Afternoon tea

We're still open for Afternoon tea on Sundays - and above is just a teaser of our new version of the classics! Book up now - you know you want to!

I'd move in

Save the best for last, eh?

See something you like?

Someone's birthday

....guess who!

Igi turned 20-something today (he says he can't even spell O-L-D) so we of course celebrated in style with a jam packed restaurant. So jam packed that yours truly was brought out of Friday-night service-retirement. (I found it to be just as awesome as I remembered. I might make it a standing appointment now that my dissertation is looming... they say hobbies are a good thing!)

Anyway. I want to issue a word of warning about internet booking services. Not all of them are kosher. Please make it a habit to call us and confirm your reservation - it's as awful for us as it is for you to have to turn people who have "booked" away.

Yule tide - of horrible alcoholic drinks

I'm not the biggest fan of glögg or Glühwein. It's a bit too sweet for my taste, but I do love the smell of it. All those pungent spices put me in a very nostalgic Christmassy place, but drinking half a pound of sugar is just not my cup of hot beverage. So imagine my happiness at finding something which will finally feed my spice-and-alcohol fix. The spirit of Hven winter schnapps! It's nothing like you're traditional Swedish snaps (don't go there) - and is best drunk in the same way you'd drink a fine brandy or cognac. No shot glasses, please. You get a Christmas high just off the smell, so let it breathe.

Who said we're not traditional?

(We're not - we have chef-architects. But we love Christmas spirit!)

You know what they say: when you've had too much of a good thing... have some more.

(I happen to adore Gawker and their take on food and wine writing. Just check out their take on orange pie)

Heston Blumenthal unveils new use for a tampon

... and all I have to say is that there are lines that just should not be crossed.

Why most wine writing is useless

Do you know the feeling of annoyance when you open a newspaper or a magazine and come across a nice article with vaguely useless information? I hadn't really given much thought to why most wine writing (the most common being specific recommendations or pairing suggestions) irritates me. I guess I'd found it to not be an uncommon feeling among my colleagues, so I left it at that. But then I stumbled upon this article by Tim Atkin - and boy did the proverbial coin drop.
I get annoyed because I find mot of the tips to be useless in the sense that they are 1) misdirected and 2) unhelpful. If, as Tim points out, you think about the target audience - people who do not buy wine like they buy toilet paper (e.g treat it like a staple commodity) - why do we write specific recommendations based upon the latest releases of a quality-impervious monopoly? Forgive me if I labor the subject, but the "news" from Systembolaget has virtually nothing to do with what's in season, what's good or what's new. And secondly, specific recommendations of bottles (such as vintage and cuvée) - particularly when it comes to pairings with food - are about as useful as recommending a home cook to source a certain batch of apples from Kivik to make apple sauce. Very nerdy, yes - but not necessarily helpful. I might be chucking stones in glass houses here, but the more I think about it, the more I'd like to see vague-ish recommendations of certain types of wine to go with certain flavors. It's not as if a recipe for a particular dish turns out the same at the hands of different cooks, so why not offer a more fluid (if you'll excuse the pun) wine pairing?

It's just icing on the cake (for me) if we as consumers rather than blindly running to Systembolaget to buy the latest list of recommended bottles from dn.se wander in and ask for a young Albariño. It might force them to take notice of what their products taste like.

Super tasters, the home-test kit

Have you ever wondered if you're a super taster? That is, one of the few blessed with a high number of taste buds, able to, in a blind tasting, tell the difference between a blood orange and the regular variety?
All you need is a piece of paper, blue food dye, a magnifying glass and a mirror. Or, if you hate having to squint, drop the mirror and add a friend who doesn't mind a close-up of your tongue.

The "rear view", and the things you miss

After all - it sounds like the girl can cook!

the 10 cooking commandments

Have you had a look at the crowd-sourced 10 cooking commandments? I've compiled a list of the ones I like best.

However, I think the best piece of advice I found was this: never fry bacon naked. Hear Hear!

We get our secrets stolen

Gastronomic espionage

Croatia, said Robert Parker

I remember reading a review on some Croatian wines a long time ago. The review quoted Robert Parker as saying that Croatia was the next up-and-coming wine nation. Being about 20 years old and and prone to sweeping generalizations I think I shut my eyes for a few seconds, chuckled, and shook my head. You know, the way you've seen people in movies do when they've come across something a bit outrageous and so clearly misguided that it's not even worth the effort to write someone an angry e-mail. 

To be fair, I'd done some traveling in the region, and my general experience of former Soviet-bloc countries was that while a bottle of wine could be good, quality control was lacking to the point that you could go back for a second bottle and end up with a completely different wine.
Nevertheless, I was wrong and Robert Parker was right (clap your hands if you're surprised and also happen to believe in fairies). Croatia is amazing, not only wine-wise but food-wise. Croatian truffles? Sure thing! And they're bloody good to boot!

So. We've got ourselves a Croatian menu on the 15 and 16th of november - with Croatian wines, Istrian white truffles and cheese from Pag. We've even got a Croatian guest Chef! So give us a call and book your table now!!

The third degree, by AA Gill.

(Yes, bad grammar comes from multitasking, specifically tweeting during physiotherapy)

A closer look at your favourite outlandish ice cream

Bacon-Caramel, Chickenliver-Cherry, Bloodpudding-Chocolate

How you know your job is your calling

Victoria and I ran the usual Sunday Afternoon tea today. By the time we'd cleaned up, locked down, and shut the door we were in total agreement: today was awesome. This business gives one of the best natural highs in the world: an upbeat busy service with happy customers and good stress (yes, there is such a thing). It's the kind of high that just slightly elevates your adrenaline and endorphine levels, just enough to keep you on your toes.
The problem with this business is that we can only rest on that feeling of having accomplished something fabulous until tomorrow. Because that's when the restaurant opens again with new set of customers and you have to do it all over again.
It's hard work, with long hours. We work incessantly to try to make sure that the end of every service leaves us (and our customers) with that happy feeling. But I guess that's how you know you've found your calling: when come what may, you get out of bed and do another shift. Because you're just addicted to that feeling of having nailed it.

