Wednesday Food Rant: What’s with the cheese [obsession]? and burger etiquette

The Wednesday recipe is today substituted by a food rant However, if you are interested in an inspirational food blog – check out my friend Erika’s Food Blog (in Swedish). She publishes weekly menus and yummy but simple recipes. It is quite fitting that I refer to Erika today as we share an obsession for the Alpine cheese speciality raclette ever since we studied French together in Annecy, France*!

Swiss cheese specialities in Gruyère, Switzerland

Standard question in the US: Do you want cheese with that? which often becomes Don’t you want cheese?* Bitchy Petchie thinks “I would have ordered a cheese burger if I wanted cheese with my burger!” However, most of the time you don’t even have a choice; cheesy omelettes, spinach with cheese, cheesy scrambled eggs, mashed potatoes with cheese, artichoke dip with melted cheese, cheesy hash – the list goes on…

Not the best illustration of a egg-and-cheese-biscuit (since I didn’t open the wrapper) I got as breakfast on the plane last week. I only ate half of the muffin as I had already eaten a proper sandwich at the airport, and didn’t touch the scarily cheesy biscuits…

I read a recipe in Elle Decor (US edition) for Duck-and-egg hash, where it was first of all claimed that “putting potatoes together with meat is distinctly American“, which I would beg to differ – what about the Swedish pyttipanna or the Danish biksemad? But yes, the recipe was distinctly American in the sense that it contained 4 oz of cheddar!

What’s with the cheese obsession in the US? I probably sound like a snobby European, but if you love cheese so much – why don’t you eat the real deal, instead of “cheese”? Processed cheese doesn’t even taste like cheese, and is so full of preservatives and additives. It does seem like there has been a turn lately in the cheese habits of the Americans, at least in the ads on TV it is increasingly common to point out that the pizza is made with “real cheese” or that the cheese is not “processed” but made the traditional way.

I am also fascinated by the little variety of cheese: I head Rachael Ray say once “Gruyère tastes similar to Swiss” – You don’t say, Gruyère IS a Swiss cheese!! And what is “Swiss” cheese anyway, that’s like calling a cheese “French”! Switzerland has 450 types of cheese (and France even more), while the US seems to have American, Swiss, Monterey Jack and cheddar. You would expect a cheese-loving people to demand a little more when it comes to taste, texture and ingredients.

Real Swiss cheese in Gruyère, Switzerland

Don’t get me wrong, I like cheese too, but there’s a time and a place for it! I don’t want cheese in every dish – scrambled eggs are perfectly tasty without cheese, mashed potatoes as well, while I do like a slice of cheese on my morning sandwich. I had breakfast at the hotel in New Jersey last Friday and was a little surprised to realise that there was no cheese on the breakfast buffet. Quite a few types of bread (well, two types of ready-sliced bread, and different kinds of bagels) but only jam, cream cheese and peanut butter. In the end I didn’t have any bread, just some cereal, hash browns and fruit salad.

Our cheese [and ham] drawer in the fridge – and I do not take any responsibility for the tube of Swedish “Kräftost” (Crayfish “cheese”), nor the slices of “Swiss cheese product”!

In our household we eat our fair share of cheese; O’s yummy sandwiches for breakfast on the weekends, and O loves a snack of the above crayfish “cheese” on a piece of bread. I also do acknowledge that this kind of Swedish “cheese” is not better than American processed “cheese”, but to my excuse I don’t actually eat it. The “Swiss cheese product”, next to the cheese tube in the above photo, was left behind by our youngest visitor – whose mother noted that it was obvious that her daugther was American-born since she had refused to eat ”real cheese” when she was in Sweden! O’s family absolutely loves Swedish hard cheese and we always bring a few kilos when we go to Spain from Sweden, while my parents love the Spanish Manchego, a type of sheep’s cheese.

Mexican cheese in a Tijuana market

Finally, I also find it interesting that Rachael Ray (who I by the way, do like) will say that a dish that she is making is really healthy because it has a lot of vegetables, and then she pours in a cup or two of cheese!! Oh well, that’s like putting cream on your breakfast porridge, as shown on ads for Reddi Whip***; just another one of those American phenomena I am so fascinated with. Maybe it is just an ad (let’s hope), but the idea of whipped cream on porridge feels like a sacrilege – porridge that can be such a healthy choice for breakfast…

And for an etiquette question, more or less related to cheese:

When you are in a proper restaurant (i.e not a fast-food joint), and you have ordered a hamburger, with or without cheese, do you eat it with your hands or with cutlery? I always eat it with fork and knife, which I realise maybe is completely against the idea of a burger but I don’t like eating stuff with my hands (too messy) and I usually don’t eat the top part of the bread (usually too much bread for me). What about you?

