What strange things they sell in Boots...
At least it's a welcoming airport
Saturday, February 16, 2013
Zzz
Arrived in Heathrow, just waiting for my gate to be decided. Got a nice snack (thanks grandma)
What strange things they sell in Boots...
At least it's a welcoming airport
What strange things they sell in Boots...
At least it's a welcoming airport
Friday, February 15, 2013
I'm secure (?)
Made it through YVR security with about 70kg luggage (somehow) ! Killing time at the airport. Zzz...
Sunday, February 10, 2013
Flight Info: February trip
Keeping things all in one place, here's my flight information for my Reading Week trip.
Friday, Feb 15
8:25pm leave YVR on British Airways flight BA 084 [9h 15min flight]
Saturday, Feb 16
1:40pm London time (5:40am Van) arrive LHR Heathrow [4h 35min layover]
6:15pm London time (10:15am Van) leave LHR on flight BA 784 [2h 30min flight]
9:45pm Stockholm time (12:40pm Van) arrive ARN Arlanda
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tuesday, Feb 26
10:45am (1:45am Van) leave ARN on flight BA 775 [2h 40 min flight]
12:25pm London time (4:25am Van) arrive LHR [4h 30 min layover]
4:55pm London time (8:55am Van) leave LHR on flight BA 085 [9h 30min flight]
6:25pm arrive YVR
Friday, Feb 15
8:25pm leave YVR on British Airways flight BA 084 [9h 15min flight]
Saturday, Feb 16
1:40pm London time (5:40am Van) arrive LHR Heathrow [4h 35min layover]
6:15pm London time (10:15am Van) leave LHR on flight BA 784 [2h 30min flight]
9:45pm Stockholm time (12:40pm Van) arrive ARN Arlanda
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tuesday, Feb 26
10:45am (1:45am Van) leave ARN on flight BA 775 [2h 40 min flight]
12:25pm London time (4:25am Van) arrive LHR [4h 30 min layover]
4:55pm London time (8:55am Van) leave LHR on flight BA 085 [9h 30min flight]
6:25pm arrive YVR
Saturday, February 2, 2013
Söker du inspiration?
Looking for baking inspiration? Of course you are. I know I am.
Tuesday February 12 is Shrove Tuesday, one of the many obscure religious holidays celebrated in Sweden.
Also known as Semla Day, it seems to only consist of eating semlor (-or is plural of -a), sweet almond cream buns. The Finns add to this crazy Minttu-driven disguised sledding on old household objects (as you may remember from my experiences last year... if not, check out 2012 Feb's post) but the Swedes stick to semla-eating.
*(in case you did go back to check out my post from last Feb, update: Sabrina has now moved to Uppsala. I wasn't kidding when I said she never wanted to leave...)*
The act of putting out one's semlor in bakeries/grocery stores 'too early' seems to be a point of contention for many Swedes... comparable to North Americans' putting out Christmas decorations the day after Halloween. I purchased my Swedish semla in January - but I have an excuse I promise!! - because I obviously wasn't going to be in Sweden Feb 12, and it never occurred to me that I would have a 19-yr-old male classmate who turns out to be a brilliant baker. Takes inspiration from Marcus Samuelsson. I love it. Anyway, last time we had a Scandinavian club 'fika' (remember this means taking coffee, eating something sweet, and having conversation) he made mini semlor! So. Of course now the club must have a fika dedicated to selmor celebration. I have learned that in some regions of Sweden, it is common to eat your semla in a bowl of hot milk. Which is DELICIOUS. But these semla are quite enormous normally and can be hard to finish... so they just get really soggy. Unless you have a vacuum cleaner boyfriend to eat it for you (*ahem*). Off topic...
Over Christmas I watched a solid amount of mostly-unintelligible Svensk TV. One show which was fairly easy to follow, however, was Leila Lindholm's baking show, Leilas Söta Jul (no apostrophe in svenska). So, here is Leilas recept / Leila's recipe for Semlor. A brief warning, this takes about 3h including rising time... not a last-minute snack!
Tuesday February 12 is Shrove Tuesday, one of the many obscure religious holidays celebrated in Sweden.
Also known as Semla Day, it seems to only consist of eating semlor (-or is plural of -a), sweet almond cream buns. The Finns add to this crazy Minttu-driven disguised sledding on old household objects (as you may remember from my experiences last year... if not, check out 2012 Feb's post) but the Swedes stick to semla-eating.