Challenge: anything-goes ice cream

You may have missed that Titti makes the possibly most outlandish ice creams in the world. And that they're available at Kött och Viltspecialisten. Sydsvenskan wrote a nice spread about it yesterday. Read it here.

(Image from Bustamante promotions)

Afternoon tea back on Sundays!

Open 12-16, Vic and I run the smooth Sunday service. Call us and book a table, you know you want to!

Don't feel like cooking dinner on Fridays?

Don't feel like cooking dinner on Fridays? These are Kim's extra special chicken pot pies. Just pop round to the Shack on Friday afternoons and pick up a couple of these wicked pies. Starting next Friday!

The things you wish you'd never read on the internet

 That's what you get for trying to be an "informed consumer". You become an over-informed, paranoid, vegan scientist refusing to eat or drink anything that hasn't been produced under sterile conditions. The very Swedish adage that "a bit of shit only cleanses the stomach" doesn't work on a half-breed like me.

Wine: dogging it

I recently had a long discussion with a well-to-do gentleman about white wine. He maintained throughout the conversation that red wine was the state of the art, so to speak, and that white wine is what Kopparbergs is to Cidre de Normandie. I maintained throughout the conversation that the only thing red wine does better than white is stain your clothes. Anyway, he wanted to know about full, buttery whites - I suggested something Alsatian. He looked very confused for a couple of minutes while I rambled on about chardonnay, riesling and gewurztraminer - until I said something along the lines of that you can never go wrong with a French bottle. He was all full of relief. "I was worried that there was some dog reference in there that I was not getting. I was like "what does a German sheep dog have to do with this?", but now I get it. Alsatian as in Alsace. Thank god." Yes, thank god for that.

Bloom in the Park at Malmöfestivalen

The concept of feminism, misguided

Every time a journalist speaks to Titti or myself, we inevitably get the question "as a young woman, what's it like to be in the restaurant business?". Most of the time, it's a man asking the question. And the answer to the question, with the same inevitability, is that as women, we find it to be no different than any other business were we would meet other people, sell things, produce things, trade things, or offer services. Only on very isolated occasions do our ovaries object to certain chores, such as doing the dishes.

I jest, of course. But that's as far as feminism has got us: into the business, but still novelty enough to be considered aberrant and worthy of dumb-ass questions about our gender in relation to our knife-skills. In the words of the last perfect man: D'oh.

Anyway. We get ourselves some pretty dumb-ass emails about the fact that I'm on the website in my bikini. Let's really analyze the anxiety that drives people to write to us about this. Firstly, although one may disagree with the value of it, the website has an obvious artistic intent. It's satirical, and although many would take that for obvious with Miss P. Hilton's face saxed onto my body (thanks Chris for that, by the way...), that particular message is lost on the denser populus of the cybersphere. And let's face it, once that feeling of being insulted by our highly outlandish character, it just keeps coming. Titti as Jesus in "The last supper". A woman!! Surrounded by men!! With possible religious undertones!! A woman in a bikini, with Paris Hilton's face photoshopped in!! Surrounded by other bodies with the faces of celebrities cut in!! All highly offensive scenarios. Oh the lack of FEMINISM at Bloom in the Park, the scandal of "forcing" the female staff to pose in photos! All for the eyes of men, teh horror!! For God's sake people - it's a JOKE!

What I want to say to those of you who feel the need to write to us about feminism and our apparent lack of awareness of women's rights: get with it. I guess it may be too much to ask for you all to get a sense of humor, but failing that I ask you to get educated. If the worst thing you've seen on the internet is me in a bikini then I feel quite sorry for you. Not even Facebook, the dragon with the moral code of a medieval monk, has judged the picture offensive. Titti and I are both highly educated, skilled and professional young women and NO, we are not as self-obsessed to put up with the regular rockstar, masculine-feet-spread-wide-arms-crossed-shot-from-a-low-angle photos that restaurants usually stick to. We don't take ourselves that seriously, we have fun at work and we had a laugh making the website.
If you're offended by the bikini, then I hope you don't shop at any clothing chain that does any marketing. Seriously. We did not put me up there thinking it would draw the men in. We put me up there portraying a glam beach party on the terrace. It's satire! And let's face it, when did you ever see miss Hilton with clothes on?

I want to round up by saying that I've in several restaurants and in several other businesses. Bloom in the Park is an open, friendly place where it's never mattered what gender you are, who you have sex with, what god you believe in (although something food-related is a good answer to that one) or who you vote for politically or otherwise. I tell you from experience that that is rare. In fact, Bloom has several exceptionally competent and strong women in leading positions, and the majority of staff is female. That is even rarer still! Get back to me when you find an equivalent place of work.

And no, a casual dress code does not mean a bikini. No one has ever worn a bikini to Bloom (apart from me for the shoot). If someone wants to show up in a bikini I guess that would be ok. I might bring a wrap though - it's getting chilly in the evenings, see.

Bloom moment

"Joppe" Pihlgren (Docenterna): "This isn't the dish I had in mind when I bought the ingredients!"
Titti: "These aren't the ingredients I had in mind when thinking of what to serve!"

(image from Bustamante promotions)

Women chef's on standing the heat and staying in the kitchen

READ!

Heritage

I grew up learning to cook from Julia Child's books. Making her Charlotte Chantilly aux Fraises is almost therapeautic for me. What's your favorite Julia recipe?

(image from google.com)

"Food writing has no impact on the world"

Monica Bhide was recently told that food writing doesn't have much impact on the world. She was upset, mostly because she feels that writing is her calling, and she writes about food - and in that context food writing obviously impacts her world. 

