semiswede

Typically cookbook reviews are of the latest editions, but this recommendation is for a cookbook that has been around for nearly twenty-five years. I purchased my copy of  The Timberline Lodge Cookbook when we stayed at Timberline Lodge  in July of 2000 just after we got married. We were driving from Utah back to Oregon and decided to stop […]

I’m admittedly not much of a baker. For starters, I don’t like to touch flour. It’s a relief to me that white boards have replaced chalk boards in the world because flour gives me the same chills as chalk. I love watching gymnastics when the Olympics roll around, but every time the athletes go for that […]

Before discovering the elderflower syrup in the food section at IKEA, I had no idea that elderflowers could be used for anything other than producing elderberries. The first time I mixed up a glass of elderflower juice I fell in love with it straight away. The intoxicating floral aroma is sweet and subtle with a hint […]

We had such a long, cold, rainy stretch of spring and then last week it turned to summer overnight. I am still a bit in shock with the sudden change, but now June Is Bustin’ Out All Over and I am nearly dancing on the rooftops like the folks in Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Carousel “because […]

New potatoes are not unique to Sweden, but their appearance around the third week of May is a sign that summer is around the corner. For a country where winter can be as long as seven months at the northern point, anything that heralds summer is a pretty big deal.

With two small kids and an hour drive to my in-laws, I am incredibly appreciative of kid’s music that doesn’t push me to the brink of temporary insanity. After listening to it hundreds of times, Barnkammarboken, Den Silvriga (Nursery book, Silver) is still a CD I enjoy.

I can’t say with certainty whether eating jam and cheese with bread is typically European, but I know I didn’t grow up with this combination in the United States. Most of my European friends (my husband included) have cringed at the idea of peanut butter and jelly, and I in turn, cringed at their idea […]

Fish huts & warm-smoked salmon with caviar sauce One of the first places I visited after moving to Malmö was the fiskehoddarna (fish huts) next to the Tekniska Museet and Sjöfartsmuseet (Technical Museum and Seafaring Museum). They are a charming row of historic fishing huts that were moved to this location in 1956 when the once […]