*(in case you did go back to check out my post from last Feb, update: Sabrina has now moved to Uppsala. I wasn't kidding when I said she never wanted to leave...)*
The act of putting out one's semlor in bakeries/grocery stores 'too early' seems to be a point of contention for many Swedes... comparable to North Americans' putting out Christmas decorations the day after Halloween. I purchased my Swedish semla in January - but I have an excuse I promise!! - because I obviously wasn't going to be in Sweden Feb 12, and it never occurred to me that I would have a 19-yr-old male classmate who turns out to be a brilliant baker. Takes inspiration from Marcus Samuelsson. I love it. Anyway, last time we had a Scandinavian club 'fika' (remember this means taking coffee, eating something sweet, and having conversation) he made mini semlor! So. Of course now the club must have a fika dedicated to selmor celebration. I have learned that in some regions of Sweden, it is common to eat your semla in a bowl of hot milk. Which is DELICIOUS. But these semla are quite enormous normally and can be hard to finish... so they just get really soggy. Unless you have a vacuum cleaner boyfriend to eat it for you (*ahem*). Off topic...
Over Christmas I watched a solid amount of mostly-unintelligible Svensk TV. One show which was fairly easy to follow, however, was Leila Lindholm's baking show, Leilas Söta Jul (no apostrophe in svenska). So, here is Leilas recept / Leila's recipe for Semlor. A brief warning, this takes about 3h including rising time... not a last-minute snack!
 |
| Leilas bakverk - Semlor! |
*Makes 18*
DOUGH
1 tbsp
cardamom
300 mL
milk (about 1 1/4 cup)
50g
fresh yeast / 2 tbsp dry
1 1/2 dl
sugar (about 2/3 cup)
1/2 tsp
salt
150g
room temp butter
1 egg
5 cups
flour
PASTE
250g
almonds (blanched)
1/2 cup
sugar
1/2 cup
icing sugar
Dash of
milk
FILLING/TOPPING
800 mL whipping cream (or a tube of whipped cream)
1 egg (for brushing)
Icing sugar for dusting
Gör så här / "Do it like this":
Warm the
milk to about 37 C and dissolve yeast in it.
Mix this
with sugar, salt, butter, and egg.
Gradually
add flour, and work into a smooth dough.
Proof
dough in a bowl under a damp tea towel until doubled, about 45 min to an hour.
Place
dough on a floured surface and separate into 18 balls (or however many buns you
want)
Place
buns on parchment paper lined pans, let rise under towel for another 45 mins to
an hour.
ALMOND
PASTE
Blend
almonds into a fine powder using a blender or food processor.
Add
sugar and milk, mix for 5 min. (Or use water… can sit in the fridge longer)
Whip
your cream with a bit of icing sugar, place in a piping bag (or a ziplock bag,
you can cut off the corner when ready to pipe)
BUNS
Brush
buns with beaten egg, and bake at 200 C for 6-7 minutes. Let cool.
Cut off
the tops (not halfway!) and scoop out a bit of the inside (set the tops aside,
and the insides in a bowl!)
Mix the
scooped out insides with your almond paste, and fill in the newly-made holes in
the buns.
Pipe
your whipped cream on top of the almond paste.
Put the
top back on, dust with icing sugar, and voila! Serve cold, or pour hot milk
over bun in a bowl.
If you're tired of your boring, everyday semla... Leila suggests trying her delicious chocolate semla (just posted 3 days ago!) Mix 300g roughly chopped chocolate in with the dough before baking, mix some Nutella (or just more chocolate) and rum (crazy lady) in with your almond paste, and dust with cocoa powder for this variation. I am definitely trying this.
Translated from Leilas blogg / Leilas bakverk http://www.leila.se/leilas-semlor/recept/bakverk/index1,23.htm?id=2853
Friday, February 1, 2013
Thursday, January 10, 2013
underbar semester (wonderful holiday)
(don't forget to click on the links!)
What a wonderful, wonderful Christmas holiday.
I am aware I left all of you hanging with respect to my missing luggage... I was quite frustrated to begin with. But, 9am the next morning, I got a call that it was ready for pickup. So, I wasn't too long without it but had to drive all the way out to Arlanda and lug everything over to Eskilstuna, where Fredrik's parents live. We left the first day to Mesta Hage, where Britt-Marie lives. The complex has a party room you can rent, and since her place is so small and Per was already staying there, she rented it for us. We came over every morning to have breakfast, toast with cheese, juice and coffee, and spent the days watching strange Swedish TV-programs (including a lot of Astrid Lindgren, eg. Ronja Rövardotter, several singing shows, eg. Allsång på Skansen and Tack för musiken with the Swedish version of Bieber, quiz shows, and of course BingoLotto...top pastimes as far as I can tell, at least over Christmas).
