tedx stockholm - what's cooking?

Mikael Kristiansen, contemporary circus artist

Yesterday's TEDx Stockholm salon had the title "What's cooking?" with talks about food as a source for filling physical, emotional and social needs.



My favourite talk one was by Ebba Åkerman who has created the "Invitationsdepartementet" (The Departement of Invitations) in order to further integration by encouraging people to invite people from other cultures to dinners in their homes. That cultural clashes can be enriching, educational, creating understanding and new ideas. Perhaps even give you new friends? And eating good food and have fun is never a bad idea. Sharing a meal is food culture at its finest.

So far 42 dinners have been eaten via the Department of Invitations - her aim is to have 10000 eaten before the Swedish election in September.



Favourite talk two was by best-selling investigative reporter and author Mats-Eric Nilsson, whose books sparked a profound debate in Scandinavia about food additives and adulterated food. His work has influenced both consumers and food producers to change habits. He's currently editor-in-chief of Swedish food magazine Hunger.

Personally it was a long time since I bought the kind of food products he talked/write about. Since a basic rule is fewer, fresh, natural, organic ingredients are always better. But I'm still horrified about the dirty business the food industry in many ways is. And still so many people are hungry on this planet of ours...

Here are 3 simple advices that you as a consumer can do to change your life and the world;

1. Read the label on the food package. If you can't pronounce or understand the ingredients list, don't buy the food product!
2. Turn off the auto-pilot when you go to the grocery store. Instead buy food in season.
3. Cook from scratch. Use fresh ingredients you understand.




Dorotea Malmegård, former chef at fancy restaurants all over the world, now running a home restaurant and catering business


Niklas Ekstedt, TV-chef, restaurateur in Stockholm, one being a Michelin star-restaurant, and cook-book author

It was a fine evening spent, but it would have been great with at least one talk that made more of the connection food - health - sustainability - compassion. By someone passionate who has ideas and goals of creating a better society.

By now we're used to the quality of the speakers being very varied at these events (which are still overall very enjoyable of course). Just because someone is a celebrity doesn't mean the someone has something interesting to say, ideas worth spreading.

The truly inspirational oomph we got fed by this awesome guy, Ron Finley, guerilla gardener in Los Angeles. Do listen to the talk! As usual inspirational life stories and passionate, creative ideas for creating a better world always trumps a celebrity status as such.

sausage-dog cake shovel

Because every home needs one. Or at least the home of undersigned. Clearly falls into the category of things I didn't know I needed until I saw them.

With a window display that makes you smile and tempt you to enter, this shop always delivers. A great place for quirky gifts and a pleasing assortment of Moomin stuff too. Like a peaceful tea towel and such.

the littlest gardener

This one consider herself the greatest purry gardening help in the whole wide world - it's an exhausting job my somecat has to do it!



Let's just say she's completely exaggerating her part in it. I've got the leg/s to prove I've been doing my bit - it looks worse than it is, I just got pretty dirty, cleansing for the garden, body and mind that is - she's not the least bit dirty. As you can see the cats were of no help at all actually. If you don't count the "Look there's something new lying on the lawn, let's see if it's good for a nap"-attitude for help.



Baking an awesome pie was also a great part of the weekend. Just doing the most of the latest batch of kind eggs. Eating it was probably even better. Raspberry, apple, cherry and almond pie it was. I found some unidentifiable berries in the freezer which I threw into the pie, turned out they were indeed cherries, kernels intact. Glad I realised that before I bit really hard into one. Other than that, the eating of the pie was pure bliss.



And then there was this meet cute, "Hi, Hedgehog, my name is Chubs, lovely to meet you!" -

thus all and all a lovely, relaxing weekend, just the way I wanted it to be. Thank you for that.

Now I'm all set and ready for a week of wonderful things to happen ~

the yarn triangle

The plan for this yarn triangle is that it will become a knitted skirt. Initially thought I'd crochet it, but decided against it since it would take too much yarn to get a reasonable sized one. And with the eternity shawl in fresh memory, that's not something I'd like to happen again...

Dutifully inspected and paw approved. After the inspection the inspector felt a bit frisky and decided the yarn balls had to be tried out as play things. Such is the drawback of having paw inspectors I suppose, they (always) have their own agenda.

