feeding ducks

Today's duckfeeding in Norrtälje was actually one of the loveliest things I've done in 2013. We've passed the flock of ducks there by the river so many times and every time I'm bummed because we have no bread crumbs. Today I actually remembered to get some from the freezer before we left home.



Granted they are likely to be the most spoiled and well fed ducks in Sweden, but still irresistably cute, friendly and chatty.



Felt like the Pied Piper amidst the bird gang.



On one of the last shivering days of 2013 we made some BFFs. Heart to that.

a pippi pattern day

Today was the perfect day of inauguration of the Pippi sweater - it kept me lovely and warm all day, but not too warm, and I wore it with shorts. There was also a rather amuzing incident with a little boy who just couldn't stop tugging his parents arms, staring at me and what I presume was the sweater. I think he thought I was a real, life sized, grown up Pippi.



Luck (or unluck since I'm suddenly lusting after a lot of Pippi-patterned matters...) would have it than on our stroll through small-town Norrtälje we spotted lots of just that, Pippi-patterned things. Knitted, crocheted, woven, printed. The interest suddenly seem to have exploded and I'm not sure I'm fond of such an explosion, even if I adore the pattern. In my world slightly offbeat is to be prefered any day.





Still, I'm totally going to make a Pippi kettle-holder. And I couldn't resist getting a rather awesome table cloth (from company Isle of Sweden). Woven and chunky. It will look lovely on my kitchen table - seriously kitties, no clawing on the table cloth - and I think it's safe to say that we are all quite smitten by it.



Even if we all don't feel like it's a super idea having a good roll around on it.

homage to blue skies

As we've (very less than) enjoyed a couple or *rather* rainy and chilly weeks here and now supposedly we have (only) a couple of days to enjoy a dash of sun, a tad of blue skies before it all begins pouring down in rain again, I thought I'd give a wee homage to (Swedish) blue skies. As I believe they are awe inspiring, amazing ~

my very own honeysuckle shrub against an amazing sky

one pretty tower house under a smashing sky in falun, dalecarlia

who knew cement works could be this beautiful?

well at least under a bluer than blue sky in dalecarlia

not exactly blue skies, but very lovely blue just the same,

and more about this blue coloured stage performance in dalecarlia later

vidablick view tower in dalecarlia

the lake siljan view from vidablick above

the (infamous for its ugliness) norrtälje harbour silo.

everything goes pretty against blue skies

husby-sjuhundra quiet countryside church

mörby castle (ruin)

have yourselves a blue skied wednesday ~

Eating Out - Café Landkrabban, Norrtälje

At the day of Stina Smitten's 1 year gotchaversary we found ourselves in the vicinity of Café Landkrabban (Landlubber), Norrtälje town and thought it would be befitting to have a celebratory lunch there. Stina did get a chair of her own, but being a handbag and having to mind her looks, did only get to feast her eyes on the food.

We humans however enjoyed the food immensly and I must say that I'm most always quite pleased than not with the food, drink and service at this tiny café, be it summer or winter. Definitely my favourite place for unpretentious, light food served by nice staff when in that heck of the Swedish woods, as opposed to other more hyped places nearby...

Delicious feta cheese ciabatta sandwich

Ginormous serves two for dessert lovely, moist carrot cake

Lovely, simple fetacheese quinoa salad with an amazing herb dressing

Rather nice lemon cake

As tea should be served in big cups, thumbs up for that far from unimportant detail

Café Landkrabban
Tillfällegatan 12, Norrtälje
Mon-Fri 10-18 (10am-6pm)
Sat 10-17, Sun 11-16 (10am-5pm, 11am-4pm)

The Synchronized Duckiest Boys

I proudly present the Synchronized Duckiest Boys, the feathering bird wonder ~

The show was fantastic and I didn't even bring food. *Sorry 'bout that, boys. promise to do better when I'll be back for the rerun*

In the groove

What I was going to write about yesterday, before my thoughts wandered away into the meaning of friends, acquaintances and networking..., was that those friends also know pretty much everything there is to know about eating out at different odd places in the part of Sweden called Roslagen. Places you'd probably never would have discovered otherwise, since they're not exactly always run-of-the-mill-easy-to-find-places.

So now and then we take the Toy Car, meet up with their equivalence of a toy car - of course not nearly as cute and perfect as the #1 Toy Car, but a car that for some odd reason make car-buffs almost bow in awe... - and head out in the unknown, for us city folks.

Those drives mostly involve archipelago and a ferry trip or two. And this time it was an old, far from common in Sweden anymore cable ferry which took us over the Furusund inlet to the island of Högmarsö. Fascinating stuff, even for someone as utterly uninterested in things technical and electrical, yours truly for example.

The place of dining this time was a place owned and worked by the proprietor of a restaurant in Norrtälje by the name Ett Glas/One Glass. The shrewdness of the restaurant though, was that it was being lodged with the old ship yard at Högmarsö. Not the average place for a restaurant, amongst all that hotchpotch junkyard stuff, there's actually a restaurant, and quite a good one too. Cool!

One of the larger things that could be found at the ship/junkyard was actually a small submarine from a James Bond-movie. It was a bit fuzzy as to which movie it had played a more or less significant role in. Since I'm far from a James Bond-fan I'm not sure, can it be "Dr No"? Anyone who has a clue?

Trying to figure that out I stumbled over this rather fun list of vehicles used by James Bond. I'm not sure which is my favourite, the BMW Z8 do has quite a resemblance to the Toy Car *surprise - not*, but I am more of a Rolls Royce and/or old British sportscar kind of gal in heart... Do you have a favourite James Bond-vehicle?

Back to the restaurant. You can choose from eating indoors or outdoors by the water - this time of year that choice is easier than easy... But even so, it was really lovely renovated indoors.

If it rains they use this huge level-luffing crane to lower down a tent over the outdoors eating-area. Love the ingeniousness of all the details, and to work with what's already there!

My favourite part of the whole place was the newly opened bar and lounge area at an old ship, with old, comfy furniture and a well-stocked bar of pretty much all you might want to have, alcoholic as well as non-alcoholic beverages. Very unpretentious and - as I've already mention James Bond and the 60ies... - groovy!

For dinner it was the perfect time to try the new xider-flavour Strawberry Desire. Cute bottle, yummy content, I'd say dangerously delicious and non-alcoholic tasting...

And here are some selected pictures of the food we had - and if someone perhaps harbour the thought that I slurped everything of it myself, that's just not the case... -

Garlic bread

Delicious fish-marmite with saffron an aioli

Yummy rhubarb & strawberry pie

Chiliglazed pineapple with coconut icecream

Chocolate truffles at sunset

After that very enjoyable dinner we had a walked around and then a drink at the bar. Oh my, that comfy old armchair on deck welcomed me like a long lost friend and if I'd been able to I'd probably never ever leave...

Kind of awesome to be able to enjoy the Sunday evening sunset on deck, with friends and a delicious drink - Vanilla Sky - overlooking the junk/shipyard in one direction and the picturesque archipelago in the other, with those huge Finland ferries breaking the horizon line now and then.

If you don't arrive with your own boat - which I guess is a rather lovely spur-of-the-moment thing to do, take the boat and head for a good restaurant in the archipelago neighbourhood if you don't feel like cooking - you have to adapt yourself to the ferry timetable. The ferry runs about once every half hour from 6 am to 10 pm.

And if you're lucky on your way back home, you might be able to enjoy a glorious Swedish summer sunset. Bliss.