A Day on Möja

After traveling to Möja, a far off island of Stockholms archipelago, I'm officially in love with this country. The Swedish archipelago is like Martha's Vineyard x Bar Harbour Maine. Blueberries line numerous trails tempting forest walks. Old wooden houses feature little old ladies picking roses in their gardens. Sail boats dot the horizon.

My German travel buddy Judith and I disembarked at Ramsmora and wandered into an hour-long nature jaunt. Soon after we were hungry so we found our way to the water, climbed onto a rock and made our picnic- lox and crackers. Simple but perfect with the sea air. We also had a few pieces of fruit to temper the salty.

Soon after we happened upon a cafe in Loka. We entered and decided to sate our sweet tooths with kanelbulle, ie a Scandinavian style homemade Cinnabon :-)

Still warm, it was glorioBackEr continued our walk and made it to Berg, the anchor town complete with bed and breakfast.

Back on the boat now headed home. The Archipelago, in all it's picnic-perfect, summer by the sea stereotype, is not a place to pass up.

Sick Day

I woke up this morning feeling a little under the weather. Whenever I get sick, there's only one food that fixes me up right away--Chinese rice soup, also known as jook or congee. My mom takes the left over rice from the night before and boils it with homemade chicken broth for hours until the starch breaks down and it becomes the consistancy of a thick soup. Little bits of chicken that has fallen off the bone float in the soup along with big chunks of ginger which is said to have medicinal powers that settle the stomach. Scooped into a bowl and served with a drizzle of soy sauce and chopped scallions makes it both delicious and great for you.

Don't have times to make it? You can find this traditional rice porridge at almost any restaurant in Chinatown. One of my favorite spots is Big Wong's on Mott. I know it's not exactly summer fare, but you never know when you'll get sick.....

Photo courtsey of Congee by Giovani.

Rhubarb Coconut Crumble

A rhubarb coconut crumble might just be the perfect dessert to mix things up this 4th... I know it is here in Sweden. Simply mix 4 cups of chopped rhubarb with 2 tbsps potato starch and 1/3 cup sugar. Pour the dusted fruit into a springform pan lined with parchment paper. In a food processor mix 4 tbsps butter, 1/3 cup sugar, 1/3 cup flour, 2/3 cup coconut shavings and 1/3 cup agave. Give it a whirl for 10-20 seconds. Cover the rhubarb with the buttery coconuttty crumble and bake at 375 degrees for 30 minutes. I added granola to my serving at the last minute. Voilà!

Elderflower Syrup

Disclaimer: this post is a tease. We aren't finished with the entire process of making elderflower syrup but today we began.... By pulling over on the side of the road and pillaging a field of elderflower trees. Because of mans law in Sweden, what's on the road is ours for the taking. We picked 6 grocery bags of flowers.
When returned to Appelfabriken, we washed them and covered them on sliced lemons and sugar and boiling water. Now they'll marinate for four days....

Tabbouleh

A simple tabbouleh salad for dinner tonight. Simply cook bulgar for ten minutes. Add chopped cucumbers, tomatoes, tons of parsely, a little mint, a red onion, a chile and salt and pepper. Top it off with lemon and olive oil!
Dine a fresco of course!

Garlic Scapes in Ohio

Greetings from Cincinnati which is not quite a farm town, but we do have some wonderful local farmer's markets. My current obsession is garlic scapes - long, green, tubular stalks with a curly end that have a very fresh, mildly garlicky taste. My favorite preparation is to cut them into pieces about 1/4 inch long and sautee them in olive oil. They are delicious by themselves, but I have been adding to the sautee a serrano pepper, fresh corn off the cob, red pepper and fresh peas. A colorful and sensational vegetable dish!

While at the Hyde Park Farmer's Market today, I ran into one of Jill's old high school friends whose family of foodies started a catering business and then opened up a food-to-go shop called A Forkable Feast. They were at the farmer's market sampling their homemade pesto, which got me thinking that using garlic scapes to make pesto would be spectacular.

By the way, the season for this young garlic is very short, so I bought all they had. I cut up half and froze it. The rest of the stalks I cut up and put in jars of olive oil. I'll be sure to whip it out when Jill comes home to visit.

Classic or Seedless?

While heirloom tomatoes, peas, and apples appear regularly in the gardens and kitchens of serious eaters, the designer engineered Pureheart watermelon, prized for its lack of seeds and small dimensions (3-6 lbs), overshadows old-fashioned varieties, such as the moon and stars watermelon, as well as classic melons with black seeds.

[caption id="attachment_2740" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Watermelon courtesty of flikr user S n o r K e l."][/caption]

As illustrated by Amy Goldman in Melons for the Passionate Grower (2002), heirloom watermelons and other melons are more fragrant and aesthetically pleasing than the standard specimens piled at the grocers.  Goldman’s melons have intriguing names, such as snake melon, serpent melon, and Prescott Fond Blanc, and the palatable varieties have generated a passionate following among those  in the know.

Yet engineered seedless watermelons persevere.

Is it the pure joy of halving a miniature watermelon to create a single personalized serving?  Is seedless too irresistibly convenient?

What do you think?