Haven't felt like spending yarn time lately, but I will soon I'm sure. First the forever tulip sweater needs finishing... And then, hey summer skirt to be, you'll have all my attention!

work, pug, cake

Today was Friday the 13th, to be honest I had expected amazing things and fireworksy matters to happen. But perhaps small blessings and sweet things can be considered fireworks in disguise. In that case these three matters are my favourites of this June 13 -

1. The finishing of a rather extensive copywriting assignment - and learning a lot along the way, not everything pleasant unfortunately. It made me think a lot about how presumptiously we humans keep treating the environment and nature, like its the most natural thing to do... And then someone like I steps in and sugarcoat the matters with smooth talking words... - recharging for the last bits with smoothie goodness and encouraging small sized woollies. And somehow all is well. For the here and now. From my point of view.



2. The entusiastic visit of one special pug. Amongst very sceptical cats. The third day of faces that says it all...



3. The baking of a cake. This time a geranium cake I've been meaning to bake for ages. Or as it happens to be called in Swedish; 'Pias pelargonkaka' ie Pia's geranium cake - not named after me, but a splendid name choice anyway. It turned out lovely and special. Will blog the recipe another day.

Now I'm simply ready for a relaxing weekend.
How about you?

so close yet so far away

My mind works in pictures (easily transformed into words, I'm grateful to add) and my associative ability isn't half bad. So when I captured the hedgehog cat meeting yesterday it reminded me so much of this old picture. The two plump babies meet.

Baby to the left is me, baby to the right is a neighbour boy. My grandmother was friends with his grandmother, but I don't think we ever played actually, not even when we got older. We probably didn't have that much in common, besides a piece of lawn on opposite sides of a fence. So close, yet so far away. But at least we got that special moment immortalised. And it makes me smile.

Just look at those faces. Their expressions. From hedgehog to cat to two plump babies. With associative abilities everything is possible. The imagination is your oyster.

happiness is a home office with a hedgehog

A recurring discussion amongst friends and acquaintances is whether working from home is fab or drab. As a creative closet extrovert (ie a social introvert) I can see no negative aspects at all of having a (perfect, pink) home office. I get so much more work done on my own, in a calm environment I've chosen myself without tiresome distractions.

And when I feel my closet extrovert insisting on company and social activities off-line it's the easiest thing to book lunches, coffee dates and meetings with potential business partners and clients to bounce ideas. And friends of course. Meeting them, not bouncing them.

Quality development and further education you get from seminars (and a surprising amount of them are free) and taking classes not to mention new, exciting collaborations. And variety with its friend curiousity are the spices of life, that allow us to grow and develop.

But if I wasn't the lucky gal with a fab pink home office I wouldn't be able to pause from working, taking only a few steps to get to the summer garden for a bit of r&r.

And I wouldn't be blessed with a meet cute of the hedgehog kind in the middle of the day.

And I certainly wouldn't be even more blessed with having the meet cute getting even cuter as in cat meets hedgehog scenes.



Just. Look. At. That. Face. (Those. Expressions.)

Thus the conclusion must be that happiness is indeed a home office. With a hedgehog. And cats. And a garden close at hand.

let's bake a cake

Four months ago I promised someone on Instagram to blog about the recipe for this vegan banana bread/cake. Better late than never.

When I have kind eggs at home I use them and butter/oil, but when I don't I make it vegan instead.

Banana bread

1 banana (or 2 kind eggs)
1,5 dl mascobado sugar

75 g rapeseed oil (or liquid butter/oil)
0,5 dl almond milk
2 bananas

3 dl flour
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp baking powder
0,5 tsp baking soda

Set oven for 175C. Grease a 1,5L baking tin and use breadcrumbs.
Whisk one mashed banana and sugar together (or eggs and sugar).
Add the oil (or the liquid butter/oil), the milk and the two mashed bananas to the mixture. Whisk.
Sift the flour, cinnamon, baking powder and baking soda into the bowl. Whisk.
Pour the mixture into the baking tin and bake in lower part of the oven for about 45 minutes.

The cake will be slightly denser without the eggs but very enjoyable just the same.

You can also add some coarsely chopped dark chocolate in the mixture, it complements the banan flavour well.

Serve with vanilla ice cream (Tofuline).

lager than life, bunny's juice and other campaigns

Four marketing campaigns that have caught my eye lately, in a good way - though as usual, good advertising doesn't mean the companies/products are enjoyable.

