The Zen of Kvarg?

Another food-related post. Sorry if they are boring...its just such an adventure attempting to navigate the livsmedelsaffär (grocery store) or to make meals that feel like home. American home.

Stu had a rough day or two...he is currently working on a big project to present to the Swedish state-owned pharmacy monopoly Apoteket.  A little background: you can't get most over-the-counter drugs in Sweden without a prescription, and then only at Apoteket (but we arrived prepared...we brought a giant box of Dayquil & Nyquil!) Earlier this year, it was decided that the monopoly should be broken up, and just Monday, it was announced that more than half of the 900 pharmacies were sold off to private companies. And this whole issue served as a live case module for Stu's management class. He can write more if I am leaving big details out, but they have to pitch their strategies for marketing and managing the transition to the big shots at Apoteket very soon.

Anyway, a rough day or two working on this project. We both have been sleeping crappy, watching True Blood too late into the night, and working a lot. And he got a haircut (finally) that was a little shorter than he wanted. In fact, he said he was emphatic to the hairdresser that he wanted "just a trim, keep it long" but it is shooooort. Maybe Army short?  And we hadn't gone to the grocery store, so there was no food in the fridge. So I guess when he stopped by the store for the basics, the lasagna noodles screamed out to him. Like "eat me, I remind you of home!"  So expecting to make a meal, he bought the noodles, and an onion, some parmasan, and some tomato sauce.

But no ricotta or mozzarella. Sweet man, he tries.  I ran out for the cheeses and more veggies, but you can't find ricotta cheese here (or I can't find ricotta cheese here.)  I know you can make it fairly easily at home, but that requires cheesecloth, and I am pretty sure cheesecloth doesn't translate to "ost duk." Stu had that problem when he went to buy shortening (like, the margarine-y stuff, because when you plug "shortening" into Google Translate, you get förkorta which is more like the verb or art term. Swedes would look at you like you were crazy if you were at the store wanting to buy foreshortening.)

So no ricotta. But I have seen cottage cheese, and figured that if I spiced & herbed the crap out of the lasagna, no one would notice...same texture, right? But Lidl (the supremely cheap grocery store around the corner) didn't have anything labeled "cottage cheese." They did have an opaque tub of something called Vähärasvainen Maitorahka Kvarg near the creme fraiches and the grädd.  Don't ask me how to pronounce that first part, I think its Finnish. I zeroed in on the "Kvarg" part.  Sounds disgusting.  But I bought it anyway.  Don't say I'm not adventurous.

Well, turns out kvarg is not ricotta or cottage cheese-like in consistency. Not even close. More like sour cream or greek yogurt.  And after some heavy-duty googling (yeah, it took a while! My research skills are rusty!) I came to the conclusion that what I had bought was Quark (thank you, Wikipedia, for pointing out how different it is from cottage cheese and ricotta). Its fairly common in Eastern Europe. But they don't even sell it in the US because it isn't pasteurized. No wonder.

So, I have no ricotta with which to make Stu a homesick lasagna. Even better, now I have 500 grams of creamy, sour, un-ricotta-like kvarg in our fridge to figure out what to do with. And soon, because I opened the thing, and its not pasteurized!  Not to mention that Stu is spending the weekend in Germany, so I am also on my own as far as eating it, whatever it is.

Anyone ever kvarged before? Should I attempt the kvargcake in the wikipedia picture? God, that just sounds gross.  And more importantly does anyone want to send me some cheesecloth?

I probably wouldn't shop here anyway,,,

An unfortunate name for a leather goods store to a native English speaker...

and...

I just looked at the difference between Oct 30th's post on H'ween, with the sunny pictures of pumpkins, and today's post with pictures from Nov 8th in Vasaparken. It's like the pictures were taken a season apart, even though it was only a week or so.  The weather really changes so quickly here.

Also in looking over previous posts, I noticed:
a) I seem to post about DC and food a lot. I guess you can tell where my interests are

b) Stu has posted twice in the last month+. I guess you can tell where his interests aren't.

c) We need to put up more pictures.

Its *that* cold.

Its been pretty cloudy here. Not too cold (if you don't count the day last week that it snowed, of course) but really gray. I have had to make an effort to go outside, partly because its so depressingly gray out and partly because I have 3 papers due this week for school.  Not to worry, I am taking multi-vitamins, which supposedly have 100% of my daily Vitamin D needs taken care of.

 

Anyway, Stu and I decided to walk to Fridhemsplan yesterday to order our Thanksgiving turkey from one of the big grocery stores there. Its about a 20 minute walk or so, through a nice neighborhood and over the bridge to Kungsholmen (because Stockholm is a bunch of little islands, everything is over some bridge.)

