More food eaten elsewhere

Per and I had this great pad thai last weekend at Bangkok Thai, a tiny place on Värmdö. Worth a trip - it was one of the best pad thais I've had here in Stockholm. Yum! Their webpage says that the restaurant is sold though - I don't know if we ate their with the old owners, or new owners - but it was really good.



I had lunch with Pia at Café Lola last week. Very cute little place, and a tasty-sounding menu. I had a grilled sandwich with figs, blue cheese and honey-caramelized pistachios - as good as it sounds! Pia had a halloumi sandwich with lemon and chilli, and was also pleased. I liked that they included a little bowl of fresh fruit salad (and for Pia, half an apple) - that was a nice touch.


The lattes were ok - but not great.

Luxury Lunch at Esperanto

The beautiful dining room

We had a blogger's lunch meet last week, at luxury restaurant Esperanto. And oh, what a lunch! And what great company! :) Present were Dinner Darling, Hemliga Kockan, Kärlek, Mat & Folköl, Matälskaren, Kulturbloggen, Lotten, Betraktelser från Baren, The Blogger Formermly Known as Ensamma Mamman, Mathimlen and Patrik Blandar Ihop. And sorry, none of the other blogs are in English.


Lunch was served on a tray.

The food? Heaven. Esperanto is not an Asian restaurant, but their lunches are a perfect example of exciting Asian Fusion cuisine. Definitely try to go there if you're in Stockholm. The lunches are also very affordable - we paid 165 SEK, for all courses - that's almost free! And really, how often do you come across tasting menu lunches? Included in the price was also a very tasty white jasmine tea, that was constantly being refilled. Afterwards, I was very happy and content, but not stuffed - it's all pretty light, and very small servings.


A snack before actual lunch - prawn crackers with lime and sechuan pepper (at least that's my guess)


Thin slices of cod with a fresh pea-juice. Great dish! Tasted very fresh, and definitely had lime in it.


A tiny trio - sake-braised aubergine with black sesame seeds, mango-marinated daikon with chilli and coriander, and a spicy dipping sauce with ketjap manis.


And to dip, pork and potato dumplings, and five-spice chicken.


A jumbo shrimp with garlic and ginger, not my favorite, it was way too salty for my taste.


Chinese rice with a raw egg yolk on top, fried rice noodles, chives, fried onions and strips of seaweed.


All that. And then dessert came. Oh my. Heaven. This is a coconut sorbet with salted macadamia nuts, topped with a strawberry meringue. The only fault I could find? The tiny cup. It was an amazing dessert, and twice the size would have been even better.

Esperanto
Kungstensgatan 2
08-696 23 23

Swedish Cyberchef is on!

Just a tiny note to alert my Swedish readers that another edition of Cyberkocken is up soon! Check it out here.

White Chocolate Cheesecake

Yesterday was Mother's Day here in Sweden, and we celebrated by inviting mom over for dinner. We had a great menu - shrimp salad with red onions, mango, lime and sweet chili sauce on nachos, grilled lamb with quinoa feta salad with pickled onions, and then this fabulous cheesecake. I combined a couple of recipes for it - the bottom is from Diane Mott Davidson's culinary mystery novel "Dying for Chocolate", and the filling is from the latest BBC Good Food magazine. The strawberries? All mine. Not local yet, but they were pretty good nonetheless.

The bottom is very crunchy and can be a little hard to cut, but super tasty and not very sweet. The filling is ultra-creamy and would also work well as a mousse - dollop into glasses, maybe layered with cookie crumbs, top with fruit...

White Chocolate Cheesecake

Bottom:
170 g unsalted butter
75 g pecans
170 g flour
1 tbsp powdered sugar

Melt the butter. Chop the nuts finely. Combine everything and spread into a buttered springform pan, lined with a round of parchment paper or cut out teflon sheet. (You can attempt to do this without lining, but I wouldn't dare.)

