swedish national day cream pastry sampling

Not a single heavenly meringue in sight on Sweden's national day (June 6), these Swedish flag inspired cream pastries were pretty much the only festive thing about this weatherwise gloomy, cold, rainy day.

Above behold the dog attempt on sampling, below the not quite so discrete cat attempt (for some odd reason there's pretty much always a liquorice cat involved in such attempts).

Both pastries remained unharmed and ended up in human tummies. They were unpretentiously lovely. That is, the pastries.

meringue heaven

Probably my least favourite sweets, desserts, pastries are things involving meringue. Far, far too sugary sweet, powdery, often with a very unpleasant tang of egg white, not to mention hardly ever as delightfully sticky as one expects and wants. While a well made lemon pie is lovely, a lemon meringue pie (or any other poor pie covered in meringue) is, in my opinion, an abomination.

Having said that, I must admit that I recently by accident - and no not in a long term quest for the perfect meringue, I've long ago given up on meringue and me being something compatible - stumbled over what can quite possibly be considered the world's best meringue. Namely the ginormous meringue, from bakery/café Schelins konditori situated in small town Sala (an hour's drive or so north of Stockholm).

I do love the look of over sized flavoured meringues and as the ones on display at this café looked splendid and perfect for my mother's sweet tooth - not as discerning as her daughter's - we opted for one pear meringue to take home as a treat for her.

As a sweet and caring mother she said I could have a sample, that it was quite lovely in pear flavour and unusually sticky. And, well, let's just say that was kind of an understatement... It was not only pretty cute, it was quite heavenly in bite. A distinct but still subtle pear flavour, reasonably sweet for a meringue, no egg whitey tang and a toffee stickiness that was... divine.

When we passed Sala some weeks later we popped by the bakery and bought two other meringues, one lemon, one raspberry. Both equally goody good as the pear one. Now I'm quite, quite glad we don't live close to a bakery with such meringues, because one might easily get addicted to their sticky sweet loveliness. A loveliness that hasn't at all turned me into a meringue lover. I'm just pleased to say I've found a hidden gem, I've discovered meringue heaven.

~ Oh, and Happy National Day ~

after the lilacs

Sadly the lilacs are now withering on these latitudes. June has arrived, proper summer and no more lilacs for us this year. At least not in its natural form. From now on I will have to rely on the spring-early summer feel of the scent of lilacs in the shape of handmade Shea butter soap and scented candle with lilac scent from Swedish Klockargården. They do smell promisingly lovely so far. Even if, of course, nothing is like the real thing...

random thoughts on athens

Way overdue - something I completely blame on tin can woman's april and with that a sad lack of inspiration - my random impressions of Athens. As in Greece. Which is the place where we went, back then. Beware of longish post.

: : From entering the Athens airport to leaving the same - a whole lot of smoking going on. Everywhere. Unhealthy, non-fresh and plain nasty. I may be naive, but I really thought most modern countries had come much further than that these days...

: : A very beautiful city - reminding me of Barcelona and Berlin - , multi layered, the mix of the omnipresent ancient, the history, the mythology, the gardens, the past ones prime withered old buildings and the top modern architecture is absolutely fascinating. On many levels.

: : I still mourn the fact that I never got to, as planned, study Greek in high school. It's such a beautiful language. Even if the Greek alphabet is parent to the Cyrillic alphabet (and me once upon a time studied Russian for years), I didn't feel it was that obvious how to interpret Greek signs and letters. Such luck that most everything was translated into English then.

: : The quite surreal scene with taxi drivers quarreling over us customers already in the backseat of the car - is this the Athens way? I am indeed a long long way from home - and ended with us being so totally overcharged for a 10 minutes drive. I later read in a local brochure that it's (unfortunately) very common for Athenian taxi drivers to try and earn even a week's wages from one drive with foreign tourists. I'm pleased that when taking a taxi to the airport the driver charged quite a bit less than we had expected instead.

: : Everywhere, big and small indentations on cars. I guess they drive a bit differently than we up north.

: : An amazing looking, trains running on time, effective subway system. So clean, so pretty, so modern (apart from some of the train sets). And with reasonable ticket prices. It really, really put the very less than clean, shabby, run down with constant delays, expensive tickets (if you don't have a so called monthly card) Stockholm subway system to great shame. I don't care if the train sets here are modern, there's a whole lot to be wished for as far as service and cleanliness go.

: : Things are quite expensive for visitors from non-euro countries.

: : It's an easy to get around, accessible city, by foot, subway - yeah! - bus or tram.

: : Dill, dill, dill - there may be a time and place for dill in food (though I can't think of when really), but not like the Greek way.

: : Way too little vegetarian options on the menus. When I have Greek food in Sweden I think it's fresh, good ingredients, flavourful and lovely. It's ages since I was in Greece and I have no recollection of the food back then - and granted I may have been less discerning as a teenager than now... - but I was just so very disappointed with what was offered. With one meal's exception, where were all the great Greek salads, the halloumi, the feta, the fresh vegetables, the fruit? And yes, of course we searched and had meals off the regular tourist tracks too.

: : Dito on the hotel breakfast. A total lack of vegetables and a whole lot of cakes and cookies. Who eat such things in the morning?

: : And what's up with the sugar overload in sweets and desserts and coffee? Gosh, that was just so... not... nice.

