and in treating yourself when you have been good or when life and its contents have been acting uncooperatively in some manner.  Not sure that spending some hours puttering around the kitchen and watching a pot of something simmer is everyone’s idea of R&R, but on some days, it definitely is mine.

I would like to, at some point this weekend, take a notebook and go enjoy a hot drink at Brew, my favourite city-centre cafe.   For all I often say that United Kingdom is not my favourite country to live in, living in Liverpool has been rather good for me, and there are many places I will miss when I pick myself up to move, and Brew will be one of those.

In any case, what matters, egocentrically, to me is that the weekends exist (other than keeping us alive and sane!) for us to be able to enjoy them, and fall is possibly my favourite season.  Among other things, it is conducive to quiet days and writing, and wandering around town, and wearing beautiful clothes which were too warm to wear all summer.  They are simple pleasures, but those are often also the best.  I hope the forecast for sunny and chill autumn weather turns out to be true.