Bake at 175° for 22-25 minutes or until lightly golden. Remove and let cool completely in the pan.

Filling:
200 g cream cheese
300 g white chocolate
25 g sugar
500 ml (2 cups) heavy cream (35-40% fat)

Melt the chocolate. Mix sugar and cream cheese and add the chocolate to this. Beat the cream until it holds soft peaks - don't overbeat it. Fold in with the rest. Pour into the pan, and smooth the top. Refrigerate for at least three hours.

Topping:
500 g strawberries

Trim the strawberries to a fairly even size, and decorate the top of the cake.

Recipe in Swedish:
Vit chokladcheesecake med jordgubbar

Weekend Cat Blogging - Outdoor Cats

Our cats are indoor only - a fact that upsets some people. I don't care at all about that, but now that we have a house, I like for the cats to be able to get a little whiff of air, and feel the grass under their tiny paws. And finally, finally we finished the big cage. We fenced in a rather big area in our backyard, and the cats can go out straight from our living room. Yeay!



Hamlet, carefully exploring his new kingdom.

Red Onion Cheesecake with Bleak Roe

Friends are important. Very much so. And my friends are certainly the very best a girl could ask for. We had dinner at Tesse and Danne, our newlywed friends, last night and they presented us with an amazing gift as a thank you for the help with their wedding. (And a combined birthday gift, too.) I'm totally floored - it was an invitation to eat a tasting menu at Edsbacka Krog, which is one of the very best restaurants in Sweden. I can barely wait - I'm so excited about this! The menu sounds delicious, and we have to set a date real soon. And of course I can't wait to tell you all about it.

Another very dear friend is Lena, who's also a foodie. She's preparing for a two-week vacation driving from New York to Miami with her boyfriend Nico and friends - I'm green with jealousy, but very excited for her. She made the delicious cheesecake that Tesse also made for her wedding - I told you about it. Many of you asked for a recipe in English, so here you go! Make it - it's really tasty.

You do need really dark and sweet bread to get a good contrast. Kavring is a Swedish bread that you might be able to find at Ikea - or substitute whatever sweet and dark bread you can find. (I'll try to find a good recipe for kavring to post soon.)

This recipe is posted in Swedish here, at Lena's blog.

Red Onion Cheesecake with Bleak Roe

200 g kavring bread, with the crusts removed
75 g butter
4 gelatin leaves
250 ml crème frâiche
300 g Philadelphia cream cheese
2 small red onions
salt
white pepper

To serve:
bleak roe (or substitute other roe - salmon would look nice!)
rocket (arugula) leaves
herb oil (just mix a few tablespoons of good olive oil with fresh herbs, like thyme, chives and basil.)

Line a 8- or 9-inch springform pan with parchment paper. Melt the butter. Mix the kavring bread with the butter in a food processor until you have a crumbly dough. Press this into the pan.

Soak the gelatin in cold water. Mince the red onion finely. Mix the cream cheese with crème frâiche and onion, salt and pepper. Melt the gelatin in a small pan with a few spoons of the cheese mixture. Stir this into the rest of the cheese mixture and blend well. Spread over the bread bottom, and place in the fridge to set for a few hours.

To serve, place a few rocket leaves on plates and top with a piece of cheesecake. Drizzle with herb oil and place a neat dollop of roe on top.

Mushroom Toast

I'm pretty wiped out! I just had a long, long walk around the shops with Pia and that's quite exhausting! We had lunch at Café Lola, a nice little place that served fantastic sandwiches (I have photos, just need to get them from the camera) and salads. And then ice cream at Stockholms Glasshus. (Lemon sorbet and straciatella for me, saffron, pistachios and rosewater and something with chocolate and nuts for Pia.) I bought the most gorgeous foodie necklace, I will have to take a picture of that to show you! Good thing I'm asked to dinner at Tesse and Danne tonight, because I really don't think I'm creative enough to cook anything today.