NB. The question refers to eating a burger in a proper restaurant, i.e not in McDonald’s, Wendy’s or Burger King…

*) We also studied in Linköping but that didn’t leave any long-lasting food memory!?
**) Almost comparable to the reaction you get in the  UK when you don’t want milk with your tea!
***) I won’t get started on what I think about whipped “cream” sold in a can – something I have hated since I was a child and I learnt to order “eis ohne sahne” in German!

Wednesday recipe: Salmon & avocado salad + Etiquette poll on toilet lid manners

It is still Wednesday in my part of the world and here’s a recipe to prove it

Salmon & Avocado Salad
1 piece of salmon filet (~400 grams)
2 tablespoons French Dijon mustard
1 tablespoon olive oil
3 tablespoons dill, parsley or tarragon
1 teaspoon coarse (Kosher) salt
freshly ground black pepper
crispy lettuce (such as Iceberg or romaine)
1 big avocado
1 onion – chopped
1 lemon – juice and peel
a handful of pickled gherkins – chopped

Heat the oven to 200 degrees C (400 degrees F). Mix the mustard, olive oil, black pepper, salt, chopped gherkins and onion, lemon peel and herbs in a small bowl. Spread the mixture evenly on the salmon and bake in the oven approximately 10-15 minutes.
Cut or tear the lettuce and put in a salad bowl. Cut the avocado in small cubes and add to the lettuce, sprinkle some lemon juice on top.
Serve the salad mixed with the oven-baked salmon and some bread.

(Recipe inspired by “Varm laxsallad med avokado” from the book Kärlek, Oliver och Timjan by Anna and Fanny Bergenström)
 

And now to the etiquette poll: Toilet lid manners!

As you know, we have had a lot of visitors to our home here in Puerto Rico, and when you spend time close to family and friends for a while, you notice certain habits… One of the things that has struck me the most is that very few, men and women, put down the lid after using the toilet! The lid, not the ring – which fortunately most men do lower after having done their business…

I have also noticed that in almost every home shown on my favourite tv channel, HGTV, the toilet lid is always up! This in homes that have been staged, styled and designed to be sold! Am I the only person who thinks that it looks nicer if the lid is closed?? Isn’t that the reason why there is one?

So, I am curious – let me know your thoughts on “toilet lid manners”…

Every time I walk past the guest bathroom and I can see that the lid is up, I have to enter and close it… I am sure a lot of people think it is silly and O is definitely one of them! We have been discussing the “raison d’être” of the toilet lid, and I always try to suggest that it might have been invented so to avoid that people accidentally drop something into the toilet, or so that you can use it as a seat but most of all – it is there to be closed!

“You haven’t forgotten anything? Did you lower the lid and flush?” (apparently the French speakers only need to be reminded to flush…)

However, it can’t just be me, because I found these signs (above and below) displayed in the toilets* in the Alliance Francaise!

Might seem superfluous to remind the “users” to flush – but after having worked in a hotel as a cleaning lady, I know that a lot of people seem to forget (??) to do this… In many places in Puerto Rico (and in Greece!) you are asked to throw the toilet paper in the trash can (zafacón is Puerto Rican Spanish) because the sewage system is so bad.

Speaking of toilets, I might have mentioned already that the exterior of our building is being renovated and painted – we have now, after ~3 months, reached the painting phase, which means that the construction workers are doing their second round of the four walls. This morning I heard that they were somewhere outside our master bedroom and decided to go to the loo in the guest bathroom instead. Just when I am sitting there, I can hear the “window-cleaner lift” approaching outside… and voilà, it stops right outside the bathroom window!! Fortunately I was behind a shower curtain, but still, needless to say I didn’t feel very relaxed about the situation!

Outside the bathroom window this morning…

A few minutes later I was sitting in front of the computer in my pj’s when I heard voices behind me – arrggghh, they seemed to be everywhere today! I am starting to feel besieged, and quite frankly tired of having people outside the windows – on the 9th floor!

*) And yes, I am European and I am not afraid of calling a toilet a toilet (or even “loo”) - half-baths, powder rooms etc sound just silly in my ears!

