The first salmon of the season.

Imagine this my gastronomic friends. A quiet day at the restaurant, ticking over, making stocks and chocolate parfait, perfecting a new recipe for a buerre lanc sauce, cleaning and preparing.
Some weeks ago I was asked to cater for a wedding, the date was in July, so no worries. A wedding of all functions is one that just has to work, the timing the atmosphere, everything has to be just right.
Today we had delivered our first salmon of the season, a whopping 12kg moster. It was fished by Johan Blomqvist the owner of Elsa and our main supplier. He went out this morning specially to pull the nets. The fish was so fresh that it was difficult to pull the bones out. We were all looking forward to a quiet evening, it is after all the eve of midsummer. Then at 1800 a very smartly dressed laduy walked in and asked if this is where the reception was being held? Reception? But surely you are a month early? 'No no, it's here tonight' she replied, and her husband agreed. Alarm bells started ringing and at the same time keeping a straight face, I checked the diary. Someone had put a 7 instead of 6..ie it was June not July. So off we went. From 0-60 in three seconds. A wedding table was created, extra staff called in, flowers arranged, a sauce started, fish filleted, champagne in the freezer. All hand on deck.
We all had the most memorable evening ever, everything worked, no panic, everything fresh and buckets of fantasy. So what did we do?...
Started with valrhona chocolate dipped straberries and a glass of chapagne.
Then  toast skagen with freshly made mayonaise and sour cream sauce and bruschetta
 toasted with olive oil.
A lobster and fish soup served in antique coffee cups with a cucumber wedge
A side of newly made tapenade (i'd just made at 5).
Then the main course of pan fried salmon on spicy puy lentils (courtesy of John Cambell recipe), finished off steamed in the oven with fennel and white wine. Rosmary scented new potatoes and a salad of crisp salad and peppers. And that buere blanc sauce was heaven. The secret is in the creme fraicsh, it keeps it body and doesn't split.
 Then a dessert of valrohna parfait with rasberry culis and passion fruit coulis with fresh strawberries.
And the wine flowed and the laughter rang. It was a great no fantastic evening, thanks to my dedicated team, from Gurra the dshwasher to Pauline who was out walking her dog and got roped in for service.
I fact I think it was probably best not having a month to prepare. But don't try it at home.

Spring has Sprung

I have just returned from Cannes Film Festival and avoided the eggs being thrown at a certain Danish director with very strange views and even bigger mouth. A week is a long time in politics and even longer in the northern nature. I return to find the birch trees have burst out in leaf and the grass is in fact green after a winter under the snow.

Five days left  before the deadline on my article for Gastronomica, two weeks before we open the restaurant and all the contacts and business done at Cannes to be sorted. It must be spring.
 My thoughts in the last week or so have turned to friendship and what it actually means. What are the boundaries we set ourselves in relationships. How we are effected when we loose friends either in death or by growing away from each other, or in the worse case when we fall out. The main question rises, were they actually friends in the first place? or was it a marriage of conveinance for business. This brings me to those boundaries, who writes them? who sets the rules? are they organic or do we expect too much of people that in the end let you down or vica versa you let them down?

Friendship is indeed a complex thing, but I believe really at it's heart is the gut feeling that the person feels right, that you could walk into a igloo or a palace and be proud to be associated with that person, that on a long cold  night, silence is not a chasm, but tranquility and looking at stars is enough of a conversation.

Cannes was amazing this year for me, I met so many interesting and genuine people, now that is surely a rarity in such a  market that has more to do with Billingsgate that film. For those of you who have taken the time to read this, I promise to keep my blogg a litlle more updated, just like an old friend, we all need nurturing.

Back from Berlin to -29c

Film festivals? I sometimes wonder what they actually are all about. I'm three days back from Berlin and Everyone I met, was either on their way to another meeting or just come from a meeting that was the best and most fantastic and they have been promised distribution or finance or both. So many air kisses and red carpet burns.

