Road Trip

Off to the US for a little road trip along the East Coast. Stopping in New York City, Dover (Delaware, where I'm visiting my old aupair family), Washington DC and New England (Cape Cod, towns along the New Hampshire , Massachusetts and Maine coastline, and Boston). Probably won't blog while away but will hopefully have some good stories to tell and beautiful photos to share once back.

Fellow blogger Saltistjejen gets a special mention as she and I have scheduled a little blogmeet in NYC, which is very exciting indeed!

See you soon!

Wednesday Recipe: Sponge Cake... and Travel Preparations

I feel I have been neglecting the blog lately. To my defence I can say that I've been busy researching over one hundred B&Bs in Cape Cod (well, perhaps not that many but not far from it!) and recovering from a very bad cold I caught in Gotland (must have been all that shaking hands and kissing on the cheeks with the political elite at Almedalen). We're also having very nice weather at the moment so yesterday after work we went for a picnic in Tessinparken and today to the beach in Lidingö (though I thought the water was a little bit chilly so I didn't go for a swim).

Time for this week's recipe!

Fatfree Sponge Cake
4 eggs
3 dl sugar
1.5 dl flour
1.5 dl potato starch
2 tsp vanilla
2 tsp baking powder
1.5 dl water

Oven: 175'C

1. Grease a baking tin and bread it with coconut flakes
2. Mix the yokes and the sugar
3. Slowly add the water and stir carefully
4. Mix flour, potato starch, baking powder and vanilla in a separate bowl
5. Add the "dry mix" to the egg, sugar and water
6. Beat the egg whites until you have a foam-like mix (like you would when making meringues)
7. Carefully add the egg whites to the batter. Don't stir!
8. Bake for 35 mins

I haven't actually tried it yet but it sounds very delicious with the coconut! It apparently goes well with strawberries!

Wordle Fun

Want a summary of my latest posts? Inspired by Johanna, here's the result of my wordling:

Can't figure out how to make the picture bigger though...

Challenge

Another challenge is circling the blogosphere; this one reached me through Marit.

Rules
* Describe the rules
* Answer all questions
* Select 6 persons to challenge in turn
* Let the person who challenged you know that you have accepted the challenge

Five things on your "to do" list today
1. Go to work despite bad cold
2. Cancel dinner plans with friends (unfortunately, due to cold)
3. Calculate division of costs between Peter and myself for our summer travel
4. Book rental car for US trip
5. Blog and read the usual suspects (i.e. my favourite blogs)

I left work a bit early but managed most of the day with my little pile of tissues, cough drops, nasal spray and Savlon (to stop getting a dry and red nose) beside me. The rest is also accomplished except for the rental car but Peter is looking at that as we speak (or I write I should say).

What did you do ten years ago?
In 1998 I studied Political Science at the University of Uppsala for a term before moving to London to continue my studies (ended up staying for four years). I spent the summer in Darien, Connecticut (US) with the extended family of my 1995-96 aupair family and helped out hauling the kids around to different sports and other activities. I met a number of people who are still very good friends even if I don't see that very often these days.

Places where you have lived
--> 1995: Södertälje
1995: New Jersey
1996: Pittsburgh
1996: Södertälje
1997-98: Uppsala
1998-2000: London
2000-2002: Oxford
2002-03: Brussels
2003 -->: Stockholm (Hallunda, Hammarbyhöjden, Årsta and Gärdet/Östermalm)

Five things you would do if you became a billionaire
1. Pay off my student debts
2. Help my family with anything monetary they might need
3. Travel the world
4. Buy my dream house in Stockholm and a flat/house in London, New York and somewhere sunny and hot
5. Donate to charity

A lot of people have done this challenge already but I take my chances and pass it on to Fröken Johanna, Anne, Anna, Johanna, Petra and Nonna.

Wednesday Recipe: Strawberry Salad

Since I'm busy mingling with the political elite in Almedalen I won't do a proper Wednesday recipe today, but I will tell you about an interesting fruit salad that was served at one of the events I attended yesterday.

Strawberries, melon and cucumber.

Sounds a bit weird but it was pretty refreshing actually. I guess the cucumber made it a bit more food-like instead of desserty (is that a word?).

Give it a try!

Report from Almedalen

I'm spending a few days - for work purposes (though I'm quite happy I get the chance to go for personal reasons too) - at Almedalen, the political week taking place in Visby, Gotland, the second week of July every year.

This year is a bit special as it is 40 years ago Olof Palme started the tradition of political speeches, seminars and networking in Almedalen. This year is also special because all party leaders are here, which according to the official statistics has only ever happened before during an election year. The experts say that this is partly due to the fact that the alliance government (coalition of four parties) is faring very badly in the polls and partly because Sweden has entered a sort of permanent election campaign even though this year is right between two elections (last one 2006, next one 2010). They also say that it is because of some current high profile issues (e.g. the newly passed highly controversial wire tapping legislation) and that politicians have become more professional and more PR conscious (there are quite a few lobbyists here!).