Wednesday recipe: Apple & Pear Cakes and an Etiquette Poll on Tipping…

It is apple harvest times at the moment, which I notice on the blog as the most popular post (by search machines) at the moment is my recipe for apple cake from last year. I decided to make my favourite apple cake on Monday, and when I read the recipe posting, I realised that it was in parts almost identical to my text from last Thursday… Opps, I am apparently repeating myself every year around the end of September – I seem to have an idealised image of autumn in my mind! Anyhow, today is Wednesday and you are getting TWO recipes for cakes:

1. Try my best ever apple cake recipe (see link, the Swedish version of the recipe is at the end of the post) but use both apples and pears (I also used Half-and-half as we didn’t have sour cream at home). O described the flavour yesterday: “The first flavour and texture that you notice is the pear, but then right at the end the taste of the apple hits you” – I think he could become a food critic!
2. For the yummiest Pear-Almond Cake with Chocolate Chunks (see link to Rachael Ray’s Everyday web-site) – this cake is soooo good that I made it three weeks in a row and we had to get more Belgian chocolate brought from Belgium (as I just refuse to cook with American chocolate, sorry!)

 

And now to the etiquette question of the week: Do you tip at the hairdresser’s and if yes, how much?

Of course this depends on where in the world you live – in Europe, the US or somewhere else… In Europe I have never tipped a hairdresser, as I always assume that service is included when comes to a service, if you see what I mean! Maybe it also depends on whether you go to a big hairdress salon where different people take care of you (washing the hair, cutting it, colouring and styling it etc), or if you go to a small place where the same person does everything?

 

In Puerto Rico the beauty parlours are quite simply called El Beauty – this one is located in the Old San Juan

O and I went to the hairdresser on Saturday – we actually go to Sears where O has his favourite, German, hairdresser. It is funny, I always end up with male hairdressers and O with female ones! I don’t know if this is a Puerto Rican phenomenon or if it is just coincidence?? Anyhow, we are always a little stressed about how much we should tip the hairdresser afterwards, and on Saturday we both paid $5 each in tips. It meant that I tipped my male hairdresser 25% and O gave 33% to the female counterpart. Afterwards we discussed if this was not a little too much, but O, who by the way hates tipping, referred to an article he had read in Women’s Health*:

Tips on tipping:

• Stylist (I guess the one cutting your hair): 15-20% of service
• Colorist: 15-20% of service
• Stylist’s assistance: $10-20
• Shampooer: $3-5
• Blow-out person: $10
• Coat-check girl: $1

Phew!! That’s a lot of tipping (and a lot of money!). However, our hairdressers shampoo and cut our hair, we declined el blower service (funny, in French it is called le brushing) and well, we don’t wear coats in Puerto Rico… I was happy to give a big (?) tip to the guy cutting my hair because he did a really good job – much better than the Spanish girl in Zaragoza who did my hair in less than 30 minutes (including washing and drying!) this summer. So, how much would you have tipped?

A closed down barber’s shop in the Old San Juan…

*) He reads whatever he finds next to the toilet – one of his favourite magazines is the Swedish interior design magazine Sköna Hem – unfortunately he can’t pronunce the name 

Wednesday recipe: Fish “en papillote” & Banana etiquette…

Once again Wednesday and for the first time in a few weeks, I am ready to publish another Wednesday recipe and etiquette poll.

No, I am not telling you to eat hair curlers (papiljotter in Swedish means hair curlers). The recipe is dedicated to Marianne in Cairo, who a few months ago* wrote a blog post complaining about the blandness of cooking fish in aluminium foil in the oven… O and I love making fish “en papillote”, the French name for what my parents call “fish in foil” (fisk i folie) and which they always do on the barbecue in the summer (my father loves this kind of cooking as he doesn’t have to clean the grill afterwards). In France this kind of dishes used to be made in paper instead of foil, hence the name which refers to the curling paper in French.

Not fish “en papillote”, but a dish I ate at Daniel’s Sea Food in Humacao – a simple but great seafood restaurant!

I hope that this recipe won’t prove to be bland – I have been experimenting with different ingredients, for example we think that it is better to make the dish with thick pieces of fish, i.e not tilapia and other thinner types of fish, and this is our favourite. It might even be served for dinner tonight again!