: : It was horrible with all the dead lambs with scalped heads and bulging eyes being roasted in the streets outside restaurants during (Greek) Easter. Not that I think it's less horrible when one observes that behaviour in Sweden or elsewhere. Nasty wherever, whenever.

: : My one food love during the trip was the simply amazing freshly squeezed fruit drinks, orange, fruit punch, banana, peach, available at most every café and restaurant. Now that's making the most of fresh and ripe local ingredients. I could live on those (and probably did).

: : A glass of water served with every order, without having to ask for it, in cafés and restaurants. Thumbs up.

: : The plethora of stray dogs and cats left me incredibly and totally sad. As well as made me think of how we keep our pets in Sweden. Those overall thoughts in a very own post to come.

: : I think it's quite strange that in many countries with warmer climate people tend to wear a whole lot more clothes than climate necessary. A lot of clothes and a lot of black clothes. In the hot spring sun.

: : Athenian women seem to care a lot about their hair and hairstyles. They look good. And their hair seem to be of a quite enviable quality compared to our in general sadly lack of oomf thin Scandinavian hair.

: : The swoon factor regarding intellectual men with grey temples charm is rather high in Athens.

: : Greek fashion and street style is just very not... me.

: : The Athenians seem to be friendly and accommodating, in general.

: : But the problem with countries, cities depending on tourism is not only that they are very touristy - I loath ingratiating, obtrusive throw ins and cringing sale clerks - if the tourists fail to meet the expectations, asking for reasonable substitutes, questioning things (in a polite manner) the ingratiating behaviour can quickly turn snotty and quite unpleasant.

: : It was actually a very good thing to (accidentally) travel to Athens during the Greek Easter, by comparison a liberating lack of hoards of tourists and a whole lot of free entrance to different attractions and must-sees.

: : The scent of Athens for me is the enchanting, wonderful all-embracing scent of orange blossoms in spring.

There will be more posts on Athens, Greece. And, needless to say, photos. If you just can't wait til the photos appear in blog, then you might want to have a look at Flickr.

cow, castle and old man's head

This isn't the name of a pub. At least not one I'm familiar with. This is just me thinking life doesn't get much better than this; a sunny, warm Swedish early summer, a green green field full of old men's heads - nothing gory, only oversized head shaped grass tufts - a mild breeze, an encounter of the sweet cow kind and a free entrance castle ruin to explore. Life is good ~

the doors

Another installation belonging to the ongoing (until Oct 3) outdoor art exhibition at Rosendal's Garden here in Stockholm. Quirky, weird, wistful, witty and quite wonderful unpretentious, these worn doors with different signs do make a statement. And make you contemplate life and death. Some door samples ~

: I'll go out in the sun again :

: I'm a little willow sparrow :

: I can be my own priest :

: I have my own cemetery :

: I rest here between 12-13 :

: I smile inside :

left behind too

At Djurgården not only poor soft toys get left to their own devices, also rather snazzy purple tartan glasses are strangely enough discarded. Strange times we live in.

apple hook report # 4

I'm the first one to admit I thought these brass apple hooks would be an instant hit amongst the neighbourhood birds (with wings and feathers), and then being quite, quite disappointed when the sadly weren't. I did kind of despair about the usefulness of the investment a while there.

But the magpie showed the way and from then on the wee ones have been sort of thrilled about the challenge the dangling from a brass hook apple offers. The above last week half nibbled red apple now look like the below second servings green apple (on the hook that offers perfect seating for magpies).

The above remains of the second servings green apple have now been replaced with a shiny new red apple. Still nibble free as far as my eye can spot. The first servings red apple will be replaced with a new one tomorrow.

The ones who mainly seem to be feasting on the apples these days is the bird family residing in my neighbour's birdhouse. Living in a bird butcher free garden, still close enough to have free access to fancy apples on brass hooks. And they make quite a thing about the fact that they can easily flap their wings back and forth over the fence just to twitter and tease the less than flying furry bunch on the apple treat side of the paling. They're adorable, even if tad late with showing appreciation with my pretty brass investment.

Follow the (bird nerdy, not) apple hook story from the beginning;

hooked on apples

apple hook report # 1

apple hook report # 2

apple hook report # 3

from the sparrow's nest

In this cute box - yes there were even tiny green leaves hiding in there as well as a cutie miniature thank you note in miniature envelope, very love-actually-ish, more than much appreciated by undersigned - hid earrings, handmade, birds, precious materials that compliments dark hair very well, how can an earring fancier not love such a treat?

I'm so very happy that the gifted creator, who specializes in sweet woodland theme pieces, managed to find some more of this quartz so I could finally get a pair of my own. The tiny birds are made of polymer clay and they're totally adorable.

Sharing the box with the earrings were a couple of tiny twigs bronzed hairpins - perfect for my new-ish hair of course -, which are exquisitely delicate and the photo really doesn't do them full justice.

More talented work of Mai's you'll find in her
The Sparrow's Nest Etsy shop

life with one self proclaimed cat herder

It never seize to amaze me how the annoyingly mischiveous loafshaped trouble instigator of a dog blatantly refuses, after almost six years, to learn proper cat-ish and insist on speaking loaf-dog-ish with the cats.

Excitingly offering his skills as a self proclaimed cat herder in every situation tad bit involving cats. Prunella adores Malte, but I bet there are times when she really very much wonders about the sanity of sharing home and roof with such a pestering tyke.