When we arrived, Fredrik's two brothers Per and Karl, and Karl's wife Lucja and their daughter Alva, were all there. Alva is two and a half, and speaks Swedish, Polish, and French... she never spoke to me in French, but I could tell she understood me. At some points she attempted to teach me the Swedish words for various household objects... incredibly cute.
Britt-Marie's house, as you can tell by the pictures, is totally cozy and beautifully decorated. She has a lot of antique or nearing antique decorations, mirrors, books, etc, and several traditional Swedish 'chandeliers' and window stars. She has two wall-sized bookshelves (she is a retired librarian), and has her father's old collection of 'gnomes' (tomte, the Swedish 'santa' concept is more like a gnome who takes care of your farm animals... I will find the story and post it later). But, it's small, and we were pretty crowded in there. On the 23rd we brought in the julgran (christmas tree) and decorated it in a very classical Swedish style, with electric candles, a string of Swedish flags, red and gold ornaments, and silver tinsel strands. Since Karl, Lucja and Alva were going to Stockholm for Christmas eve, we had a mini-christmas and Alva opened her presents (a beaver hand puppet from Canada, home-made doll clothes from Britt-Marie, a puppet theatre from Per, puzzles from Fredrik). The beaver looks pretty realistic, and is actually a tad scary looking... Alva didn't know what to think. When it was tickling her, it was hilarious half the time and "DON'T LET IT EAT MY LEG" the other half. It became known as 'mus' (mouse).
On to the food...
I won't go in any particular order as I've lost track of when we had what. We had four kinds of herring and three kinds of salmon... mustard herring, onion pepper herring, and I still don't know what the others were. We had gravadlax with dill-mustard sauce, smoked salmon, and salmon meatloaf with horseradish sauce. (All on a smörgåsbord of course). Also there was ham with 'peep' mustard (a family inside joke, a strong mustard that apparently makes a peep noise in your ears when you eat it because it's so strong), Christmas sausage, hard bread, toast, cheese, brussels sprouts, red cabbage, red-beet-salad (I've mentioned this before), boiled potatoes, lutfisk, meatballs and lingonberry jam, 'dopp i grytan' or 'dip in the pot' (dipping bread slices, usually stale, in the ham broth after boiling the Christmas ham... from the 'old days'), prinskorvar, 'mumma' (stout beer, cardamom, madeira, and unflavoured sweet soda), herrgårds snaps, julmust (christmas soda), julöl (christmas beer)
Anyway, an awful lot of fish and strong tastes. Too much for me... but I guess I will get used to it...
Christmas eve is the 'christmas' for Sweden. The big dinner is on the 24th, and presents after supper. Let's not forget that everyone watches Donald Duck at 3pm on the 24th as well.
Christmas day is the rest day. We sat around, watched Astrid Lindgren movies on TV, and hung out with some of Fredrik's friends from Eskilstuna after dinner. Many people will go out to bars and clubs on the 25th as well, it's so popular that all places raise their prices significantly.
Boxing day shopping (mellandags rea... middle days sale) was excellent at Tuna Park (Eskilstuna's indoor mall). We poked around in downtown and old town Eskilstuna on the 26th and 27th while staying at Gudmund's place (Fredrik's dad), and watched more strange Nordic TV (Ylvis, Sagan om Karl-Bertil's julafton, Trolltyg i tomteskogen , Kan du vissla Johanna).
On the 28th we headed back to Uppsala (about 2h drive). We met a few of my and Fredrik's friends, and had a super time at the new years eve gask :) Much singing and standing on chairs as usual. All in all a great holiday.
Here are the photos!
What a wonderful, wonderful Christmas holiday.
I am aware I left all of you hanging with respect to my missing luggage... I was quite frustrated to begin with. But, 9am the next morning, I got a call that it was ready for pickup. So, I wasn't too long without it but had to drive all the way out to Arlanda and lug everything over to Eskilstuna, where Fredrik's parents live. We left the first day to Mesta Hage, where Britt-Marie lives. The complex has a party room you can rent, and since her place is so small and Per was already staying there, she rented it for us. We came over every morning to have breakfast, toast with cheese, juice and coffee, and spent the days watching strange Swedish TV-programs (including a lot of Astrid Lindgren, eg. Ronja Rövardotter, several singing shows, eg. Allsång på Skansen and Tack för musiken with the Swedish version of Bieber, quiz shows, and of course BingoLotto...top pastimes as far as I can tell, at least over Christmas).