Fish en papillote

O’s spicy olive oil (or another spicy olive oil / use extra spices, such as chilli or cayenne pepper, garlic and some herbs)
1 potato per person
1 carrot
1 tomato
1 onion
fresh dill
1 lemon; juice and peel
4-6 shrimps per person / peeled
1 thick piece of a white fish, such as cod, per person
salt & pepper

Turn the oven to 250 degrees C / 480 F.

Thinly slice the pototoes, tomato, and onion into slices, and the carrot into thin sticks. Spread a little oil on one large piece of aluminium foil per person. Layer the ingredients – first potato slices, add a little more oil and salt & pepper, the fish and then the carrot sticks, onion (generous amounts if you like onion), shrimp and tomato slices. Squeeze lemon juice on top as well as adding some grated lemon peel. Finally sprinkle fresh dill and olive oil over the quite high stacks of fish and vegetables. Close the aluminium wraps and cook in the oven until the fish is ready - 20-30 minutes.

NB. Be generous with the amounts of olive oil, it really makes a difference in flavour, especially if using a spicy oil! In this household we always use olive oil in abundance as is the Spanish way   

The etiquette question can seem extremely silly, but my French friend S and I were actually discussing this on Saturday while eating some bananas and standing on the street (or rather pavement) waiting for our ride to the beach. I made the comment that a mutual friend of ours told me once that she would never eat a banana in public – or at least not biting directly from the fruit. We both agreed that it seems so silly - some kind of paranoia about other people’s dirty minds…

Bananas and a banana flower

Coincidentally, I read some banana etiquette advice of Margareta Ribbing (etiquette expert in a Swedish newspaper) on Monday in which she wrote that in a formal environment you peel and cut the banana with a knife. However, notice the formal environment, where I guess you would eat any kind of fruit cut up in small pieces… She continues her advice by mentioning that in other situations, you can do what the majority of people would do – peel down and take a bite!

How do you eat a banana in public?

 *) Well, time flies – it was actually in October last year that she published her competition to find a good fish recipe!

Wednesday recipe: Falafel & feta salad

A quick Wednesday recipe since I am preparing for our new guests; Saltis and her husband M and daughter Ella who are arriving in approximately two hours from New York. I am really looking forward to showing them San Juan and Puerto Rico, but also to let them relax and play on the beach – I know that they need a holiday, Saltis after having worked all summer and M after having travelled back and forth to Sweden on his own with Ella.

But, Wednesday it is and here’s a simple salad recipe:

Falafel & Feta Salad
- lettuce
- a handful of falafels (chick pea balls, you can usually find them fresh or frozen in the supermarket – I bought them fresh in Costco)
- 1 piece of feta cheese
- 1 can of artichoke hearts
- 1 small can of beetroot slices
- 1 lemon
- olive oil
- white wine vinegar
- French Dijon mustard
- a handful of basil leaves

Prepare the lettuce as you normally would, add small pieces of feta cheese, halved falafel balls, quartered artichoke hearts, and the beetroot slices. Make a vinaigrette out of 2 parts oil, 1 part vinegar and 1 tablespoon mustard, add salt & pepper. Pour the vinaigrette on top of the salad, add a few basil leaves and some grated lemon peel.
If you have left-overs of the artichoke hearts, put them in a jar, add some olive oil, lemon peel and lemon juice and let them marinate in the fridge. Yummy for salads!

You can hardly see the falafel under the artichoke hearts and feta, but they are there…

Wednesday Food Pictures from NYC…

We are back from our trip to NJ, NYC and Philadelphia and since I have a lot of food-related photos, and it is Wednesday, what better than to skip the Wednesday recipe and just share some pictures:

My sister J and I started our NYC days with taking the NJ Transit from New Brunswick to NY Penn Station ($10.50 one-way) and then head for a Starbucks for a quick breakfast. On our third day, on our way north from Times Square and having tried two very busy Starbucks we found a “secret” one on a side-street to Avenue of the Americas.

When sitting down I realised that it was actually part of the NHL flagship store but you hardly see it if you don’t enter the store or come from the side-street. In other words, no long queues (sorry, lines), plenty of seating space, fresh toilet (sorry, restroom we were trying to speak “American” all week long) and J met a girl from Ängelholm while waiting for the coffee!

Our first lunch in NYC was a blogger lunch at Bistro 61 (great French place, complete with French-speaking waiters on 1st Ave @ 61st St) with Saltis (NYC) and Anna Fair and True (Stockholm) – both whom I have met before, but never together. It was quite funny that the first time I met Saltis, in February 2008 we were two Petra(s)* and one Anna – and I was on my way to California. This time we were two Anna(s) and one Petra, and Anna FT had just been to California.

