Monday thoughts on visits, a film and cold cinemas

The last guest, my aunt, left this morning and the apartment is now very empty and quiet. The washing machine is working though and I am trying to find my habits again after two weeks of entertaining guests. It has been great, the combination of O’s brother and girlfriend G + my aunt worked out really well, especially as G speaks Swedish fluently (she’s German and lived in Stockholm for more than 2 years). G and I realised that Swedish can be our secret language, which might come in handy when we celebrate Christmas together in Spain in a few months’ time 

It is difficult to resist outlet shopping when the visitors are finding all kinds of bargains… I came home with two lovely knitted jumpers from BCBGMaxazria (needed for the planned Spanish Christmas), an autumn jacket from Calvin Klein ($22 after 70% reduction) among other things.

The family visits have meant lots of excursions, outlet shopping, nice food and great company. Nevertheless, as always after an intense period of visitors we are now looking forward to some everyday life for a while before the next activities; one week in NJ / NY with my sister (already next week), Saltis and her family’s visit in September and maybe another visit from European friends at the end of next month.

Colourful fish in the pond behind the Museo de Arte de Puerto Rico (MAPR)

On the last evening of my aunt’s visit, i.e yesterday, we went to the cinema and saw a real feel-good film, Julie & Julia. I have already written twice about the book that the film is based on -my post in January about the book (as well as the blog!) and as well as “a recipe inspired by the [cook]book that inspired the book that inspired the film“…  For once I wasn’t disappointed by the film after having read the book first!

A lizard in the rainforest

The film has two parallel stories, about Julie Powell (played by Amy Adams) who started a project to cook her way through Julia Child’s cookbook Mastering the Art of French Cooking during one year while blogging about it, and the life of Julia Child (played by Meryl Streep) - a famous American tv-chef and cookbook author. O was laughing so much during the film because he claimed that Julie Powell reminded him a lot of me, both when it comes to blogging and cooking…  

Maybe I should suggest to O that next time we dye my hair, we could do it on the beach – that was precisely what this guy was doing yesterday!

After the film, O, B and I made mental notes to bring winter hats and blankets (and maybe one of my knitted outlet bargains mentioned above) next time we go to the cinema in Puerto Rico – apparently the already cold temperatures in the cinemas have been lowered due to the risk of swine flu contamination!? Our faces, ears and feet felt like we had been out walking on a winter day in Sweden!

The Bacardi factory – visited for the 4th time…

The Stockholm syndrome…

Apparently Americans are afraid of the US turning into… Sweden, i.e a socialist country! If you want to see an funny take on the so-called socialist Sweden – check out the Daily Show with Jon Stewart this week (click on link to see the video – I can’t embed it for some reason).
The funniest is when they visit Robyn’s home and compare it to MTV’s Cribs… Yes, her TV is a little bit smaller than 50 Cent’s and she collects her recycling under the kitchen island

Wednesday recipe: Tarte au citron meringuée (Lemon meringue cake)

Some of you might remember my blog post about a book I read a few months ago – Julie and Julia by Julie Powell. Well, I finally decided to try out one of the recipes from the cookbook that Julie writes about; Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking and what better recipe to try, than my favourite French cake ever – Tarte au citron meringuée! Lemon cake seemed especially fitting for Easter – maybe because of the yellow colour?

In Julia Child’s book the cake is simply called Tarte au citron and I have actually modified the recipe so that the cake would remind me more of those great lemon cakes I have eaten in Brussels over the years… I think the best lemon cake in Brussels can be found in L’amour fou (in Ixelles), one of my favourite restaurants! Have the big club sandwich and then a huge slice of tarte au citron meringuée for dessert – according to the on-line menu it will only cost you 13,55 € for the full meal. Mmmm, I think I need to plan a visit to Brussels soon and include dinner at L’amour fou!

Opps, forgot to take a photo of the whole cake… but at least you can see the consistency of the cake this way!

Anyway, most of you don’t live in Brussels and will probably not visit any time soon, so here is a recipe to try at home:

Tarte au citron meringuée
Pastry base:
100 grams butter
2 decilitres flour
3 tablespoons sugar
a pinch of salt
Mix everything together and add more flour if needed. Cover the base of a greased round springform cake tin (removable bottom) with the pastry dough and make a few holes with a fork. Bake for less than 10 min in a 160 degree oven.

Lemon filling:
1 1/4 decilitre sugar
4 egg yolkes
peel of one lemon / 2 limes
3 tablespoons of lemon / lime juice
Whisk the egg yolkes and sugar together until thick and light yellow. Add lemon peel and juice. Prepare a “bain-marie” (water bath) by putting a [preferably stainless steel] bowl in a pot with simmering water, and add the egg and sugar mixture. Stir with a wooden spoon until really thick. NB Don’t let it boil or the yolkes will coagulate.
Pour the mixture into the pastry base.

