Last night in Luleå before the long drive south. I hear the snow drops are ready to welcome us in Skåne. But I'll be back in a week or two. This monumental decision to open the hotel in Mölle seemed a great idea back in January, now I'm starting to be a bit nervous. Not for the cooking, that I'm really looking forward too, but its the paper work and the actual getting the whole thing up and running.  This Saturday night and the whole hotel is booked! I can't believe it. We're not even supposed to be open until Easter, so I'm practising my John Cleese impression, and those who know me, it means I don't have to practise very much. Someone should warn the poor guests. We will be filming the trip south, just in case we come over some road kill I can use for a stock. I wonder if that's legal? Squirrel soup with moose lardons. An inventive dish more muscular than  molecular gastronomy. Talking of menus, I still have to write mine. But that's the fun part and then of course the matching of the wines.

 No joking aside, the excitement is rising and the team can't wait to get rid of me, they've already ordered a new microwave and furtively looking at  recipes that can gain them a star. Talking of which, no mention in any bibles this year, so that means some hard work ahead to change that. Skåne won't know what has hit them when the Dragon lands breathing fire and crunching mussels. Yehaaaa, here we come!

Into the pot

It's all about the ingredients, stupid.

Well, there must be something about weddings and me.. I managed to book two weddings on the same day and have a very stressful hour today trying to sort out the whole mess.
What did I learn? Buy a proper almanac, or even better delegate anyone who wants to get married near me, or fed by me. What happened in the end?
Well the bride was happy, ( if aged somewhat prematurely, same as me during that hour), turns out that the same party had booked under a different name, so in fact there was only one wedding. A bit confusing you agree.
This week the wheels roll down to Mölle, I still haven't got a stove, but I know a man who has (two), they just happened to be buried in the back of a store under his supplies. We'll dig em out eventually and until then will make use of an open fire and a shovel- that's a joke- we'll borrow one. The excitement is rising. We have a fully booked hotel this weekend and we haven't officially opened. Somehow I see John Cleese in my nightmares or are they dreams.

Taste and Taste and mmm more pepper.

My writing seems to have slipped away like a boats wake. I put it down to the pressure of opening the hotel, some might say it's a sign of my non talent with the blunt pencil. I'll return and surprise them all. Life is all about standing on the bank with a long pole and a small worm, one day something is going to bite.. I just know it.

Important to look up when your walking on a frozen sea.

What this has to do with the northern lights is beyond me!

As always, just when you need it, you left it at home, no not the dog, but the camera. Tonight, even though the temperature is nudging minus twenty four, Saspan needed a walk. So donning my scooter overall and flash light off we set. Crunching up the snow covered road, each footfall sounding like a paper being torn in two or a bite of a Granny Smith. The moon is hiding, so the night was dark, but the great thing about walking with your thoughts and your dog is that any bears or wayward muggers are as scared as us.

I left my lunch box somewhere

Once in the woods and off the leash, Såspan stayed close. I switched off the lamp, because after five seconds you see just as well anyway. Out onto the scooter track, where the snow is compacted and if you wish you could walk to Finland. I looked up and saw the plough and then as if by natures magic theatre a green hue, then stronger a beam as if a far off space craft gad switched on its headlights. The northern lights erupted in a majestic dance. Like watching a wake of a ship at night and the phosphorescence dancing in the water, here the dance was high in the night sky,  forming rails and lines and then morphing into a wild wave of energy. And me and the dog, small and insignificant, gazed up (well I did, the dog found a squirrel scent). It sort of put everything in its right perspectiveBack out of the forest and we walked across the sea. Now frozen and creaking and sighing. Each step felt like the last, through my mind ran thoughts of how long would you last in the water if the ice actually did break? One minute, two maybe. How would I get out again? Would the dog run off to raise the alarm?
And those sudden sounds as the ice creaks and settles, the craaaaaack and you heart jumps and pulse races.
Maybe the evening walk wasn't meditative, but sure as hell exiting. And the dog? Fast asleep on the sofa dreaming of that squirrel.

Thursday, 9 February 2012 -26 Luleå

I Wake up to minus 29 deg C. Wind still and a eerie maroon light over the frozen sea.  I need to write a business plan, in fact I have to write two. The mountain and the to do list has just got steeper and longer. Now if I worked for BP (dread the thought), there would be someone in total symbiosis with me so that a plan could be written by mental power alone. Here the organisation consists of me and the dog. So the reality is that I have to write it. Suck.. but on the other hand a business plan is a road map and we all know how important they are, even if they have been replaced by GPS.

We also started drilling

 

The Russians with their high pressure and cold front are certainly creating havoc in Scandinavia and Europe, most likely Mr Putin is at the controls, well in fact he very well could be because the Russians just bored into the Vostoksea yesterday, so we thought we'd have a go as well.
It took them twenty years, mind you but another dastardly plan afoot I fear. 

Now this is not Falu Korv, but elk in a giant wok.

My goal since Thailand has been for a 1000 words a day –aka Stephen King and A Memoir of The Craft- it's sort of holding up. 
Yesterday I wrote about the Falu Korv.. In fact it was a chapter from Tales of The Tundra about a character called Hasse Blom. Strange how you can start at one point and end up at another. 


The Falu sausage is not exactly exactly high end molecular gastronomy, but it plays an important part in Swedish “husmanskost”. It’s just a bit difficult to put words on how it tastes. I mean who would eat something that has a consistency of Pedigree Chum, smells like a bats arm pit and leaves a metallic taste on the top of your mouth – similar to eating  tin foil that wrapped your Toblerone.

Some guys are made for this weather

I once in desperation to enhance the bland colour of the Falu cassoulet I was making I added blueberry juice. It wasn’t a great success, but the dish was forged into the memory of my children, who gallantly eat the dish, -despite it being the colour of the Atlantic on a winter’s night -but always bring it up in conversations about my culinary experiments..

I normally write a Diary every day, its a way of reatining a sort of sanity, this is part of it and instead of putting it in the bottom drawer, I’ll publish and be dammed, while my thoughts go to warmer climes. Some god news yesterday that the food series has had a green light for development money, so the coconut trees might not be that far away.

A new journey starts

Chef Patron..mmm, savour the words. The ink is just dry on the contract for Hotel Provence in Mölle, (Skåne). Sometimes in life you just have to follow the feeling in your guts. I've always wanted a hotel and now we are about to embark on a very exiting journey, where it will end I've no idea, with a star? or a tear?
 Now the real work starts, the planning of a menu, stocking a wine cellar, paintings to hang, new stove (gas this time), the list is endless and mostly fun.

The real challenge will be in keeping Hamnköket running at the same high standard, but then we have an excellent team. (I teach them young as Gurra will tell you). I have faith in them and once I've had the operation to saw myself in half, I'll be in both places with two wooden spoons.
On top of all this I'm still managing to write 1000 words a day on my novel. I picked up Stephen Kings book "A memoir of the Craft." It gave me a huge whoosh of inspiration, so since January it's been my bible and carrot.
As I write the temperature is minus twenty six. There is a strange metallic clinking noise outside my window. It's the monkeys..(ie brass balls). Duhh. EvenThe hardy Swedes are cursing the Russians for the temperature drop and ice in their beards. There is a rumour that its going to get warmer in June.

So, my faithful blogg followers (2) that is my new years news and I threaten to pen another couple of paragraphs before the month ends. Go well and go safe.
Oh.. before I go, I saw George Clooney in Descendants while I was in Stockholm. I give it a class 5 rating, Brilliant film. Especially for anyone with a couple of teenagers.
We should soon have a promo of our food series edited, so there is something to look forward to on a cold winters night, HA.

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.