A few weeks ago though, we made this nice mushroom toast. Use a really tasty bread, it will make all the difference here. Brush with olive oil. Slice mushrooms neatly, place on bread, brush with more olive oil, and grill briefly in a sandwich grill. That's all - but it's a really tasty little dish. Serve with a good salad and you're all set for a light evening meal. Or make them in advance and bring them with you for a picnic!

Cookbook Watch: Some new Swedish cookbooks

Sorry for all my English-speaking readers! These books are all Swedish, and I doubt they'll appear in translation any time soon.



First out, Christa Alstrup and Köksfröjder Året Om. This is a translated Danish book, and I have to say, my favorite of the bunch. It's divided by ingredients, like rhubarb, elderflower and other goodies, and the recipes are very diverse. Everything from cookies to main dishes to cocktails to preserves! Some ingredients are hard to find, as they grow in the wild and can't be bought - but for sure, if I ever find them, this is the book I'll reach for. The photos are absolutely beautiful, and taken by Peter Kam.



Sju Årstider by Karin Fransson is actually a bit similar in the feel and vibe of the book. It's divided into seasons rather than ingredients, and the author defines seven seasons rather than the regular five. (spring, early summer, summer, late summer, fall, december and winter) Karin Fransson is a chef and lives on Öland, an island off the Swedish coast. She grows her own herbs, and they are very much present in this book. There are tons of recipes that I can't wait to make - how about a red onion tarte tatin with chèvre cream? Or a potato layer cake with feta cheese? An almond soufflé perhaps? Or beet ravioli? I can sense that I have a lot of exploring to do!



And then a book all about dessert. Klassiska Dessserter by Magnus Johansson is all about classic desserts - but often with a twist. There are even a few of the desserts served at Nobel Prize dinners - now, there's a challenge! The recipes range from very easy to rather involved, and there's definitely something to suit all tastes. My eye was caught especially by miniature Princess Cakes, and I really need to get some good dome-shaped molds in order to make them properly! (Or do I? Maybe I can do them free-form? Must try!) If you don't feel like making your own desserts, visit Magnus Johansson's dessert bistro Xoko for an all-dessert tasting menu! (Xoko was just awarded a gulddrake (golden dragon) by Swedish newspaper DN, for best café! Congratulations!)

Swedish Sandwich Cake by Lena

I have a guest blogger today! Lena, who blogs in Swedish here, is here to tell you all about the Swedish culinary specialty called sandwich cake, or "Smörgåstårta". I haven't manager to talk much about this before, because it's one of my dark secrets that I.. don't like it very much. I'm fairly alone in this, everyone else seems to love it and applaud loudly when they are served. I shudder, ashamedly, and take a small piece.

Lena served this one for her birthday and it was one of the best I've ever tried so I asked her to share the recipe with all of you. You can find it in Swedish here.



Smörgåstårta, or sandwich cake is often served at big parties, such as for graduations, birthdays or as a late night snack at a wedding party. The cake is basically a large sandwich with several different creamy fillings and then topped with vegetables, seafood, ham and cheese. My sandwich cake is made with a soft fluffy rye bread, which is a little more resitant to becoming soggy than the toast bread which is commonly used. For filling I used three very different spreads, it may sound strange to combine sweet fruit with shrimps but it works - I promise, and it is yummy.

I used the following for a cake that was about 16 x 32 cm:
8 rounds of soft rye bread, or if you like, use toast bread
400 g of skagen mix (see here for a recipe Skagen mix )
200 g soft cheese with smoked ham flavour (I used this one,
but any type will do)
a large can of fruitcoctail in juice
300 ml of cream

Cut the bread to the shape you like and divide it so that you can make three layers of filling. If you are using a bread that is a little bit thicker and the bread have a crust it could be good to cut away the crust so that the filling can soak in to the bread. Whip the cream, mix a couple of spoons of whiped cream with the soft cheese to make it even softer. Remove the juice and chop the fruit into small pieces, mix the fruit with the rest of the cream. Build your cake by putting the skagen mix on the first layer, followed by the soft cheese on the next, and finishing with the fruit on the last.