Meringue:
4 egg whites
3/4 decilitres sugar
a pinch of salt
Beat the egg whites and salt until almost hard, add the sugar and continue beating until you can turn the bowl upside down without the eggs pouring out (ask the help of a strong man if you don’t have an electric whisk!!).

Pour the hard-beaten eggs carefully on top of the lemony mixture (already in the pastry base). Bake for 30 minutes. Sprinkle icing sugar on top and serve either warm or cold. The cake might sink a little when cooling but don’t worry, it will still taste great!
Enjoy!!

And don’t forget to look out for the film based on Julie Powell’s book – Julie & Julia, it should be coming out this year!

Deux jours à Paris

Yesterday I saw the funniest French-American film, 2 days in Paris, by and with Julie Delpy (and Adam Goldberg – you know Joey’s freaky flatmate in Friends). It was too bad that some of the dialogue was in French and the dvd only had Swedish subtitles, because I really wanted O to watch it as well – maybe I will make him watch it anyway, his French isn’t that bad after all.

The film tells the story of a French-American couple who on their way home from holidays in Venice spend two days in Paris with the girl’s family and friends. The guy, Adam Goldberg, doesn’t speak a lot of French and gets very frustrated and suspicious when not understanding the conversations around him. It is a hilarious film about French people, linguistic misunderstandings, culture clashes and ex-boyfriends.

There were quite a few scenes that I recognised from my own experiences – I have also been in situations where I haven’t really understood what has been said around me, or having been served strange food at the parents-in-law’s dinner table. Situations like that can be very delicate, as you are trying to be polite and smile while searching for a way to avoid eating pigs’ trotters…  Or when you are at a party and you feel completely left out of the conversation, but still try to look like you are enjoying yourself. It is not easy and can be extremely tiring as you concentrate on understanding  (or at least smiling!)

At the moment I seem to be having a French phase; I am reading the very interesting book “60 million Frenchmen can’t be wrong: Why we love France but not the French” and last week I went to see a strange French independent short movie called La main sur la gueule – didn’t entirely understand the film but it wasn’t a question of language, it was just plain weird! However, the book gives a great insight into French culture, politics, history and tradition – and the title is kind of sarcastic… Especially for me, seeing that I always claim to not like French people while having lots of close friends from France! And they all know that they are just the exception to my rule

One of my dearest friends, French P No 1, is getting married this summer in Strasbourg and I will be one of her witnesses – that is like being asked to be a bridesmaid in the Anglo-saxon world! It will be my 4th French wedding – I have actually only been to 3 Swedish weddings… In other words I make a lot of exceptions to the rule about disliking French people!!

Oh, speaking of France, I need to go – I am off to l’Alliance Francaise this afternoon…

The photos are from my last visit to Paris in September 2007

Shake hands with the devil

People ask us how our European holidays are, and we have to keep explaining that actually, O is not on holidays; he is still working – remotely. He is constantly on the phone during the afternoons and evenings, due to the time difference and we have been trying to adjust the meal times to the Puerto Rican lunch breaks. When we were in Sweden and Brussels I was busy socialising (or being ill!) but in Spain I haven’t had too much to do…

Fortunately I had a very good book to read last week – Shake hands with the devil by Roméo Dallaire. The author was the commander of UNAMIR*, the UN Peace-keeping force in Rwanda during the genocide and he has written a detailed and very critical account of how the world was unable of stopping the slaughter in the small African country in 1993-94. I can highly recommend this book – because I believe that reading is not always about passing time with an entertaining book, I sometimes also want to learn something new. As Emma wrote last Friday about reading (my translation) “All knowledge is good knowledge, and if you don’t know that repulsiveness exists, you can’t do anything to remedy it“.

Shake hands with the devil is a very hard book to read, both because of the gruesome details but also the length of the book but it is so important to read about what happened in order for this kind of human disaster to never happen again. I hope that the more people who read this book, the more will push their countries to support UN-led interventions in these kinds of conflicts and not only when there are big oil interests or possible arms of mass destruction at stake!

Reading the account of the genocide is absolutely shocking in more ways than just the killing of almost one million Rwandans – the blatant racism of the Belgian UN-soldiers, the unwillingness of the United States’ government to intervene (one American civil servant called Roméo Dallaire during the genocide and explained that according to the estimates, it would take the lives of 85,000 Rwandans to justify risking one American soldier’s life!) and the frustration but also courage of the few UN-soldiers who were present in the country during those terrible 100 days in 1994.