Stress was tangible, heartbeats raised to max, people sweat and don't look you in the eye. The different levels of power, or the game players, all guarded by the gatekeepers, positioning, pushing and shoving. Is this really a industry, and a multi million dollar one at that? And what happened to creativity, to the actual filmmaking or the writing? No one ever seems to mention the vision, the creativity. Cynical? Me? No, but I wonder how long this circus in a glass cage can continue, why does the next generation accept the rules, when there are alternatives. Are we all so duped or doped. 

I took time out and went to a museum. There in a dusty corner was a penny farthing bicycle, now how long did that take to evolve into the mountain bike of today, would you accept a piece of equipment that was life threatening to anyone stupid enough to mount the thing? The analogy is simple if somewhat obscure, the film industry needs to change and just like vinyl records it will adapt or die. There is a whole new audience out there that are being fed empty shells and soon they will come looking for the nuts.

Post Jokkmok...Pre Berlin

Suddenly the temperature has dropped again. As I write it's nudging minus 26. And I thought spring was around the corner.

Last week at Jokkmok market, my first visit, I can't understand what took me so long, it was the most exhilerating experience and I met a lot of new friends and contacts. This year the theme was food, so it suited me down to the ground. And what food.. smoked and grilled reindeer meat, smoked mountain lake trout, elk sausages and giant muraks of braised elk. The fur clad market stall holders shouting their wares a if they were in a medieval carnival, reindeeer pulling sledges. Everyone breathing like dragons and smiling at the same time. The whole atmosphere bubbled with bon homie, I almost forgot about the political questions of wolf establishment in reindeer areas and the Swedish governments refusal to sign the UN treaty on indigineous peoples.
This weekend I'm off to the Berlin film festival, I wonder if there will be smiling dragon breathers there?
Maybe the connection between food, art and commerce that I found in Jokkmok could be transposed to film festivals and they could burn the red carpet to keep warm.

Just in case you want to join me at my desk, here is the view from my office. It's also good to know, if you have to come searching when the ice is thin.

The big push

I have made a pact with myself. To place a stone on Nelson's, grave every day. She deserves it and I need to keep her memory alive. So far I'm keeping the promise.
This week has been so full of words, like jig saw pieces in a puzzle you bought at a second hand store and I've lost the picture. I'm sure it was a puzzle of sky and sea, two shades of blue that merged on a feint horizon. I'll get there.
Winter has taken a grip. The sea has frozen over and I watched daily as the ice bit fast. Soon it will be thick enough to sail a ice yacht, or go skating. If no more posts are posted, then come looking for me.

Some entries in a diary are the hard to write. Some entries are milestones. There is always something to write or think about. Yesterday was a black day.

There is no entry for yesterday, because I couldn’t write, I was paralysed.

NELSON, my best friend and companion is no longer here. I put her to sleep yesterday morning. I played God? And it did not feel good.

So, this morning starts a new routine, a quieter routine, no more the padding of paws or the clumping up the stairs. She will not follow me out to get the paper in the early morning darkness, although it was some years since she actually followed me up to the letter box. The house has a strange quietness.

Yesterday I did all the walks. The forest track one, to Thomas’s sign. I met a young Golden out on his morning walk, I cried. I felt Nelson with me, even though at that time she was in the back of the car, dead. I did the beach/forest walk, where on so many occasions we have met Kari on his walks, this morning we met no one. I stood and looked back waiting for Nelson to catch up, she never did of course. Then later in the evening, after the candle had burnt out on her grave, I went for our late night route. I waited by her grave, asked if she wanted to follow and whistled for her. I’m sure she came, tail swinging and nose to the ground as always. So ended one of the most painful days in my life. More so even than when Svensson went, because Svensson was really old and sick and on reflection I’d waited too long and she was suffering. No, with Nelson it was different. A week ago she was full of life and vigour, now she’s gone. A visit to the vet to make her better, ended with me carrying her home dead. It feels heavy and fathomless. I’m lost and I was the one who made that decision, which I knew had to be made, but it hurt so deeply inside that I wonder if I will or can recouver. I shall always remember that good trusted friend. She was a proud dog.