Cover the cake with plastic clingfilm and put it in the fridge over night. One valuable tip when filling your cake, more is better, a dry sandwish cake is not
tasty.

For garnish I used:
300 ml of cream
smoked ham, sliced
cheese, sliced
shrimps
tomatoes
cucumber
red grapes
salad

Rinse the vegetables and the grapes and leave to dry. Whip the cream and cover the sides and the top of the cake with a thin layer. Mount the sallad around the cake with the cream. Garnish the cake to your as you like, with one rule, you can not put to much stuff on the cake.

Enjoy!

Lime Chicken skewers with Hoisin Sauce

I'm always on the hunt for great fingerfood recipes. I love serving a wide array of dishes, small bites that can be wolfed down in an instant, before moving on to the next tasty morsel. This recipe appeared in Ica Buffé, a magazine by the grocery store chain Ica. (Really hit and miss by the way, sometimes the magazine is completely crap, and sometimes it holds some nice surprises.) Per made these chicken skewers for our Eurovision party a few weeks ago! They were really nice - salty, sweet and sour all at the same time, with an aromatic twist from the lime peel. Add some chilli if you want them to have more of a kick!

Lime Chicken skewers with Hoisin Sauce
Makes about 20 skewers

1 kilo chicken breasts, cut into long strips
240 ml (about 1 cup) hoisin sauce
2 limes
salt

Start by grating the peel of the lime. Press the limes, and mix the juice with the peel, some salt and the hoisin sauce. (And chilli, if you want!) Reserve half (it will be the dipping sauce) and marinate the chicken in half for at least a few hours, or over night.

Thread the chicken pieces onto wooden skewers, and either barbecue, or bake in the oven. Per made ours at about 200°C for 10-15 minutes. (We have a convection oven, so raise the temperature slightly for a conventional oven.)

Serve with the dipping sauce.

Recipe in Swedish:
Kycklingspett med hoisinsås och lime

Happy Birthday!

To me!

Thank you for all the wonderful congratulations! An extra-special thank you goes out to Pene, a long time reader and commenter, who sent me a wonderful cookbook from Estonia. It has recipes in both Estonian and English (thank goodness) and it's all.. chocolate! The photos are absolutely gorgeous, and this is one I really can't wait to dig into! Thank you Pene, that was completely unexpected and thus made my day.

Which was, as far as birthdays go, off to a bad start. The wisdom tooth operation, well, not so successful after all, and I had an infection. So back to the dentist for some more torture (really!) and then a heavy dose of painkillers and antibiotics. Yeay. Not. But it picked up pretty well after that! I got flowers from the happy newlyweds, and plenty of gifts from friends and family. And a lovely princess cake! (And no, I didn't make it myself!)

The photo is of chèvre toasts, one of my favorite snacks. So easy to make! You need a baguette - day old is fine - sliced into thin rounds. Drizzle with some olive oil, and top with a thin round of chèvre cheese. Pop in the oven under the grill for a few minutes on high heat, until the cheese has melted and the bread is toasted. Top with rocket (arugula) and some toasted pine nuts. Serve with a glass of bubbly, or not, it's fine with just about anything.

The Wedding

The happy couple, Tesse and Danne


The cake!


Another shot of the cake, or well, the three cakes. (And there's a spare in the fridge.)


And the food - the starter was this cheesecake with red onions, topped with bleak roe. It's on a bed of aragula (rocket) and served with a herb oil. Lena made it for our Twelwth night menu, and the recipe is posted here. (In Swedish.)