First one is quite probably the cutest one I've seen in a long, long time. Even if cats rule everything (including the internetz) you can get a long, long way with using a poster bunny. It's a campaign for organic juices containing carrots and beetroots. Being a carrot lover and second to that a beetroot head I had to try them of course.



But sadly
a) they're made from concentrates - and when you either can buy fruit juices that are actually made from pure fruit which taste lovely or use your fab juicer there's no reason whatsoever to buy this stuff.
b) they don't taste very good at all.

Conclusion: a cute bunny campaign will only get you so far, when your product doesn't deliver in quality and taste not even the bunny will save you. Nor will the "organic" stamp.





Second one is a great one, with a simple message that make you think. And for a good cause. Instead of all these endless diet campaigns for loosing weight - when we all know that eat healthy and well, do a spot of exercising and consume less calories than you use is a pretty basic and sound way of doing it, should you want to - this one says "Gain weight and stay there!" and "Natural weight gain!". "The Oxfam-method, now in 94 countries". A simple and effective way to get an important message out there. I like it a lot. I hope lots of others do to.



Third one. I adore a good pun. And if it's in Swenglish it might be even better. Although granted I know it's not everyone's cup of tea - and there is a vast difference between clever Swenglish and ridiculous. Unfortunately a lot of Swedish commercials fall into the annoyingly ridiculous Swenglish category these days - contrary to popular belief, not every Swede understands English and appreciate mixed messages (pun intended).

But I, I do appreciate this goofy one, for a low cost petrol station chain - "Billig and proud" = "Cheap och stolt". Corny and fun. Not that it would entice me to fill my car (if I had one) at their stations, but I can enjoy a simple silly copy-thing anyway. And good colours.

Fourth one. It's a music video for a discount chain for home electronics, warehouse style, called NetOnNet. When I need something electronicky (like a red vacuum or replacing a stolen iPhone) I often get it there, no need to pay for fancy storage or staff when you can pick what you want from a warehouse shelf.

Their latest campaign is called "Lager than life", lager = warehouse in Swedish, so this video is all about a clever pun. And of course it's a paraphrase of the Backstreet Boys' old tune "Larger than life". I chuckled a lot over it initially, "how silly, five guys imitating Backstreet Boys, but in a rather entertaining way..." - before I realised it was indeed the Backstreet Boys themselves singing and dancing dressed as warehouse workers. Now I can't stop watching the video and chuckle even more about it.

Because
a) did they get a ridiculous sum of money for doing it? or
b) are they so out of musical fashion they need to do this kind of stuff to pay the bills?
If it's a) I do hope they gave the money to charitable causes.

Now go watch it and chuckle. Nb the hilariously absurd choreography details of the background "dancers". Pretty sure they must have had great fun recording the whole thing. Because I'm totally entertained in a flabbergasted kind of way.

my soul-feeding weekend of smultronställen

Ah, the importance of being occupied with loveliness to keep one's imagination from working overtime. I don't like second guessing myself but it's easier said than done. While playing the waiting game. Perhaps I could have done that a bit better, what if I'd tweaked that a dash, maybe that wasn't so good in hindsight? Even if it's better to complete something and be 95% happy with it than aiming for 100% and never complete. Getting things done is after all always the better option.

That said I'm so grateful for having spent a long weekend in an overall blessed way. A smultronställe galore kind of weekend. Keeping unnecessary no good second guessing thoughts at bay. I needed that. Glorious summer weather. Toy car. Good food. Good drinks. Good fika. Good conversation. Gardens. Luxuary. A city to love. Cats, hedgehogs, dogs, horses, sheep, chickens. And a great inauguration of summer sandals.

Let's get visual!


one of the loveliest salads i've ever had, a vegetarian caesar salad at grand hotel (the place were you get the best afternoon tea in Stockholm). such a treat.

one of the prettiest, most luxurious toilets i've ever had the pleasure to visit (bad soaps though). and a selfie that screamed to be taken. 

stockholm, you fine thing!

äppelfabriken

under the lilacs we had sunday brunch...



every garden with self-respect should have a blue corner

a meadow with a baaah

two tiny baby chickens and their mum

And that was my soul-feeding weekend, which I'm humbly grateful about.
I do believe I'm ready for a week of truly awesome.