What do I think? I think that on the same note, one could say that sports journalism is pointless. Or music journalism. Or writing fiction. Or writing full stop. There is plenty of writing that I will never read, but that doesn't mean I believe the words or the sentiments to be without impact. I'm sure that even the most narrow niche deserves to be described, but when it comes to the impact of the text itself I think it depends on the audience. And let's face it, something that starts off as a minority trend or a small news item can turn into a global phenomenon. 

Also, everybody eats every day. I can think of approximately a million things that people spend less time doing that get more press (hello reviewers of Fifty Shades of Grey....). Does that mean that food journalism as a profession is more worthwhile? I think Molly O’neill (food writer and cookbook author) said it well: "Why write about food? Because food is a patch of blue in an otherwise gray news world… One can not tell the truth about other people’s relationship to food without knowing their own relationship, socially, in terms of class and ethnicity. Emotionally in terms of the void that is being filled when one bites and chews. Culturally in terms of one’s political, historic, and economic context. Food is one of the final frontiers of the unique and the individual. It is a bastion of the liberal arts impulse, a place where only people who never want to stop learning should go. It is a place where people say who they are, where they came from, where they dream of going, over and over and over again. It is living humanism, the transcendental movement for the electronic era. It is the place to be. It requires everything you have. It never stops demanding."

So, I write, you read. It might not be on the Richter scale, but it's a string in a very wide web.

Never said about restaurant websites....

“I’m glad you made it abundantly clear that your logo is copyrighted (in large font, on every image). I was going to use that anthropomorphic taco on the cover of my novel.”

What is your pet peeve? Mine is restaurant websites that don't feature things like location or contact details - you know, the small things that make it just that tiny bit easier to get dinner reservations. Check out Never said about restaurant websites for the most hilarious ones.

Just do it.

(image from BlackBook)

We're the best because of our eccentricities, not despite them

This review is certainly a change of tone from what has been written about us by them previously. Merci beaucoup, as some of our number would put it!

What I would like to add is that when we are reviewed the articles more often than not start out by saying "despite the lack of menu", "despite the cost per cover", "despite the fact that we only found out what we had eaten after we'd eaten it". That's a lot of despite. I understand that our concept might seem very outlandish to the average Swede, but it's the concept that keeps you coming back. So, we're not the best despite our strange ideas, we're the best because of them.
XXX
/The Stickler

No comment

I was in Systembolaget for consultative reasons and found the bottles in the images above. (No, I didn't leave with them) Intrigued I went to morbergsdrycker.se and found a largely misspelled site that wants me to believe that the Viognier has "detectable floric (?) nuances such as (...) "blue lavender". 

Thoughts:

1. WTF?

2. "Blue lavender"? Meaning what, the Ontario Violet? Please.

(image from google.com)

What wine to serve with a tortilla?

I know, I know. It's a problem. Although Kim is preparing the most delicious street food to grab and go for a picknick in the park, we can't hand you that perfect bottle of wine to go with it. (I know why some part of the world are more relaxed. It's spelled wine and a two-hour lunch siesta). If I was on Gotland I'd get me a loudspeaker and go calling for the right to my food culture.

(image from wineterroirs.com)

You had me at Merlot

It's summer! Time to fall in love!
I don't know about you, but I'm all about to fall headlong into a plethora of gorgeous courses served up with the best summer wines in town.

Well, you know were to find us...

Same, but different?

Would you agree that if you eat a wide variety of food some things can start tasting similar? That, say, pork becomes indistinguishable from beef?
I didn't think so. But some people apparently will use any excuse to eat bulls balls.

(We know our history. I quote: "After all, the most famous organ-eater of all time is the character Leopold Bloom in James Joyce's novel Ulysses. Bloom "ate with relish the inner organs of beasts and fowls. He liked thick giblet soup, nutty gizzards, a stuffed roast heart, liverslices fried with crustcrumbs, fried hencods' roes."")

The ridiculous

I have to share this with you because I don't think I've ever been so insulted in my life. I'd like you to click THIS LINK and tell the EU precisely what you think about encouraging young women to take their lives and choices seriously. Highlight the absence of lipstick.
Thank you.

Midsummer!

Happy midsummer, from all of us to all of you!
If you've had your grill put out by the horrible weather, let me suggest watching this short film as a pastime. I swear it makes time fly.

The Shack!

Genuine Street Food.
You know you want it. Well, you now know where to get it.

Battonage at depth

Would you be interested in a sparkling wine cellared at the bottom of a lake? Azienda Agricola Valle Camonica has cellared approximately 1500 bottles of blanc de noirs sparkling wine made with the méthode traditionnelle at the bottom of lake Iseo. The winemaker has declared it to be a very "interesting" tasting experience. Sounds a bit fishy to me....

(Image © Azienda Agricola Valle Camonica)

Sweden, already a food nation.

Dear Swede, 

You live in a relatively large country with a relatively small population. As in any other country in Europe, a significant part of your people live in cities, but in Sweden you also have a good percentage of people living in the countryside and making a living on their land. Again, as in the rest of Europe, being a farmer is hard, but then again, in Sweden you have a good level of general awareness of how food is made and where it comes from. Sweden has one of the highest percentages of organic food in total food turnovers in the EU. And it's sold in supermarkets (something the EU does not classify as "specialized stores" which is where you find organic food in many other countries)! Many Swedish farmers have chosen to "go organic", and Sweden has a comparatively large area of land being farmed organically. Better still, the organic holdings in your great country are LARGER than the conventional ones! You come out on top of the list when the EU totals its numbers of organic livestock.
The really nice part is that per capita, you spend more on organic food than do most other countries. Your organic markets are determined to be some of the most "mature and developed" in the EU. Also, compared to some countries (I find it rude to point the finger, especially in the middle of a financial crisis) your organic produce is relatively cheap!
(I'm not making all of this up, I read a very long and boring EU analysis on the subject, which you can find here.