My idea was to blog a little bit about the seminars I attend every day (this year is a record year with 660 seminars organised), about the political speeches (one political party per day) and about all the networking and mingling going on, but turns out that all of that takes so much of my time so that it is now 01.36 and I need to get some sleep (though the music from the nearby marina is pretty loud so we'll see how that goes). But I promise a longer report and perhaps some photos once I'm back home. I'm staying over the weekend to explore the rest of Gotland - Peter comes down on Thursday - but I will be back on Sunday.

Wednesday Recipe: Mozzarella Filled Quorn Fillets with Basil and Thyme

Petra started a new theme day lately - recipe sharing on Wednesdays - and since I never got around to doing last week's Show & Tell theme - cooking - I figured today was a good time to start.

I have discovered a new dish - thanks to my cousin Patrik and his wife Johanna - and want to spread the word! I'm not a vegetarian and neither is Peter but we both try to eat less meat (do you know that one piece of meat provides protein to last you four days?) and eat quorn and other substitutes instead. My cousins are vegetarians though and are a good source of new, delicious recipes.

Mozzarella filled quorn fillets with basil and thyme
4 servings

6-8 quorn fillets
2 packs of mozzarella cheese
fresh basil and thyme
olive oil
1-2 cloves of garlic
salt
pepper

Preheat oven to 200'C

Use a blender to mix basil, thyme, olive oil, garlic and salt and peppar to a marinade. Slice a deep gash along the side of the fillets and paint the fillets with the marinade. Save some for greasing the oven tray or pan. Fill with thin slices of mozzarella.

Shove into the oven for 10 minutes or until done.
Serve with grilled potatoes or bulgur or whatever carb you fancy and a salad.

This dish can of course be made with chicken as well. Just remember that while the quorn fillets just need to be heated and get a bit of colour (and you want the mozzarella to melt a little of course), chicken needs more time. You may want to pre-cook the chicken fillets in a frying pan.

Smaklig måltid!

Haven't taken a picture of my new favourite dish yet so you'll have to make do with a similar chicken dish (however with spinach and tomatoes as well)

The Big Book List

In 2003, The Big Read (a BBC programme) compiled a list of Britain’s 100 favorite books. The program reckoned that the average adult has read only 6 of the books on this list.

1) Bold those you have read.
2) Italicise those you intend to read.

(Having seen the movie does not count, of course!)

1 Pride and Prejudice – Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings – JRR Tolkien (started it once but really not my thing, though I’ve seen the movies)
3 Jane Eyre – Charlotte Brontë
4 Harry Potter series – JK Rowling (I’m probably the only one who haven’t read them yet!)
5 To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee
6 The Bible (well, parts of it)
7 Wuthering Heights – Emily Brontë
8 Nineteen Eighty-Four – George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials – Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations – Charles Dickens
11 Little Women – Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles – Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 – Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
15 Rebecca – Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit – JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong – Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye – JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveller’s Wife – Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch – George Elliot (Marian Evans)
21 Gone With The Wind – Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby – F. Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House – Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace – Leo Tolstoy (started it, will finish some day)
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited – Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment – Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland – Lewis Carroll (although I was a bit scared of it as a child)
30 The Wind in the Willows – Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina – Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield – Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia – CS Lewis (also scared me as a child)
34 Emma – Jane Austen
35 Persuasion – Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe – CS Lewis (see comment on Cronicles of Narnia above)
37 The Kite Runner – Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin – Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha – Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh – AA Milne
41 Animal Farm – George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code – Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude – Gabriel García Marquèz
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney – John Irving
45 The Woman in White – Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables – LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd – Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale – Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies – William Golding
50 Atonement – Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi – Yann Martel
52 Dune – Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm – Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility – Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy – Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind – Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale of Two Cities – Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World – Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time – Mark Haddon
60 Love in The Time of Cholera – Gabriel García Marquèz
61 Of Mice and Men – John Steinbeck
62 Lolita – Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History – Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones – Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo – Alexandre Dumas
66 On the Road – Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure – Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary – Helen Fielding
69 Midnight’s Children – Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick – Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist – Charles Dickens
72 Dracula – Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden – Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From a Small Island – Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses – James Joyce
76 The Bell Jar – Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons – Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal – Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair – William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession – AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol – Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas – David Mitchell
83 The Colour Purple – Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day – Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary – Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance – Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web – EB White
88 The Five People You Meet in Heaven – Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Magic Faraway Tree Collection – Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness – Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince – Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory – Iain Banks
94 Watership Down – Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces – John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice – Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers – Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet – William Shakespeare (well, parts of it)
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory – Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables – Victor Hugo

I think that makes 25 read books! Pretty good I think considering the average is 6!