It was the first time my sister met my blog friends, but she seemed to enjoy it as much as us bloggers did. The lunch went far too quickly, but J and I met up with Anna and her boyfriend P the next day, and Saltis and her little family are coming to Puerto Rico next week!

We continued the French theme the next day when J and I had brunch at Bistro Pastis in the Meatpacking district (9th Ave @ 14th St) with Anna and her P after visiting the High Line Park (more about that in another post as it is an amazing place).

I had one of the yummiest scrambled eggs ever with potatoes and tomatoes. J had a bagel with salmon and cream cheese – she was after all in NYC

 

I asked a waiter when leaving if the place was as old as it looked… Not really, he replied – just 9 years old! However, it still made me long for Paris and Brussels, and those old-style bistros and beer cafés** (in Brussels). It didn’t help either that I had just started reading Julia Child’s “My Life in France”… My sister and I decided that once O and I are back in Belgium we are going to plan a girls’ weekend in Paris!

After the brunch in the Meatpacking district, we backtracked one block north to Chelsea market (9th Ave between 15th & 16th St) - not so much a real market with market stalls selling fresh fruits and vegetables, but small bakeries, eateries, wine merchants and kitchen supply shops. Lovely!

The Chelsea Market used to be a cookie factory – making Oreo cookies!

A cupcake bakery – I have actually never had a proper cupcake and honestly, I think that they look just a little too sweet (and difficult to eat!?). Muffins are probably more my kind of thing!

Some shops did sell vegetables and fruit! We were discussing if covered market halls with open market stalls (hm, halls and stalls?) are maybe more a European thing but in Philadelphia we visited a more “proper” market, at least from an European perspective.

 Baking bread in Chelsea market…

Of course there was a lot more to our NYC visits than just food and eating, we also walked A LOT and did some shopping… But that’s another story (blog post)

*) We didn’t “invite” the other Petra to our blog meeting this time since she was busy getting married in Connecticut!
**) More about Belgian beer cafés in the blog post about Philadelphia – we had a certain Belgian theme to our visit to Philly after the French bistro theme in NYC…

Wednesday recipe: Ensalada rusa and how do you cut?

I am not sure yet of the significance, but I feel that I reached a new level of intimacy with my MIL this summer when she asked me to help her make dinner!! You see, Spanish (and Italian, and probably Greek as well) mothers don’t let just about anybody into their kitchens – it is their territory and they guard it fiercely! I had actually been allowed to cook once before, a Swedish smörgåstårta but that was O’s idea and this time it was on her initiative and we worked together.

An old Spanish kitchen – in the apartment where O’s parents first lived when they got married. One of our projects is to clean and renovate the whole apartment… eventually

The dish we made is called ensalada rusa (Russian salad) and is a classic in Spanish speaking countries. The base of the salad is potatoes and mayonnaise, and the other vegetables are optional and changeable. I love potatoes, and to a certain extent mayo but as I am trying to watch what I eat (sometimes at least, ha ha), I asked if we could go easy on the fattening stuff… My MIL was very kind and decided that we wouldn’t add any mayo and let everybody help themselves to it at the table. (My parents-in-law, O and his brother finished a whole jar of mayo that night, while I didn’t touch it!)

Ensalada rusa
2-3 boiled potatoes
1-2 boiled carrots
a handful of green peas (if fresh, boil them quickly, if frozen thaw them in room temperature) or another type of beans
2-3 hard-boiled eggs
optional: a can of tuna, white asparagus
olive oil
mayonnaise
salt & pepper

Cut the vegetables and eggs in small cubes and pour some olive oil on top. Add generous amounts of mayo if you want a “true” Russian salad.

Spaniards loooove mayo as you can see on this photo with tapas

I was very happy that I finally got to help out at cooking dinner, even if it was just cutting veggies, but I felt so silly… Why? Well, I can’t cut “in the air” – I need a cutting-board!!! In O’s family everything is cut “in the air”; bread, vegetables, chorizo, fruit is peeled and cut without a cutting-board… Sometimes a simple piece of wood is used for cutting bread. I feel like such a child for not knowing how to cut without a board! O usually helps me by peeling the fruit or cutting the chorizo, but you can imagine how silly I feel…

Fortunately the boiled potatoes and eggs were quite soft and I managed to peel them and cut without a cutting board but I could feel how my MIL was watching my [lack of] technique. I would have been in trouble if the potaoes were not boiled and needed to be peeled without a peeler – don’t know how to do that either! And fruit – forget it, if it is too soft to peel with a peeler… but then again, I hardly ever peel fruit anyway.