So what is this sudden brainwave about which wants Sweden to BECOME a "food nation"? Why do you need to become something you already are? Where they out of the loop when the internet was invented?
I am wholly and absolutely behind the idea that small food businesses providing high-quality organic produce should receive support and attention. But this is not a new thing, and it's obviously not something that the general public in Sweden (or the rest of Europe, if it's in a fancy report) are unaware of. In fact, should a complete alien arrive in Sweden all he needs to do is hop round the local supermarket to find himself some nourishment drawing directly from Swedish soil (you can always complain about ICA's packaging, but that's a wholly different problem).




I get a lot of Messiah-vibes from this organization. See, I don't think Sweden needs to be rescued, food-wise (and what's up with throwing in the "public" meal? Surely food tourists don't stop at the local school for a mind-blowing dining experience?). Sweden needs to be promoted, food-wise. Sweden does not need another bearded hipster telling the world that Västerbottenost is "better" than Parmesan. Sweden needs to roll with that Västerbottenost is v. cool in its own right, if not in foreign cuisine (shaved over a French salad? Oui!) than certainly in it's own. Sweden does not need a food-authority that thinks that the styrofoam-packed gunge served by the state-owned rail company is somehow perceived as representative of Sweden's fab food culture. I wonder how he travels - I've never met anyone who expected a hearty, genuine, home-cooked meal in an airport or train station (maybe he missed the Masterchef episode where they all cooked at 10.000 ft ("everything tastes and looks like garbage") - I think that explains everything).
I think it speaks volumes that this project is basically a collaboration between the government agricultural authority and an ad agency. If you read the fine print, it's purpose is to increase the export of Swedish food. I think the government took the wrong end of the stick and rammed it up their very hard concrete asses with that particular idea: Magnus Nilsson at Fäviken has done more for the cause with a tenth of their budget. I don't see any articles in the New York Times about someone who's contribution to the culinary universe has been two amateur blogs rating odd-end dining experiences.

So what does Sweden need to become the next France? Sweden needs to relax the rules about the production and sale of produce: both in how things are made and who can sell them. You want hand-churned butter? Well, hands aren't very hygienic, they get tired after a long day and there are only one set per person. That butter has a hard time being made (rules and regulations! start-up expenses!) and a hard time being sold (quantity! price! volume!). You want good Swedish wine? Tell your politician to get rid of the monopoly and the 1984-esque treatment of those who want to make it.
And take the school dinners out of the equation. That's a different war - no one ever bought Brie because they heard the French children ate it with organic grapes at school.

Xoxo
A girl who likes her food

What goes around comes around

I would like to talk a bit about bad food writing. By that I don't mean bad critique, but rather badly written articles about restaurants, food and wine.
First off, it's not just grammar and punctuation that I'm concerned about. I've been reading about food and wine for a long time, and I've never read so much BS (pardon the French) as what has been turned out in the local media lately. Say, a restaurant review that has about two sentences in it about the actual place, the rest being about the critic's choice of skirt for the evening. Quite an impressive feat, considering the one-page spread. I mean, if the restaurant was so mind-numbingly boring that the only positive thing about an evening there is the unlimited amount of time one can spend contemplating one's wardrobe, then maybe the article should have said so. But then, the five-out-of-five stars grade should maybe have been something different (or was that for the outfit? I get confused).

I've thought long and hard about why and how this dumbing down of what was once a reputable job has come about. Maybe I'm going to end up not having done myself a favor here, but I blame blogging and the social media. There is a considerable overlap between a blogger and a journalist. Just look at the definitions of the words:

So a journalist might be someone who keeps a diary, and a blog is an online diary. A blog can certainly reach a mass audience (for instance, Huffington post is a news blog, and is read by more people than, say, Barometern or Sydsvenskan), and there's nothing wrong with posting news on a blog (see yours truly).
However, despite the many similarities there are several quite crucial differences.
Research, for instance. One crucial point left out of the definition of a journalist. The idea that the output of someone that calls themselves a journalist should be factual and unbiased, as opposed to a blogger, who is someone you expect to put out general hearsay and very biased opinions (again, see yours truly). Journalists are in many cases required to cite at least three sources before publishing an article, just to make sure that what you're reading at breakfast is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
So why are we reading so much garbage? Maybe because an increasing number of bloggers are considering themselves to be journalists (blogging about news), and are increasingly relying on social media such as Twitter for sources. Now I don't know about you, but a 140-char tweet doesn't exactly sound like the best and most reliable source of information to me, but sure, it IS a source. ONE. And if it's the only source you've got, then maybe the accuracy of your facts are a bit dodgy. To put it plainly, the reason so much nonsense is floating around on the net is because the sources of blogs are other bloggers, and ctrl+c, ctrl+v is so much quicker than checking your facts. A blog should be the only space where in place of citing a source you can write "I heard from a mate".

So what do we end up with? We end up with that good old saying "What goes around comes around", and in this case it might neither be true or relevant but it's amplified anyway courtesy of the social media. To me, I don't particularly care if a blogger considers himself or herself to be a journalist. I sometimes consider myself to be a part of the cast of Star Trek, but that doesn't make it true. Yes, some bloggers are journalists, and vice-versa. But to me (again, this is a blog) it boils down to accuracy, authenticity and maybe most importantly quality. So if people are thinking that a particular skirt brand are a crucial part of the dining experience at a restaurant near you, you know who to blame for the dumbing down of the local food culture.

Follow the locals

Wanna know how to find the best food in town? Follow the locals.

The most beautiful grape in the world?

This grape may be the most beautiful in the world, don't you think? Like all things pink and pretty it's from Japan, and called Koshu. It's most often used, at least these days, to make dry white wines and the occasional bubbly, but historically it's been used to make sweet wine. Not available in Sweden unfortunately, I'd love to get ahold of some for the warm summer days I hope are coming.

