Hej! from Stockholm, Sweden

[melaniematheney]

Hi all! I was excited to run across this forum when doing a random search for something on google, and have been enjoying browsing through some threads. I'm from the states...born in Indiana, lived in PA, then in Houston, TX (14+ years), and most recently in Santa Cruz, CA. Met my boyfriend in Cali, then moved across the ocean to give the relationship a chance. Guess it must be doing ok since we recently got married! Will be moving back to the states soon and will be nice to get back to the food. Food in Sweden, after the inititial newness of everything, is NOT that exciting. Restaurant service sucks terribly and food is very up and down...mostly down, with some exceptions, of course. I started my cooking experience by working at a cooking school, oddly enough. Central Market on Westheimer in Houston. After working there a year (great learning experience!!) I moved to CA and focused on baking. Worked at UCSC, a small restaurant, and two bakeries (small café/patisserie type places). Now I can add a Swedish Hotel, Bakery and Restaurant to my resume...but it's been a challenge here in Sweden, anyway!

[Steve A]

Stockholm... ahh.. one of my favorite cities. Welcome here and an early welcome for your return to the You Ess of Eh.

Ciao,

[Mezzaluna]

Hello Melanie and welcome to Chef Talk. Congratulations on your marriage!

The most exciting things I ate in Sweden were the smorrebrod (I loved the tiny shrimp!). That was in 1975. Too bad things haven't evolved much since then. Maybe you'll contribute some innovations that'll be legendary someday.

In the mean time, please take time to get acquainted with our forums, cooking articles, recipes and so forth. We'll look forward to your posts.

Regards,
Mezzaluna

[melaniematheney]

yeah...that "seafood salad" type stuff is really popular on everything from baked potatoes to hot dogs. it also kills me that the main staple food of the region is korv- which translates as "sausage" if you look it up, but is really nothing more that hot dogs. various flavors, various sizes of hot dogs. as you can imagine, it doesn't take long for that to get old. sure wish there was something more interesting for street-food than more hot dogs! sigh. but, yes, you're right - my nature is irrepressible and i'm already working dilligently to slip my american influence in where i can, especially in the sweets department. i've already got several people seriously addicted to my super soft, rich, chewy Super Chocolate Chunk Cookies. After the hard little stones all the places pass off as cookies around here, mine are a bit of heaven on earth! I had to immediately translate the recipe into swedish and make numerous copies to the girls in the kitchen, as well as for a chocolate mousse recipe. the chef had been making it first waaaay too sweet, then not sweet at all, but a bit salty! i just don't know about these folks.
anyway, thanks for the welcome - it's always great finding others with similar interests.

[Mezzaluna]

Salty cookies.... do they also eat salty licorice as they do in Finland and the Netherlands? I'm stumped by that!

Yeah, I remember warm korv all right. To me they were more like a cross between a cheap hot dog and Vienna sausage. The first one I ate was in Denmark, but encountered them in Sweden too.

I've not been to Stockholm but spent five weeks in the west of Sweden at Lund, participating in a seminar on special education. We went to glass country- Kosta Boda, Orrefors, and Stromberg. I fell in love with Stromberg, but can't find it here at least in the Midwest. I haven't looked on the east coast yet. It's a pale, steely blue color- gorgeous and unique- which they call "silver crystal" I think.

[melaniematheney]

nej, not salty cookies (the cookies are just like hard little rocks...they let them sit out all week at the café's since it doesn't make a difference)...it was the chocolate mousse that was salty. but it was not really supposed to be that way. but the head's chef's tasts were really screwy (never could seem to make a decision on his own about anything!), he was asking me what i thought, is it ok? etc. and i said no! it's not in the least sweet and actually a little salty. then he admitted to adding salt to the egg whites and no sugar at all. it was very unbalanced...and just weird. as it was his 3rd time to try making decent chocolate mousse, i felt sorry for him and translated my english recipe to swedish for him and gave it to him.
but, yes - they do eat lots of that icky salt licorice here. yeesh! they've got lots of candy, gum, ice cream, you name it. got to watch out if you buy a blended candy bag cause there's probably some licorice hiding in there. i bought a little box of kinda hard/chewy candies once thinking it was black current...turns out it was a berry/licorice blend candy. ugh. needless to say, i gave the rest away. not my thing.
i looked up that glass online you mentioned and it IS pretty. if you are a collector, you might check out ebay. i had a co-worker who's wife collected some certain type of glass and he was always part of some auction on ebay picking up pieces.

[Mezzaluna]

Tak, Melanie, I'll take a look.
Mezz

[Levi]

Originally Posted by Mezzaluna

Hello Melanie and welcome to Chef Talk. Congratulations on your marriage!

The most exciting things I ate in Sweden were the smorrebrod (I loved the tiny shrimp!). That was in 1975. Too bad things haven't evolved much since then. Maybe you'll contribute some innovations that'll be legendary someday.

In the mean time, please take time to get acquainted with our forums, cooking articles, recipes and so forth. We'll look forward to your posts.

Regards,
Mezzaluna

Just so you know smorrebrod is Danish, NOT SWEDISH
It means sandwhich in Danish, if you wanted to say it in Swedish it's smorgas.

[Mezzaluna]

Thank you for the correction, Levi. I'm usually more careful about such things.

[Levi]

Originally Posted by Mezzaluna

Thank you for the correction, Levi. I'm usually more careful about such things.

Hey no problem. It's easy to confuse words and languages from those scandanavian countries.