Slow-cooked beef tenderloin with potato au gratin and a chanterelle sauce


And for dessert, vanilla ice cream with strawberry sauce

It was a wonderful day and a great party! Must admit that I'm a bit tired now, but it was all worth it. I'm really pleased with how the cakes finally turned out - but let me just say that for my birthday tomorrow, I'm BUYING a cake...

Spice Sugar

I'm surprisingly calm today - half an hour before I have to start on the sugar paste, tie pretty ribbons around the cakes and that's pretty much that. Too late to worry now - if they suck, so, they suck. And I'm fairly confident that they'll be ok. (The wedding cakes, that is, for those of you who have no idea what I'm talking about.)

Here's a really useful staple recipe. I love having some spice sugar at hand - it's great to sprinkle on cookies, to make cinnamon toast, to make cinnamon swirl bread, to add to coffee, sprinkle on ice cream or even in a rich stew. You can use whatever combination of spices that you like, but these are my favorites for this. No exact quantities, you have to wing it. But there's really no way you could go wrong here, so just have fun. Keep in a tight-lidded jar and you're all set.

Spice Sugar

1 part regular white sugar
2 parts brown sugar
cinnamon
cloves
cardamom
vanilla sugar
nutmeg

Just mix everything together. If you have a few leftover vanilla beans, you can stick them in the jar to intensify the vanilla flavor a bit.

Recipe in Swedish:
Kryddsocker

Making wedding cakes

Tesse, on her hen-party a few weeks ago

I've spent today making a wedding cake for Tesse, one of my closest friends. The wedding is tomorrow, and let me just say making a wedding cake is a pretty big deal. I started practising for this one a while ago (here, and here) but it wasn't really enough to prepare me for making.. four. Yes, four cakes. They won't be stacked, thank goodness, so I don't have to deal with that. I just have to make them look pretty, all by themselves. And well, while not easy, it's at least not the same as piping intricate designs. Not exactly up to that! Especially not since my tooth has decided to act up - or rather, my jaw. It's really swollen, and it hurts quite a bit. No fun at all!

Anyway. The cake making went surprisingly well until it was time to frost the cakes with raspberry buttercream. I made buttercream the same way as I had before, but this time, it turned out runny. As in really, really runny. My kitchen must have been warmer than on the other occasions. So, I crumbed the cakes instead (when you put a very thin layer of frosting all over, it's called crumbing), chilled the buttercream and then re-beat it to get the right texture. I just finished frosting the cakes, so tomorrow all I have to do is cover them in fondant, and tie burgundy silk ribbons around them. Then we'll use real roses to decorate.

And, that's my story as a wedding cake maker. Tomorrow, I'll also morph into makeup-artist and wedding photographer! Talk about multi-tasking!

In other news, we just bought ourselves a Wii! Per is setting it up right now, I can't wait to play.

Claypot Chicken with Root Vegetables

For those of you wondering how I'm doing (thank you so much, your e-mails really cheer me up!), I'm happy to report that I'm pretty good! My jaw is a bit swollen and tender, but that's to be expected. The pain is subtle, and definitely bearable. I don't need to be on a liquid diet, but I'm not exactly feeling like chewing much, so it's soft food for today. Per is planning on a chicken with red wine sauce, with new potatoes for tonight.

Today will be spent shopping and preparing for the big Wedding Cake-o-rama tomorrow. The wedding is Saturday. Wish me luck - I'm a tad nervous. I'm sure the cakes are going to be tasty, but they have to look good, too.

Today's recipe is for a claypot chicken. I don't know if many of you, like me, have a claypot stashed somewhere, but I know that I'm really bad at using mine. Which is a shame, because it's really an excellent way of cooking. It's easy, and super tasty - but not exactly fast. Oh well. This can easily be varied, use different vegetables if you like (red pepper and mushrooms would be nice) and serve it with anything from rice to bulgur, couscous, riced potatoes or just ordinary boiled potatoes.