(Image from google.com)

Research, the good and bad

Kim, the master street food chef that runs our Shack, posted this website to her Facebook page as something she found when researching future dishes to serve up street style for you. I's possibly the most paradoxical website on earth. Obviously made by someone who knew some HTML and web design back in the late -90s/early -00's, it's an eyesore. But boy is it full of good food!
It's strange that something that hurts can be so satisfying... (er)

Drop by the Shack soon to pick up Kim's version of Mexican street food.

When the label doesn't reflect the contents

The most expensive bottle I've ever opened was a 1952 Burgundy from a very high-end producer and worth a hefty six-figure sum. It was sublime, with all the depth and nuance you'd expect from a mature 60 year old.
But was it really 60 years old? Was it really a grand cru Burgundy from this specific producer? I couldn't tell you. Counterfeit wines (especially in this specific price group) is on the rise. It could have been a really good re-bottled négociant (Up until the -70s large producers in Burgundy would sell their output in bulk to so called négociants which would bottle and sell it under their own labels). I didn't check for the initials "RK" on the bottom of the bottle, but I sure as hell am going to pick that practice up.
See, the only people who can really know if an old, expensive bottle is the real deal are the producers themselves, and that's not by taste. Badly made fakes are of course easy for most of us to figure out, but the well made ones pull the wool over the eyes on even the most acclaimed experts. They can make an educated guess, of course, which is better than most people's gargling and spitting. However, one mostly has to rely on the producers themselves and their records of making, bottling and selling the wine. I remind you that this was before the internet generation and the FBI's division specializing on frauds concerning art. So the records are sketchy. After all, how difficult can it be to take an old, empty bottle and fit it with a fake label? Not too difficult, considering that some producers could't even spell their own names properly.

I guess it boils down to "is wine ever really worth these very large sums of money?". Let me put it this way: no.
To me, if I had a couple of millions to drop in the murky world of wine auctions then yes, I'd drop them right in there on a bottle once owned by the Shah of Iran. But if you drink wine like I do, you're much better off investing in selected bottles for those special occasions, and a couple of steady house wines. It saves you stress, or at least it saves me a lot of stress. To my mind, wine is one of those things that should never be spoiled by stress and anxiety. How do you judge whether the time is right to open your 1950's grand cru Burgundy? It's not like there's an unlimited supply should your date be bad.

Don't forget where you saw it first

Street food

What is street food? If you haven't been to any large and over-populated cities in Asia I daresay you might believe that street food is something you can get from a small shop which you enter from the street. Say, something that serves kimchi. Where you sit down and eat with a knife and fork, and maybe chopsticks if you're adventurous.
Duh.
Street food is about small stalls which pop up close to food markets. Street food is about fresh fresh fresh produce that's whipped up into something that you get in a bucket and eat as you go (with your hands!). Street food is about word of mouth, chasing down the best pavement chefs and getting some before it's gone.

We get that eating food out of a bucket might not be something that appeals to the general foodie public, so you do get a set of utensils when you order from The Shack. Otherwise, we're tapping into street food heritage with Kim, the super-taster from California (you know, the place sort of close to Mexico, a veritable street food Mecca). She cooks with inspiration from what she's grown up with and what she's tasted from her extensive travels, often making up and altering recipes from memory (some have photographic memory, others have the olfactory equivalent).

So what are you waiting for? More kimchi from a jar?

Serving up

(let them eat cake)

The "Clean and Simple"

We've seen and heard a lot of molecular gastronomy-haters since the "clean and simple" trend reared it's shaggy head (just like any other hipster it could do with a shave). Roaring "I like my carrots so fresh and untouched that they're still covered in dirt" and "no additives!!!", and beating their chests with the jagged marrow-bones from which they've just pulled out of a make-shift fire, only to suck the marrow dry, fat dripping down their au natural-styled beards. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, food must be as unviolated by chefs as possible when it is served at the table. The produce must be RESPECTED for its pure and shining spirit, and chefs with their fingering and prodding are of the devil. Even if it means the spinach is unwashed.
Well, not quite. But you get my drift.

When all this has been going on I have truly wondered if any of these very vocal people have in fact ever visited a restaurant serving anything even close to the so hated and feared "molecular gastronomy". See, SVT recently ran a documentary about El Bulli. You can find it here. The focus is not so much on the day to day operations of the restaurant when it's open to customers, but rather the six months of the year during which it is closed to find and develop new dishes. As a scientist, I find their method meticulous. A product, say a carrot, is stripped down to it's bare essentials in search of the method which allows the flavor to be its sweetest, carrotiest best. It's liquidated, fried (oil and no oil) baked, broiled, sautéed, sous vide:d, dried, frozen and then all of these methods are pitted against each other just to make sure the flavor is not at its prime when it's been both baked and frozen. At all of the stages are the products tasted and photographed and a detailed log kept over both the method and the result.
Say they have been able to find a supplier of good carrots for the autumn. What to do with them? All the methods of cooking the carrots are explored until they, for example, decide on a carrot soup. Then the different methods of making carrot soup are explored until the right one is found. Then comes the question of what to serve with the carrot soup. Should it be drizzled with hazelnut oil or avocado oil? should it have a crunchy accompaniment? Which accompaniment? And the search starts all over. Then there's the quest for the right way to serve it. What bowls are the best? What spoons? What does the sommelier think?

I know of no other restaurant that makes that amount of effort to respect the produce. It's not as if the dishes are particularly complicated - it's one thing, or maybe two, with contrasting textures and maybe a contrast in temperature thrown in for fun. There aren't "additives" in the sense that the color is chemically enhanced - in fact, all the equipment, spices and techniques are things which I know you can pretty much find on Amazon. Salt, and other spices are added - if that's what you want to count as an additive.
Of course, if you booked a table at El Bulli you would have been served 40-odd courses. So yes, there would have been a lot of disparate ingredients - but not all on one plate, as some of the haters would like to make out.