I will finish off with Roméo Dallaire’s own words: No matter how idealistic the aim sounds, this new century must become the Century of Humanity, when we as human beings rise above race, creed, colour, religion and national self-interest and put the good of humanity above the good of our own tribe. For the sake of the children and of our future (last paragraph of the book).

Here is a link to a BBC Hard Talk-interview with Roméo Dallaire**

*) UNAMIR = United Nations Assistance Mission for Rwanda
**) I haven’t been able to see the full clip as the sound for some reason is not working properly on this Linux-laptop (did I mention how frustrating I find using Linux? Sorry all Linux-fans! Maybe it is just a setting that needs to be adjusted by somebody more clever than I!)
***) Photos are not from Rwanda, they are from Wadi Rum in Jordan

Post No 300: The Julie / Julia project

I just discovered that this will be my 300th blog post – according to the categories on the left* right-hand side of the blog I have written 68 posts about Life in Puerto Rico, 49 about Sweden and 41 on Food and recipes.
The following post will be added to the Food and recipes category, and it will also be filed under Recommendations…

Almost every Sunday O and I go to Borders in Plaza las Américas (the big mall in San Juan) to have fika with Swedish B. I never miss the opportunity to go through the bargain section in the bookstore even though O has now officially banned me from buying more cookbooks, and preferably no other books either… However, there was this book that I kept looking at, it cost only $3,99 and looked really interesting – and finally I bought it just before Christmas (when O was not around to supervise my book shopping!).

Yesterday I was looking for a new book to read, knowing that I should be reading a book in Spanish but not really feeling like it… I mean, I just finished reading a book in Norwegian (De beste blant oss by Helene Uri) and felt that it was time for something less linguistically challenging…

So I decided to read that book from Borders – it is called Julie and Julia: 365 days, 524 recipes, 1 tiny apartment kitchen by Julie Powell. The story seems very promising, the author has chronicled how she got the crazy (?) idea to work through one of her mother’s old recipe books; Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking during one year. Apparently the MtAoFC (as it is abbreviated in the book) is a real classic, and I had actually heard of Julia Child before – she was one of the first TV cook stars in the US.

After just a few pages I have a sneaking feeling about that old French cookbook and put down my book, and go into the kitchen where I look through our recipe book shelf and what do I find; the MtAoFC but in Swedish (Det goda franska köket)!! I have to admit that I haven’t tried any of the recipes even though I have been tempted a few times to make my favourite French dessert Tarte au citron and I looked up the recipe for Blanquette de veau after we had eaten that dish in Normandie in 2007. However, I have owned the book since the summer of 1999 when I found it for sale (of course, notice a certain book buying habit here…) in Stockholm – my parents have the same book and I guess that I thought that it would be good to have a basic French cookbook in my quite extensive (too extensive according to O) book collection.

Even more intrigued by the book in my hand, I continue reading and discover that Julie Powell started a blog at the same time as her cooking project – so once again I take a break to look up the blog and read in Julie’s new blog that there is a film called Julie & Julia coming out in 2009 starring Meryl Streep and Amy Adams…

Anyway, I just wanted to share all this information with you, and tell you that I am really enjoying reading the book Julie and Julia, plus I am already inspired to try some of those recipes…

*) I guess that I have proved once again to my mother that I can’t tell left from right… my excuse is as always that it is proven that left-handed [women] have more difficulties with this than right-handed people!!

Behind the scenes: photos from the US Election day

I just came across some amazing photos on flickr* of photos of Barack Obama and his family and friends on election day. You can check them out as well on this link!

My own photo of our television on Tuesday

*) Thanks to this article on the BBC News web-site

Under tiden som jag gör min spanskläxa…

kanske ni vill njuta (??) av följande “klassiker”:

Vad blev det av Christer Sandelin egentligen? Min syster har faktiskt hans cd, som jag köpte åt henne någongång i början av 90-talet…

Snacka om att jag nog har förvirrat mina engelsktalande bloggläsare nu…

BBC News – my favourite news channel

Ever since I moved to Brussels, or no – actually ever since I moved to Switzerland in 2002, my main news provider has been BBC* News (+ Euronews in Brussels). I watch it on TV and I keep their web-site as my “home” page on my computer. I never watch CNN, but MSNBC is the “neighbouring” channel on TV in Puerto Rico so sometimes I check the news from an American perspective… But I still prefer the British view on news!

My favourite news presenter is Mike Embley, I don’t know what it is but I feel that the news are in good hands when delivered by him! I guess that he could be compared to Claes Elfsberg for you Swedes or Patrick Poivre d’Arvor (PPDA) in France (another favourite!).