When we arrived, Fredrik's two brothers Per and Karl, and Karl's wife Lucja and their daughter Alva, were all there. Alva is two and a half, and speaks Swedish, Polish, and French... she never spoke to me in French, but I could tell she understood me. At some points she attempted to teach me the Swedish words for various household objects... incredibly cute.
Britt-Marie's house, as you can tell by the pictures, is totally cozy and beautifully decorated. She has a lot of antique or nearing antique decorations, mirrors, books, etc, and several traditional Swedish 'chandeliers' and window stars. She has two wall-sized bookshelves (she is a retired librarian), and has her father's old collection of 'gnomes' (tomte, the Swedish 'santa' concept is more like a gnome who takes care of your farm animals... I will find the story and post it later). But, it's small, and we were pretty crowded in there. On the 23rd we brought in the julgran (christmas tree) and decorated it in a very classical Swedish style, with electric candles, a string of Swedish flags, red and gold ornaments, and silver tinsel strands. Since Karl, Lucja and Alva were going to Stockholm for Christmas eve, we had a mini-christmas and Alva opened her presents (a beaver hand puppet from Canada, home-made doll clothes from Britt-Marie, a puppet theatre from Per, puzzles from Fredrik). The beaver looks pretty realistic, and is actually a tad scary looking... Alva didn't know what to think. When it was tickling her, it was hilarious half the time and "DON'T LET IT EAT MY LEG" the other half. It became known as 'mus' (mouse).
On to the food...
I won't go in any particular order as I've lost track of when we had what. We had four kinds of herring and three kinds of salmon... mustard herring, onion pepper herring, and I still don't know what the others were. We had gravadlax with dill-mustard sauce, smoked salmon, and salmon meatloaf with horseradish sauce. (All on a smörgåsbord of course). Also there was ham with 'peep' mustard (a family inside joke, a strong mustard that apparently makes a peep noise in your ears when you eat it because it's so strong), Christmas sausage, hard bread, toast, cheese, brussels sprouts, red cabbage, red-beet-salad (I've mentioned this before), boiled potatoes, lutfisk, meatballs and lingonberry jam, 'dopp i grytan' or 'dip in the pot' (dipping bread slices, usually stale, in the ham broth after boiling the Christmas ham... from the 'old days'), prinskorvar, 'mumma' (stout beer, cardamom, madeira, and unflavoured sweet soda), herrgårds snaps, julmust (christmas soda), julöl (christmas beer)
Anyway, an awful lot of fish and strong tastes. Too much for me... but I guess I will get used to it...
Christmas eve is the 'christmas' for Sweden. The big dinner is on the 24th, and presents after supper. Let's not forget that everyone watches Donald Duck at 3pm on the 24th as well.
Christmas day is the rest day. We sat around, watched Astrid Lindgren movies on TV, and hung out with some of Fredrik's friends from Eskilstuna after dinner. Many people will go out to bars and clubs on the 25th as well, it's so popular that all places raise their prices significantly.
Boxing day shopping (mellandags rea... middle days sale) was excellent at Tuna Park (Eskilstuna's indoor mall). We poked around in downtown and old town Eskilstuna on the 26th and 27th while staying at Gudmund's place (Fredrik's dad), and watched more strange Nordic TV (Ylvis, Sagan om Karl-Bertil's julafton, Trolltyg i tomteskogen , Kan du vissla Johanna).
On the 28th we headed back to Uppsala (about 2h drive). We met a few of my and Fredrik's friends, and had a super time at the new years eve gask :) Much singing and standing on chairs as usual. All in all a great holiday.
Here are the photos!
 |
| L to R: Adam, Alva, Karl, Gudmund, Per, Fredrik, Fiona (half asleep/jet-lagged), Lucja |
Monday, January 7, 2013
ops!
Mom just told me y'all were concerned because I never posted any more updates! Well, further posts are coming. Got pretty busy in Sweden and didn't realize all were checking it, otherwise I would have made a much bigger effort! Just started sorting the photos yesterday, am pretty sleepy from unpacking and first day of school back at UBC (final term... yeyyy) but will get on it tomorrow probably.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)