The point I would like to make is that these days it's very hard to not do something that hasn't been done before (a problem the El Bulli chefs faced themselves), so pioneering a new type of cuisine is not something that happens every day. However, the techniques and methods developed by Adría and his team are something you can be sure almost every aspiring chef use on a regular basis. Even the ones claiming to serve those dirty carrots. Who was it that explored the difference in flavor to meat depending on when it is salted? Thats right. Someone interested in molecules.

Who said a dish couldn't be full of life?

(Image courtesy of Chef André's Facebook page)

Are we coming or going?

I hear the word "trend" in about every third sentence when trying to discuss food culture. I don't think we have trends as much as we do fads. Wikipedia tells us the difference:
"A fad is any form of behavior that develops among a large population and is collectively followed with enthusiasm for some period, generally as a result of the behavior's being perceived as novel in some way. A fad is said to "catch on" when the number of people adopting it begins to increase rapidly. The behavior will normally fade quickly once the perception of novelty is gone.
The specific nature of the behavior associated with a fad can be of any type including language usage, apparel, financial investment, and even food. Apart from general novelty, fads may be driven by mass media programming, emotional excitement, peer pressure, or even a desire to be outside social norms (counterculture). Though the term trend may be used interchangeably with fad, a fad is generally considered a fleeting behavior whereas a trend is considered to be a behavior that evolves into a relatively permanent change."

I guess this would explain the sometimes almost schizoid declarations in the press about what good food actually is. There are clearly heavy driving forces here, such as peer pressure resulting in brand snobbism: eating foul-smelling (tasting?) food is clearly all right if it is the right kind of shit (literally), but not if it comes in a paper bag bearing a logo of a large corporation, although I'm sure one of the two has some sort of FDA approval.
Sometimes we can't see the forest for the trees. So who do you rely on for directions in this veritable wildwood of fads? I guess it all depends on if you know what you want and how you want it.
But don't take my word for it.

(image from google.com)

It runs in the family

This is a ticket issued to my great-grandfather to attend Baltiska Utställningen (the occasion for which Pildammsparken was built) in 1914. Skulking around the park obviously runs in the family. It can now be viewed (under Igi's watchful eye) at Bloom.

Hues and nuance

(Image from wikipedia.com)

"The people want pink, so give them rosé"!
Just when I thought I'd heard (and tasted) the worst of it I've been introduced to the concept of "sauvignon noir". No, of course there's no such thing. It's simply sauvignon blanc dyed red. Some people use kola seeds. They say that's specifically for the Chinese, we westerners can apparently make do with cochineal-tinted beverages. I guess it's organic and biodynamic and what-have-you either way, but it probably won't detract from the fact that, just like all other novelty wines, it's strong suits lie not in the taste.

Aims and destinations

Who wrote "I am the answer to every man's question, his aim and destination"? I have a feeling it was something about single malt whisky, but slightly amended that quote could be applied to rosé wine and your average restaurant patron at this time of year. I'm not saying it's a bad thing, necessarily. It's just that I personally don't particularly like rosé. I think it has something to do with the fact that the rosé generally available in Sweden is not so much an experience as an indecent exposure. I'm referring to the boxed bastardizations called things like "zinful" of course. The packaging may or may not be pink, display images of amorous couples or come with fanciful labels adorned with freesias. However, if more than one of the above are true, I'd refrain from using it for anything but cooking.
It's funny, wine is such a great conversation starter. I recently met an amazing Argentinian chef (a woman!) who like me had been very indecently exposed (or should I say assaulted) by a horrible wine called "Barefoot" when in Florida recently. Imagine the worst wine in the world, and then imagine that it's been dyed pink. That's Barefoot for you. Tastes like sweaty feet, which I should have surmised. The really funny thing was that I was trying very hard to come up with a rosé that I like, and just as I'd figured it out, the chef says "I was in Spain recently and had an excellent Prieto picudo rosé". Which was precisely the example I had struggled so hard to come up with. All good things....
Anyway. We'll be bringing you fabulous summer wines of every hue this summer. So make sure to drop by soon.

Shacking up

Say hello to The Shack, our newest addition to the Bloom family. Stop by to try some of the best gourmet street food in town - for hot sunny days we've got the best home-made ice cream! Shack up with us, you know you want to.

Firsts

There are so many things I'd like to share right now, but I seem to have exhausted most of that capacity. I'll do my best.

I got a call a few days ago. An unexpected call, in contrast to all the other calls I've had for the last couple of months, which have been spent waiting for news on test results and hoping and praying and trying to function in my day-to-day life despite ravaging side-effects of my treatment. My bloodwork is clear, my scans are clear. I'm in the clear. At least for now. And now is all that matters. That metallic taste I've had in my mouth for the last couple of months is gone: right now the first grilled langoustines of the year are sweet and fresh and take me no place other than the very glorious present.

I've gotten to know myself much better during this experience, and what I really take away is this: life is too short to not indulge. After all, no one else has to live with your choices. So this is what's going to happen: I'm going to recover from my treatment, and then I'm going to focus all my attention on doing things that I love in the order I find appropriate. Right now that means finishing up my Ph.D (which, by the way, will first and foremostly be dedicated to Igi, without his support I would not know whether I was coming or going), and in my free time I'll be learning all I can about wine. Which means you'll probably be seeing more of me on the floor this summer. Starting on Sunday of this week in fact. How do you feel about warm breezes in Pildammarna, with jazz, a glass of bubbles and some canapés? That's what Sundays are going to be all about during the summer. I'll make my first prediction for quite some time and say that it will be the place to be in Malmö. Why don't you join us?

To all the ad agencies out there...

