semiswede

I confessed my berry picking addiction and love for strawberries in my last post on Swedish strawberry culture. My favorite way to enjoy fresh strawberries is with cream and a little bit of sugar. But my talented sister-in-law Margareta came up with this simple and refreshing recipe that highlights the flavors of fresh strawberries. She gave […]

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.

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 […]