So, why am I writing about BBC News today? Well, because there are some really interesting news stories today (and I am not referring to 9/11, which of course is very interesting as well!):

• Researchers have found that women are more prone to nightmares than men. This article caught my attention since I have been suffering from reoccurring nighmares for the last 4-5 years! Well, I did have nightmares quite frequently also when I was a child, especially when I had a fever (which was often!) but I seemed to have “grown out” of them.
  But then I moved to Brussels and in my second apartment I started having horrible dreams about the ceiling falling down on top of me in my bed! I would wake up screaming and quite a few times I jumped out of the bed and rushed out in the living room. Once I didn’t realise (wake up?) until I had unlocked the front door! You would think that the nightmares would stop when I started sharing the bed with O… But nope, I would terrified sit up in the bed in the middle of the night and he would have to calm me down – or I would rush to the window and open the curtains!!
  I was starting to think that there was something wrong with my bed room and even tried moving the bed to the opposite wall but it didn’t work. So, maybe it was the whole apartment? However, the nightmares have continued in Puerto Rico, a little less frequent but still happening! The problem is that I have real problems falling back to sleep after a nightmare, so I always wake up very tired in the morning
• The Dante Alighieri Institute in Italy is protesting against the increasing use of English words and expressions in the Italian language – just like the Academie Francaise did a few years ago (regarding English words in French, of course). The article made me laugh, not because I don’t agree with the protests, even though I believe that this is how languages have evolved since the beginning of time…
  No, the reason for my amusement is that this discussion reminded me of the very funny confusion there seems to be concerning the Italian word for internship. When I lived in Italy, all my Italian friends would refer to internship as un stage, which is a French word (or at least it is the same word in French, I don’t know the linguistic history behind the word) – however, everybody would pronunce stage as in English!! Regardless of if this word is the correct Italian word for internship** but why is it pronunced in English? I mean, my Italian friends thought that it was the correct word for internship also in English… And by the way a theatre stage is a scena in Italian
• Marianne and I missed watching The Real cities… Cairo last weekend – but maybe we will remember to watch the same programme this weekend; it is about Stockholm! I first saw the trailer today and couldn’t at first understand why Papa Dee was on BBC News – but he, and Helena Bergström among others are showing their favourite places in the Swedish capital!
  Check out the programme this weekend on BBC World News on Saturday 13th September at 1430 GMT. Repeating on Sunday 14th at 0830 and 1730 GMT and on Monday 15th at 0130 GMT (that is 10.30 on Saturday morning in Puerto Rico and the US East coast).

 I will leave you with a short youtube clip with Mike Embley:

*) How I miss BBC 1 and 2, which we could watch in Brussels. Here in Puerto Rico we have all the American tv channels (or networks as they are called in American) but actually I am not following any tv-series as I can never remember when and where they are showing!! And the commercial breaks just drive me crazy anyway…
**) According to wordreference.com it is correct to say stage (it doesn’t mention the pronunciation though) but my Swedish-Italian dictionary lists tirocinio or apprendistato which sound more Italian to me!

Correction: Mamma Mia IS showing in Puerto Rico…

and it was a great film!! And guess who loved it – O!! Unfortunately it was so popular that the cinema was almost full when we arrived with Swedish B, and we only found seating spread out in three different places. I sat next to a Puerto Rican woman who sang along to all the songs, and I could tell that there were more people singing around me! It was obviously a complete success with the audience, which stayed right until the end (tip if you haven’t seen it, the funniest scene is right at the end!). What a random experience – watching a musical based on ABBA songs in a cinema in San Juan!

Both B and I felt that we have to see the film again, and it wouldn’t surprise me if I could drag O to watch it one more time (or at least on dvd eventually)! It is a real feel good film, as well as funny! And the best thing, O told me that I might actually be allowed to listen to ABBA at home now, at least every now and then!

The three of us have started to plan a traditional August crayfish* party – I bought some decorations in Sweden**, there is some snaps left over from Xmas and we need to put together some snaps songs suitable for international guests… Anybody interested in joining?

Crayfish parties are traditionally held in Sweden in August, because you were not allowed to catch crayfish before a certain date in August (don’t remember exactly when but because they would be too small before) and include wearing silly hats, singing snaps songs and drinking snaps (vodka). We’ll see how traditional we can make the event

A traditional crayfish party decoration!

Updated: and thanks to Miri in Rincón, here’s a medley of ABBA songs in Spanish;

*) We might have to eat shrimp instead of crayfish… not entirely sure if crayfish is available on the island?!
**) There is quite a lot of crayfish party decorations available in Marshall’s as well, a tip for you Swedes who live in the US!