semiswede

I can’t remember how I first heard about havtorn (sea buckthorn), but it was definitely within the last year because I couldn’t wait for September to arrive so I could find some. Everything I read said they were extremely laborious to pick but for an admitted berry-picking addict I thought it couldn’t be that bad. I was […]

What do you do when you have picked 30 pounds (13.5kg) of plums at your friend’s place? You leave 15 pounds for her to deal with and take the rest home to begin on chutney, jam, cakes, jam, liqueur, jam, and then you consider force feeding the rest to your family. Anything to use them up fast.

I have been coveting this book for a year and for some reason never got around to buying it until now. I recently purchased two copies, one for my own children and one as a gift.

For anyone following this blog, you are well aware that this summer in Sweden has been cold, wet, and well, pretty depressing. But a couple of weeks ago there was a beautiful, sunny day that even fit into the category of being hot. And fortunately for us it happened to be the day that we […]

It’s kräftskiva (crawfish time) in Sweden and after celebrating at home with our family I couldn’t bring myself to toss out the shells. There is such a minimal amount of meat in those little crawfish bodies and such a vast amount of flavor in the shells that it seems a waste to just bin them.

In case you haven’t heard, crawfish are a big deal in Sweden, but only in August. There is a long-standing tradition of cracking open these bright red crustaceans at parties where paper crawfish decorations, goofy party hats, and smiling moons decorate festive outdoor parties. Masses of crawfish and aquavit (snaps) are consumed between the first Wednesday in August and the […]

We had only lived in Malmö a few days when my sister-in-law Margareta stopped by for a visit and brought Mina Första 1000 Ord by Jan Lewis. It was a gift to my then one year old daughter, Elsa, and was also intended to help me with my Swedish. The book was an instant hit with […]

One of my favorite things to order when we go out for ice cream is cassis sorbet. In my efforts to avoid freezing the rest of the black currants I picked at my in-law’s I decided to try making it myself. Well, I guess I technically still froze them, but you get the idea. 

This is still a favorite recipe from my childhood and now my kids can’t get enough of them. The recipe came from my Swedish grandmother but unfortunately I can no longer ask her the true source. The pancakes I have tried in Sweden are not quite the same since this version seems to have a higher […]

I had a bit of a hard time coming up with a title for this post because Swedish saft isn’t exactly a syrup, or a drink, or just juice. It is fruit and/or berry juice boiled with sugar to create a concentrate that becomes drinkable when water is added. In British English it is squash or […]