Marco, one of the Italians on the second floor, prepares dessert in the group kitchen.
Kjerstin and I stopped by the Turkish grocery store in Sivia Torg this afternoon, where amongst other items this great baklava was purchased. The store actually has a great selection of all kinds of baklava, including various squares, rolls, and triangles with varying degrees of crushed pistachio, honey and other toppings.
Sebastien, our resident Gaul, treated us to a night of galettes and crêpes using his specially-seasoned iron cookware. Pictures here.
Christmas Eve was spent with family friends, one of whom brought over this terrific Tuscan Bean dip as an hors d'œuvre:
New on the table this year was my mom's Spanish frisée salad with almond dressing, and to the north of that on the table you can see my sister's patented garlic-infused butter, next to the rolls.
My grandmother, visiting from the midwest, made her annual christmas cookies out in California this year, together with my mom:
Just like last year, the block went all-out for the combined display of luminaria all up and down the street:
In late September I flew through Copenhagen, where I had a chance to try out the first Starbucks in Scandinavia -- outside the secure zone in Kastrup Airport. You can see a large photo of the Danish-language menu here:
On December 11th I found myself again flying through Copenhagen, and wanted to see if they'd completed construction on the second Starbucks in the region, which was inside the secure ticketing area at Kastrup. Tragically I discovered the new branch was scheduled to open the 12th, one day after my flight -- but that they were conducting a "soft launch" for airport employees that very day. I somehow talked my way into the store, still behind construction barricades, by telling the manager I was from Seattle.
As an extra bonus, all orders were free (!) that day, making this simultaneously the best deal I've ever gotten at Starbucks and in Denmark as a whole as well.
Marcus Samuelsson, the Swedish super-chef best known for NYC's Aquavit, is apparently opening a new street-food concept café in Stockholm's Central Station. I gathered this from the crowd of press and onlookers surrounding him as I passed by today:
The menu offers "Pizza by the Inch," Satays and Soft Tacos, among others:
Samuelsson's most recent stateside effort was a partnership with Starbucks focusing on African cuisine and coffee, but as far as I know this is one of his first restaurants in Sweden.
Alongside the myriad problems that go with living together with Swiss people (cuckoo clocks underfoot, Ricola wrappers everywhere) comes the definite advantage of home-made Raclette dinners.
I didn't have the guts to order it. That topping looks like purée of Grinch.
Three of us headed out to Ayako's Sushi on Gejersgatan for a little Japanese cuisine.
During the meal we admired the water pitcher and glasses, not normally high points of an ethnic restaurant, but vessels which in this case were characterized by attractive blue patterns:
After having written about the Cisco Networkers 2007 show, I thought I'd go back and finally finish editing and uploading pictures from the year before, when the convention was in Las Vegas.
Naturally a shot of the Chocolate Fountains was in order:
Other than the catering debauchery, however, what I remember most about last year was walking on foot (shocking, I know) through the city one evening with Sándor's Canon S400, taking pictures along the way. I can't really figure out what this herd of chairs was doing outside the Riviera Convention Center, but the scale of the rear wall gives a sense of how monolithic these buildings would be without their strip-side decorations:
In fact, wandering just a block or two off the strip is a good way to get a sense of just how enormous these disguised warehouses are that house casinos and ballrooms:
Off-strip also affords strange views of some relics of earlier architectural eras, such as the Guardian Angle Cathedral:
In contrast, the spaces that you're supposed to see are expertly designed and landscaped to make you forget exactly where you are. The most recent big casino to go up, the Wynn, takes this to an extreme with a small artificial lake hidden inside what appears to be an alpine hill from the strip. Walk inside the casino, and into the Bartolotta seafood restaurant, and a mixture of pine trees, plantings and an enormous earthen berm shields you from the traffic of the streets just a few dozen yards away from your dinner table:
The rest of the photos from 2006 are online here.
Bio
Peter LeonardFulbright Fellow & Guest Researcher at Uppsala University's Centre for Multiethnic Research.
Graduate student in Swedish Literature at the University of Washington.
During Spring 2007, I was an exchange student in Nordic Literature at the University of Copenhagen as a Scan|Design Fellow, where I also interned at Museum Tusculanums Forlag, the University Press.