When we were in Spain in February, we had an indoor BBQ / pic-nic with O’s friends in an old cottage – the Spanish girls quickly made a tuna salad… without a cutting-board!

Afterwards I said to O that we need to buy a cutting-board or two from Ikea to keep in his parents’ house – and he reminded me that we have actually already bought 2 cutting-boards, that are still wrapped in plastic and stored somewhere in his mother’s kitchen! I definitely need to find it for next time I am asked to assist at dinner-making (or maybe she will never ask me again after having seen how bad I am at cutting)

Can it be a cultural difference? Or a generational one? Or a combo? I asked my aunt when she was visiting us, and she said that she always uses cutting-board as well, and that both her mother (my grandmother) and grandmother would always use cutting-boards.

How do you cut? And do you need a proper peeler to peel vegetables?

To finish the post, a quote from my MIL:

My son C is no longer a Spaniard, he likes pepper on his food!

O’s mother never uses pepper in everyday cooking, only salt and sometimes oregano*. I have no idea if that is typically Spanish or maybe regional? C and his German girlfriend have bought a pepper grinder that I use all the time to my MIL’s amusement… Fortunately she doesn’t take it as criticism of her cooking, phew!

*) Everybody is very surprised when they hear that I use fresh or dry basil (albahaca) in cooking – in Aragón it is used to keep mosquitoes away (typically planted beneath the windows).

Wednesday sandwich & a new etiquette poll

Today I am blogging from the big mall, Plaza las Americas, where the Alliance Francaise has an information stand at the moment. I should be informing about the French classes that start next week but unfortunately most people are asking me questions about the mall itself – where are the bathrooms, where has Banco Popular moved etc. I have also helped a surprising number of French tourists, who were very happy to be able to speak French at the mall.

The information booth at Plaza las Americas

While waiting for prospective French students, I take the opportunity to share a new Wednesday recipe:

Bocadillo Cubano (Cuban sandwich)
- half a “pan de agua” (or baguette)
- a few slices of ham
- a few slices of roast pork (pernil)
- mustard
- a few slices of cheese
- pickles (sliced whole gherkins)

Fill the sandwich with these ingredients, heat it if desired, and enjoy! It is a classic sandwich in Puerto Rico (and Cuba, I guess) that you can find in panaderias and cafeterias all over the island.
My aunt and I tried it for the first time in La Bombonera in the Old San Juan together with my Peruvian colleague M. The sandwich was a bit too big for me but I love the combo of pernil, cheese, mustard and pickles!

Bocadillo Cubano and lots of fries – not the healthiest of lunches…

And to the etiquette question of the week:

When my aunt arrived to San Juan two weeks ago, she talked about her experiences of travelling alone. Everything went fine but she thought that it was a pity that nobody was really interested in talking to her on the two flights. We had a long discussion about whether or not we talk to people next to us on planes, and if yes, when during the flight…

My travels are almost always done alone, for example O and I have only travelled together to / from Puerto Rico a few times as I usually stay longer in Europe than O. When I was single I would very often travel alone to visit family & friends, i.e my holidays were not spent alone, only the travelling to and from places. I actually prefer not talking to other people when travelling – I bring a book, magazines and music (and I sleep like a baby on planes, trains, buses and cars*!).

If the person next to me starts talking to me, I fear that with a little encouragement from me they will never stop and leave me alone to do my thing (reading, sleeping…). Another reason might be that I have met my fair share of freaks when travelling alone and I prefer avoiding those kind of experiences!! My poor aunt was wondering if people had thought that she was a freak when she tried to speak to the passengers next to her but I don’t think so! Maybe I am the “freak” for not wanting to be more social and friendly when crammed together in a plane for hours? Let me know what you think!

*) My best friend and I once travelled by train from Switzerland to Hamburg – I turned on my walkman and fell asleep… and woke up just before Hamburg! My friend was sooo bored, ha ha!