.... we seem to be selling ourselves.

Keeping the textures

The home cook trying to emulate a succulent restaurant steak is often disappointed. It might look like the charred sirloin you had last Friday, but after the pan-handling it's all dry and stringy. Well, folks, I have the insider tip for you. It's called sous-vide, and is the fancy-pants French word for "under vacuum". It has nothing to do with beating sense into the strip with your electrolux, though. The Guardian has a fab slide show on how to master this technique at home. And all you need is a beer cooler! Can it get better than that?

"Two sommeliers walk into a bar..."

Have you heard one of those jokes that start off "Two sommeliers walk into a bar..."? As an improbable reflection of reality, they never end well. The last time a sommelier friend and I went out, we were offered cider instead of Champagne (all about the bubbles?) and recommended a dessert wine to accompany a fish course ("I'm no wine expert, but I know white wine goes with fish"). Then of course, there are the occasions were we simply don't agree, as on the subjects of screw-top corks, rosé, sulphites, and tasting notes. Two sommeliers arguing about bouquet after a few glasses of wine? Hilarious.

You've probably been wondering why the blog has suddenly been so silent. I've had a tough couple of months. Last year it was discovered during some routine tests that I have cancer. The specifics are pretty boring, so I'll just give you the short version of events, namely that operative treatment was not successful so now I'm on powerful medical treatment instead.
Apart from discovering a whole new depth to metaphysical questions, I've been made privy to the whole gamut of human behaviour in response to bad news. I find it very interesting how discovering the apparent mortality of someone other than yourself can make people so aware that life is finite. Mirror neurons? Anyway, so many of you have been amazing in lending hope and support, thank you. I have a good chance of a full recovery after this, and it means so much to know that you care.

One of the major side effects of the treatment I'm receiving is the loss of smell and taste. Not a brilliant idea for someone who works with her olfactory system as her main asset. Also, it's bloody depressing having the joy of food and drink taken away. However, I figured I'd use this as a golden opportunity to work on my sense of texture in food. As taste and smell are the primary focus when food goes in the mouth, texture is almost always an afterthought. Chances are, if you like the taste of something you'll like the texture. Here's a short list, in no particular order (so I've numbered it anyway), on foods which I normally love but which tasteless have a texture I can't stand:

1. Squid
2. Chocolate
3. Marmalade
4. Cheese (particularly blue/green mold)
5. Gravad lax
6. Avocado
7. Salami
8. Thick yoghurt

And here's a list of textures I do like, even in foods I'm not particularly fond of:

1. Cabbage (raw)
2. Apples
3. Wafers
4. Sourdough bread
5. Peas
6. Steak
7. Crab
8. Nuts

I can't remember the last time I ate any kind of cabbage, so once treatment is over I'll try to remember its redeeming qualities. But you'll notice that I can't stand anything sweet with a slimy texture. The sugar coats the mouth and tongue, which is exceptionally unpleasant if you can't taste anything. The worst is probably cheese. I tried Roquefort just to make sure I couldn't taste ANYTHING, which turned out to be a bit of a mistake because the texture is that of slime with bits of mold incorporated. Extremely unpleasant. I'll try to forget this when treatment is over, mostly because I adore the taste of a really ripe cheese.

Anyway. I'll be serving at afternoon tea for most of the forseeable future. Evening service simply gets too hectic for me to be able to cope, but I look forward to serving wine again. So, if Sunday tea sounds like a good thing: 040-79363 is the number, 12-16 are the hours. Give us a call.

A princess!

As it's sportlov-week we've taken some time off to flex our biceps and make sure that the restaurant is in top shape for the coming spring and summer. Aren't we happy to have a two minute break to celebrate the news of a little princess being born! Anyway, we might be cracking open the bubbly for more reasons than one, but I'm sure the new parents are staying well away, and they probably have for some time. So what is the deal on drinking while pregnant? Some do, some don't, others have only a sip (which almost doesn't count). I'm all about science, but in this case the waters are a bit murky. Follow this link to read up on what the latest studies tell us.

No comments

Being one of the few places in southern Sweden where it is presumed that the glitterati hole up on weekends (I wouldn't tell you if they did, sorry) we get surprisingly few questions about it. We get a lot of semi-statements instead, like "I'm sure you see a lot of so-and-so". Maybe it's because one does not want to appear too curious about these things, or maybe it's a vague hope that we'll serve-and-tell without further prompting. So, now that I've had about ten different people in the course of a few days ask me about presumptive celebs and their eating disorders I'm a bit taken aback. Why the sudden interest? Some have quoted TV-shows such as "Livet blir bättre" and others have sent me links on drink-o-rexia articles in the broadsheets.
Well, I do have something to say about this and it has to be divided into two, very separate, points.

The first is that we never have, and never will, reveal the identity of any of our customers. Nor will we be the misquoted source in the full-of-nonsense articles in the evening rags. Merci beaucoup.

The second is that people rarely walk around with "eating disorder" tattooed to their foreheads. They don't tend to tell complete stranges, such as their waiters on a Friday evening, that they haven't eaten all day so that they can drink all the booze they want for dinner either. Also, and correct me if I got this wrong, people with eating disorders are not yet required to inform the people in their surroundings of their condition as I don't think it's been added to the pandemic-causing contagious diseases-list yet.

It happens to be my personal opinion that my job in the restaurant is not to keep the gossip pages filled, but rather make sure that every single guest that leaves our doors has had a positive food experience. I'm just not that into gossip. It has a tacky aftertaste.

The comment I can make is that I'm very willing to hand out contact details of certain scoop-seeking "journalists" to any celebrity that asks. I'm sure that falls under some law of notification, perhaps even under "pandemic of spreading stupidity".

I knew heritage was important, but I don't want to eat it.