Claypot Chicken with Root Vegetables

1 large chicken
salt
black pepper
1 parsnip
1 carrot
200 g celeriac
4 shalotts
1 garlic clove
1 red apple
1 bay leaf
2 tsp dried thyme
300 ml chicken stock
3 tbsp crème fraîche

Cover the empty pot with cold water for an hour. (The lid, too!) Cut the chicken into smaller pieces, and season them with salt and pepper. Peel and dice the root vegetables, and mince the garlic. Cut the apple into wedges. Put everything in the pot - the chicken on top - and season with a bit more salt and pepper, the thyme and the bay leaf. Pour in the stock. Put the whole pot into a cold oven, set the timer to 90 minutes, and turn the oven to 175°C. Go and relax for a while.

When it's done, strain the stock from the pot into a small saucepan. Add the crème fraîche. Pour it back into the pot, and serve with your choice of sides.

Recipe in Swedish:
Rotfruktskyckling i lergryta

Soup time

I'm having my last wisdom tooth pulled today (pulled, well, more of an operation really) and I expect there'll be lots of soup forthcoming. This particular one is another one that I taste-tested for a future cookbook by Lisa, and it's parsnip boiled with creamed coconut, then blended. It's flavored with lime (my addition, I felt it needed a bit of a kick) and then topped with a mix of fried bacon and ginger. Delicous!

Cheesy Broccoli Pasta

Here's a quick and delicious lunch dish! It takes almost no time to whip up, and it's really nice. You can make it healthier by using whole-wheat pasta, and low-fat cream, but it's up to you really. The cheese I use is Västerbotten, which is a Swedish cheese that I wrote more about here. It's recently been released in a new packaging, a small wedge much like parmesan is usually sold here. As Västerbotten is great in food, this is a nice idea. If you don't have it available - which you probably won't if you're not in Sweden, use some parmesan or pecorino, it'll be delicious too.

Cheesy Broccoli Pasta
Serves 1

100 g pasta
1 handful fresh broccoli florets (frozen are ok)
50 g bacon, diced
1 garlic clove
100 ml cream (low-fat, full-fat - it's up to you)
small handful grated cheese - Västerbottensost, parmesan or pecorino
black pepper

Boil the pasta. Boil the florets in salted water until just tender, then immediately transfer to a bowl of really cold water so that the cooking stops. This helps retain the beautiful green color, and the texture gets better.

Fry the bacon until crispy. Add the garlic, cooked broccoli and cream, and leave to cook for a minute or two.

Drain the pasta but reserve some water. Mix the pasta with the sauce and the cheese, season with black pepper and use a little bit of pasta water to get the right texture - the sauce should be silky, not stodgy.

Recipe in Swedish:
Broccolipasta med Västerbottensost

Ahhh...

I just came back from a half-day with my mom at Hasseludden Yasuragi. (Which was a birthday present - from last year! - from my brother.) It's a Japanese-style spa, with hot springs, and I'm completely beat. We started with a traditional washing, then a few rounds in the pool. We sat in their outside hot springs, with a wonderful view of the Stockholm archipelago. Then we had classes - first Do In which is a sort of self-massage, and then an introduction to Qi Gong. After that, we relaxed for an hour, with juices and fresh fruit, and after that: dinner. I didn't bring my camera (it wouldn't have fit in my yakuta anyway, the kimono-style bath robe we wore for the entire stay) so no photos I'm afraid. Dinner started with some miso soup and sushi - shrimp and salmon nigiri, maki shiitake and chives, and maki saffron marinated salmon with grilled onions. Then fried vegetable gyozas with a hot chilli dipping sauce, and pickled eggplant, which was so-so. The gyozas were great though! Our main course was beef tenderloin on grilled vegetables with teriyaki sauce and rice. For dessert, a small cup of baked chocolate cream, topped with whipped cream and fresh fruit.

Aaah. I'm *so* ready for bed!