Wednesday recipe and an quickie update from the summer house

Blogging from the summer house where my father is taking a break from his work, which means that I can use his computer and internet… My sister has bought a “mobile internet connection”* so we will be able to use our own computers next week, instead of fighting for my father’s 3G-card connection.

A Swedish summer breakfast – NB the marmelade on top of the cheese

Everything is great in Sweden, except that O is not here – but he arrives on the 11th July. Before that I am going to Strasbourg for my friend P No 1’s wedding (civil ceremony on Friday, religious wedding on Saturday), visit my grandmother and aunt in the old summer house, and celebrate my father’s 60th birthday (shhh, he doesn’t want us to really mention it) and my own birthday…

The sun has been shining, it has been 25-30 degrees every day and I swam in the Baltic on Monday – it was 21 degrees! A Dutch friend and her boyfriend came on Monday and we had a very nice time catching up before they headed to Gotland – fortunately they had already booked their hotel because this is probably THE busiest week on that island (all the politicians and organisations in Sweden meet every year in Visby for debates and conferences).

And before I forget, the Wednesday recipe (the etiquette question will have to take a summer break): my father and I went to a small village nearby to check a flea market. It was quite a disappointment but we visited a farm with storks where they sold fresh vegetables. We decided to buy cauliflower even if we suspected that we would be the only ones to eat it… Fortunately my brother’s girlfriend also likes cauliflower!

Cauliflower in vinaigrette
- a small cauliflower head
- white wine vinegar
- olive oil
- French Dijon mustard
- salt & pepper
Put the trimmed (the green parts) cauliflower head upside down in a bowl with water and a few drops of vinegar. Check it after 15-30 minutes to see if there are any worms or insects… Boil the cauliflower (head up!) in water and some salt until the consistency you like – we forgot to check on it and it became a little too soft.
While the cauliflower is boiling, mix the olive oil, vinegar and French mustard together for a simple vinaigrette. When the cauliflower is ready, drain the water and pour the vinaigrette on top.
Serve with a side salad or as a side to grilled fish.

*) If anybody else is interested in how to get a cheap internet connection to the summer house without a landline, I will let you know as soon as I know more about the details

Wednesday recipe & etiquette: O’s Yummy Sandwiches and the same dress twice

Since I am busy packing for Europe and preparing the apartment for our next visitors, O’s brother C and German girlfriend G who will arrive one day earlier than us to San Juan end of July, the Wednesday recipe will be very short and concise:

O has become an expert sandwich maker in the last 4 years and he is in charge of making our breakfast sandwiches on the weekends. He is a sandwich artist!! Always using cucumber and tomatoes for decoration, he has completely adopted the Swedish way of making sandwiches, however using olive oil instead of butter:

O’s yummy sandwiches
- whole grain bread, lightly toasted (since I broke our toaster we nowadays use a grill pan on the stove – even better than a toaster!)
- a flavourful cheese, such as Manchego – we love a rosemary goat’s cheese that we buy in Costco or why not just some slices of Brie
- salami / chorizo / ham
- thin slices of cucumber and tomato
- olive oil, O’s spicy olive oil for example
- salt & pepper

Pour a little olive oil on each toasted bread slice. Add the tomato and cucumber slices, salt and pepper and finally the cheese or sandwich meat. Enjoy!

O has a different way of putting the vegetables first and then the cheese / meat on the sandwiches. It actually tastes really great as the bread gets more of a flavour from the tomato juices combined with the olive oil.

……………………………………………………………………………………………………………..
And for this week’s etiquette question (from DNs Etikettfrågan):
Would you wear the same dress* twice?

Of course you probably would, if you are not extremely rich and wasteful. But let’s say that you have been invited to two weddings the same summer and more or less the same guests will be expected to both weddings, would you then wear the same dress to both weddings? It is an interesting issue, which I find only applies to us women – men can wear the same suit to all weddings, parties and even funerals, maybe just changing the tie and shirt.

This summer I only have one wedding, but we have been invited to another one with the same group of friends, but unfortunately we won’t be able to make it to Ireland in August for my dear friend O’s wedding. However, for many summers in a row I had several weddings but I always managed to avoid this issue by the fact that there were different guests at each event. I also have a few different dresses that I can choose from for every wedding as I definitely recycle outfits. For my friends who are going to attend both weddings this summer, I doubt that they will wear the same dresses for both events but I am actually going to ask them next week when we meet in Strasbourg!

Maybe if I had such an amazing dress I would wear it twice in a row

*) As most of my readers seem to be women…