I read this in the food and wine section of SvD this morning on the topic of the chef of the year competition:
"Temat i år var Det svenska arvet och en av de två tävlingsuppgifterna var att kreera en modern restaurangrätt på en given huvudråvara - svensk biffrad med ben från Gotland."
Which in English is "The theme this year was The Swedish heritage, where one of the two competition tasks was to create a modern restaurant dish from Swedish steak with bones from Gotland."
Really? I knew Gotland was rich in archaeology, but I didn't think the Fornsalen museum was open to lending their precious bones to a bunch of chefs. Next time I'm back on the island I'll have to check that the hedgehog woman is still there.

What's up?

I don't know what anybody does in January. It's a useless month. So is February. Apart from possibly Valentine's day. Actually, no, Valentine's day is useless too. To my husband: if you can't get with it enough to take me out to dinner for no reason other than that you love me very much, then skip Valentine's day too. Anyway, it's not like I'm going to be available to go out: I work in a restaurant, and the 14th of February is the only night really worth its name to keep open during the first two months of the year. I also know that come the 14th, I'm going to be in a much better mood, because I'm secretly a romantic. Roses, Champagne and chocolate, bring it on. I know the kitchen will.
I'm just a bit pissed at the moment because there's 2 cm of snow in Lund that melted and then turned to ice. Somehow Gatukontoret have taken leave of absence and so the only way to get anywhere (to Malmö, perhaps) is by boot-skating and hoping that Skånetrafiken missed the weather report and that the trains are running. I'd happily forgotten what it felt like to be risking life and limb to get to work due to the incompetence of our dearly beloved bureaucrats.

Also, what's with the fact that it's 2012 and we can't rub together 2 female chefs to compete for chef of the year?

Oh. Hang on. I'll give you a good reason to get out of bed during these cold, benighted months: Afternoon tea. On Sundays. 12-16. Vicky and myself blend the tea ourselves. I add the scientific credentials to the mix. We can book up really quickly so be sure to give us a call beforehand.

Nadal and Becker

We used to joke about Chef Andé looking like Boris Becker. It has now been brought to my attention that the White Guide Öresund 2012 has credited us with employing another tennis pro, namely "Nadal". I do not know how an organization that compares itself to the meticulous Michelin Guide can make the somewhat ridiculous mistake of renaming Igi Vidal "Igy Nadal" throughout their review of our restaurant. Especially since they manage to get it right in the fact-box accompanying each review. And I certainly can't fathom why they would employ someone who doesn't know St Marcellin cheese, re-christening it "Saint Mazzala" (which, incidentally, sounds like the patron saint of fusion italian/indian food). Finally, it is completely beyond me that this ambitious, expanding guide is apparently lacking a proof-reader.

Maybe we're being had. Maybe this is just a typo in our (and 38 of yours, dear readers) copy. Maybe this is the work of foodie terrorists. I don't know. But I'm looking forward to finding out.

I stole the sentiment from Andrew Eldritch

My favorite band, The Sisters of Mercy, has a very interesting home page. They have very interesting songs too, for those of you who read Byron and enjoy Bauhaus beats. Well, they have a drum machine called "Doktor Avalanche". He has an "Agony Aunt" page on the web, and the first question is as follows:
Dear Doktor, I am unattractiv, sexually immachure, lazy, stupid and meen. What career would sute me best? [sic]
Journalism. If you fail there, try music journalism.
Well, I'd like to add restaurant critic to the music journalism option. Mainly because I'm reading more and more comments such as "we had a duck-liver terrine, which was very good, but ethically questionable" in both broad-sheet and less respected media.
Duh. That ticks the boxes of lazy and stupid. Yes, there are many foie gras producers that force-feed their animals, but there are also many that don't. We source ours from a little french lady who hand-feeds her ducks and geese. It's quite a lot more expensive, but it's quality is better by astronomic proportions. If you want to know about how your starter has been raised - ask. If you want to avoid any ethical issues, order something else. If you disagree with the slaughtering of animals for food - boycott all and any places that serve meat. Do not make a dim presumptive statement that puts a restaurant's sourcing in question in print. That is, unless you're positive that you're actually eating an endangered species/a product of brutal handling - but that still brings into question why you ordered it in the first place.

So. I have to read these dim reviews because I'm in the business. But for the rest of you, maybe a boycott should be considered?

Those anthropological observations

What better place to be an anthropologist than in a restaurant? Nowhere else are there such rich pickings of how humanity handles itself. I'm quite sure that every myth about men, women and beasts originated in a restaurant. "What do women want?" Freud famously asked - well, I'm sure it's not a coffee with Mozart liqueur.
For this year, maybe we should look at not the people we're serving, but rather what we serve, from an anthropological standpoint. In the spirit of the New Year. You know, new beginnings, new ideas, new resolutions, new trends. Why do we serve what we serve, and how is it defined? How does it behave on a plate, in a glass, on a table, in the room? Maybe we shouldn't be so terribly materialistic nattering on and on about produce and production, and put more effort into understanding the anthropological roots of a dinner experience. How does red meat behave around root vegetables? What is the social order of two wines, and what are their differences? What are the ancestors of the modern soup course? And, of course, there should be an extensive discourse analysis on how two food items speak to one another, and how they form relationships. How the flavours mix and marry, so to speak.

Or, we can get our asses into chefs jackets and waiters suits and go to work, doing what we do best. See, all these resolutions that pop up when you're about to buy a new calendar, they're mostly nonsense. Just like the narrative above. If you haven't figured whatever it is you want to change out by now, chances are you're not going to during the cold hard moth of January, even if you did find inspiration in a nice glass of champagne around midnight on the 31st.
So, I give you the same resolution we've had since we started: we promise to have fun this year, and find lots of new ways to tickle your tastebuds. We promise to start every evening anew, because we like the amuse bouche to be just that - amusing. And we promise to make every meal exceptional.
Nothing new under the sun, then. Let's do it all over again.