We walked up Odengatan, and ended up spending a large chunk of time in Vasaparken, which is what I am posting about. Its a little city park that apparently used to be considered the "outskirts" of town, and in WWI, they used it to grow potatoes for the city. Its better known for being described in many books by Astrid Lindgren, because she lived in an apartment adjacent to the park from the 1940s until she died in 2002.

 

Even more interesting to us was that someone had hosed down a football field (uhh, I mean soccer) in Vasaparken. And it froze.

There were a dozen or two "ice skaters" without ice skates and a few kids with hockey sticks. We got to watch a bunch wipe out, which was admittedly rather amusing. I, however, did not spend any time on the ice, because I didn't want to be amusement for anyone else...I'm not that coordinated, and probably would have ended up falling on my butt, ripping my jeans and crying.

You can see the white field lines in the ice in these pictures from the grass beneath...Stu might have been "skating" out of bounds, I'm not sure.

The natives have told us you can skate out over the water between some of the islands when it gets really cold (which I will never do, I promise you.) But the impromptu skating rink in the park was really kind of cool. You know, its cold here. But I didn't realize it was *that* cold.

Now THAT is how you protest!

The global financial crisis has forced US government offices to make major changes over the past many months. Just yesterday, Congress passed a bill (which Obama will sign into law today) extending unemployment benefits to the nearly 2 million Americans whose benefits will run out by the end of the year (that includes me!)

In another example of how the Feds have had to trim expenses, the US Postal Service is closing about 400 service offices next year to cut costs, including one in the Florida town of Lantana (pop. 10,000.)  Residents there were so upset about having to drive an additional 7 miles to pick up packages, they convinced the city council to let Washington know how they felt.

By mailing more than 1,000 coconuts to Postmaster General John E. Potter in Washington, D.C., hoping to convince him to keep their post office open!  The coconuts arrived individually wrapped and stamped to the offices.

Who knows if it will lead the USPS to change their minds about Lantana, FL's office, but what an awesome way to stick it to the man!  I love it.

The USPS donated all of the coconuts to Bread for the City, a local foodbank and homeless aid center.  They blogged about the donation here. And they are in need of recipes, so if you have a good one, let 'em know.

Visiting Sthlm

Its November 4th (where did October go?!?)
I realized that we have been here about 3 months, which still doesn't sound like that long. But it marks 1/8th of our planned time in Sweden...we will definitely be here until Summer 2011, and who knows from there? But 1/8th sounds like such a big amount of time has passed...only 7 more 3-month-chunks until we both have Swedish master's degrees and have to rejoin the real world and get jobs. I am still hoping to win the lottery--I am so getting used to not working. Of course, you have to *play* the lottery to *win* the lottery...

With K & J in Söder

In our short 3 months here, we have had some interesting, random visitors from back home! The first week we were in Stockholm, a friend from the DC art librarian scene (you didn't know there was an actual scene, did you?) happened to be traveling through with her husband while on a short sabbatical. They stayed at Mälardrottningen the boat hotel next to Gamla Stan, which maybe sounded cooler than it was. They said the rooms were tiny, swoony and with bunk beds! Anyway, their visit was the first actual dining-out-with-waiters experience we had in Stockholm. I am not even sure what or where we ate, but I remember the beer being pretty good, and my first taste of Swedish cider not so good. Its like juice. Plus, the exchange rate was better than what it is now...

Stu also had a random yoga friend from DC in Stockholm for a visit, such a small world! And we went to Oslo for a weekend to visit SAK, a good family friend who was working in Norway for a week. And maybe not-so-random, we have gotten to hang out with Stu's Swedish friend Seb, who hasn't lived in Sweden for years and years, but just moved back just south of Sthlm.

And now November. We are actually playing host to a few non-Stockholm friends as well. JP, from Mary Wash, is in Europe for 7 weeks for work, so she is intelligently planning a stop in Vasastan so we can show her a good time. And Stu's former professor when he was in school in Germany is coming from Frankfurt and spending Turkey Day with us! We are planning to have the Americans over for turkey and punkin pie, and maybe football, if we can swing it with the time difference. We don't have enough chairs in our apartment for everyone, so that might be a challenge. Maybe make it a BYOC (bring your own chair) thanksgiving?

AND, Stu's momma is coming for a week over Christmas! Well, I (and SAS) keep screwing up her flights, so we'll see if the trip actually happens. I am so excited to have her...it will feel more like a family holiday. It'll be a heck of a lot darker here than Grand Rapids, MI, but I'm hoping Stockholm will have less snow.

Its only been 3 months (though time is flying!) We made a lot of new friends here, but we are looking forward to more random, interesting friends & family from back home visiting Stockholm.

Uhh, but maybe when it gets lighter and warmer...the sun sets by 4:30 now and it snow-flurried today. It's already long-underwear weather.

Halloween with Swedes