Frosty Wild Strawberry Cocktail

Ok, so last night's Eurovision Song Contest was a bit of a letdown. Or a big letdown, really. The songs? Well, I didn't realise this had turned into such a joke. The great days of Eurovision are definitely over. And when the voting began, I could hardly believe my ears. The ones we had topped as the top ten? Well, almost all ended up on the bottom of the list. I suppose we - all eight of us - just have radically different tastes than the rest of Europe!

Oh well. The party was a lot of fun, and the food was excellent! I made these drinks to start the evening with, and they were great. I made strawberry purée - recipe to come another day - but you can use ready-made if you want to. Or just mash up a few fresh strawberries, but it won't taste as intense.

Frosty Wild Strawberry Cocktail
Serves 2

4 cl vanilla vodka
4 cl wild strawberry liquer
3 tbsp strawberry purée
pineapple juice
cranberry juice
ice

Mix vodka, liquer, purée and pineapple juice with ice in a blender until smooth and frosty. Pour into glasses and top with cranberry juice, which will settle mostly at the bottom, creating a two-tone effect.

Sorry, no exact measures on the juice - it depends on how big your glasses are. I tend to eyeball it.

Recipe in Swedish:
Frostig Smultrondrink

Eurovision Song Contest

No proper blogging today - I'm busy watching the Eurovision Song Contest! Go Sweden!

We've had quite a menu:
-fried Mauritian Beggar's Purses (from the Ethnic Paris Cookbook) with a lime-coriander-chilli sauce (recipe to come!)
-prawn crackers
-nachos and guacamole
-carrot and cucumber sticks with yogurt dipping sauce
-chicken skewers with lime hoisin sauce (recipe to come)
-chèvre toasts with rocket and pine nuts (just rounds of toasts, topped with chèvre, gratinated for a few minutes in a hot oven, sprinkled with toasted pine nuts and fresh rocket)
-giant beans in tomato sauce, stuffed wine rolls and kalamata olives, all from Fontana
-and to finish, a Chocolate Truffle Cake which is also what you see in the picture. Yu-u-um.

My trip to Switzerland, part 1

Where do I begin? Well, let's start with the basics. I was invited to go to Switzerland with Emmi, a Swiss dairy company that has been in Sweden for a little over a year. (Swedish site here.) I jumped at the opportunity - and I'm really glad I did. We visited the Kaltbach caves, where Emmi stores cheese in natural sandstone, a lovely little place in the Emmenthal valley where we got to make our own cheese, and the fondue production plant in Thun. So. Very. Cool. We weren't allowed to take photos at Kaltbach or Thun, but I have plenty from Emmenthal. (And I was promised a cd with press pictures from the other places - I'll share them with you later. For now, how about a few pictures of what I ate?


Airport food, but surprisingly good. Chicken with cashew nuts. Not so Swiss, I know.


Four types of cheese fondue! Decidedly more Swiss. And delicious!


A patisserie that I walked by on a morning walk - unfortunately closed. But look at those hedgehogs - so cute!


Dinner at the Kornhauskeller in Bern was a real experience! The room was as you can see gorgeous, and the food - great!


A salad to start the meal.


Grilled veal with asparagus...


...and a white wine risotto


Melon mint mousse with fresh berries - yum! I'd love to replicate this, it was such a clean and fresh way to finish.


Another starter salad, this time for lunch in the Emmenthal valley.

Where the main course was raclette.


And a dessert for us all to share! This is called "marängswiss" in Swedish - obviously Meringue Swiss, but few ever think about that. Meringues, cream, ice cream and fruit - what a winner!



And I'm just a bit ashamed to admit this, but I have to come clean: I went to Starbucks. And I was so excited about it, too! It occurred to me the day before the trip, that maybe, just MAYBE, there would be a Starbucks in Bern. Imagine my excitement when there actually was, just three blocks from my hotel! So, I went for an early morning frappuccino. Yeay!




The final view of Switzerland, the train station in Thun.