Robert's salmon and fish soup.

When I first moved to Stockholm, I did not like salmon. At all. But salmon is extremely popular in Sweden and was served at EVERY dinner party we went to. I didn’t want to be rude, so I would ask for just a small piece and force myself to eat it with copious amounts of potato to mask the taste.

Salmon made me feel like that annoying kid that I was who refused to eat just about everything: fish, peas, lima beans, hot dogs, hamburgers, bananas. The list of my dislikes was endless. Dinner was an ordeal that I tried to get through by creatively hiding peas under my mashed potatoes and by taking a big mouthful of something disgusting and then spitting it into my napkin and dropping it on the floor for the dog to eat.

I longed for a dog to sit by my side on those salmon nights. But then at some point over the years, I realized I could tolerate the salmon. It’s not one of my favorite foods, but I actually like it now. I especially like it in fish soup and Robert makes an amazingly good one with chunks of fresh salmon, mini shrimp and vegetables.

I guess you could say that eating salmon is just one of the many ways Sweden has had an influence on me.

I made pancakes for breakfast this morning. As I created the mix from scratch, following the classic Betty Crocker cookbook recipe, I couldn’t help but be reminded of home. As in the US. Pancakes were so much a part  of my childhood breakfast memories. But they weren’t for everyday breakfast. Rather, pancakes were what my brothers and I ate on the weekends or for holidays like Christmas. Cereal was what we typically had during the week. (And for years, the cereal I ate was either Cheerios or Captain Crunch.)

By the way, American-style pancakes have baking powder in them and are thus fat and fluffy. I always ate them with butter and maple syrup. In contrast, Swedish pancakes or pannkakor are thin and more like what I would call a crepe. And they are very much a part of tradition too – on Thursdays, Swedes like to have pea soup with pancakes and lingonberry jam for lunch. As I am not much of a pea soup fan, this is not a tradition that I have embraced!

This year, it was dinner for two for Christmas. It was both wonderful and hard all at once. It was fun in that we met up with friends for drinks, a Candlelight Christmas eve service and a boxing day dinner. And while it was good to have our own celebration in our own home after so many years of traveling for the holidays, I also missed having family around.  It felt a bit lonely and even though we called and Skyped our families in the US and Australia, it wasn’t the same as being there with them.

Robert and I made the best of it and cooked amazingly good meals for Christmas eve and Christmas day. For Christmas eve, we made reindeer with lingon berries and roasted potatoes and parsnips. Very Swedish. And we had Swedish style appetizers as well with herring and hard bread. Christmas day was more American/English and we had Cornish hens with stuffing, sweet potatoes and green beans with mushrooms. I was so full that I could not move.

Hanging out at Peppar with Zanne and Micke.

We kicked the holiday weekend off with drinks and friends on Friday night at Peppar, a restaurant and bar in Vasastan. This place is as close as you can get to an American dive bar and serves up margaritas and Tex-Mex style food. It was also completely decked out for Christmas. White cotton batting and candy canes lined the entryway. A tree and ornaments hung from the ceiling. A snowman sat on the bar and Santa was in the toilet. Lights and decorations filled every inch of this place and it was so tacky that it was cool.

At just a few minutes before midnight, the Peppar bar staff handed out glasses of glögg and sparklers. Precisely at midnight, John Lennon’s Happy Christmas was played and the entire crowd in the packed bar sang along. Everyone wished us god jul/Merry Christmas. And that was all good fun.

The start of the holiday.

A wallenbergare from Clas pä Hörnet.

Since I wrote about popular Cincinnati comfort food food yesterday, I thought I would counter with a classic Swedish dish today: wallenbergare. A wallenbergare is shaped like a hamburger, but made up of finely ground veal, egg yolks, cream, a few spices and breadcrumbs. It’s typically served up with potatoes, lingon berries and peas, just as you see it here. It is Swedish home cooking or husmanskost just as much as meatballs are. The wallenbergare here is from the restaurant Clas på Hörnet, which incidentally, has been around since 1731 or longer than the US has been a country.

Jin & Peeters vegetarian dumplings are served up with dipping sauce, salad and rice.

The unlikely but very tasty menu combination at Jin & Peeters.

Chicken dumplings at Potstickers.

Thai chicken dumpling noodle soup at Teatro Fantasia.

Oh, and the restaurant reviews? I would go back to all three. Just probably not within the next week!

A reindeer somewhere north of the Artic Circle.

Before I moved to Sweden, I had never, ever seen a reindeer out in the wild. Now I have many times in northern Sweden and Norway. (Around the Arctic Circle, they will saunter ever so casually down the highway, oblivious to the traffic around them.) And I’d never, ever eaten reindeer either. Nor did I even want to try it. But in the last several years, I’ve had it many times: as carpaccio, sausage, stew, steak. We live in Scandinavia, after all. We’re just hanging with the locals.

The other night, I ate some delicious reindeer fillets at Hotel Skeppsholmen. The meat was served up with gravy, mashed potatoes and lingonberries. And you know what, it was really good. I can admit that. Although I wouldn’t dare tell my Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer loving niece that I did. So keep it quiet.

The venison and mushroom crepe.

Located on a street corner in Vasastan, Byn is a French-style crepe restaurant. It’s small and cozy. Service is good. And all of our dinner crepes were mouth-wateringly tasty. And they were beautifully presented too. While we drank wine, I’ve heard that the French cider there is good too. Next time…

I love the beetroot, carrot, walnut and apple garnish.

The chicken crepe.

This royal palace guard seems to be doing his best to ignore Kara!

After living in Stockholm for seven years now, I’ve shown a lot of people around town. I’ve had a lot of people ask me where I like to take guests,  so I’ll share what I call the highlights tour. My cousin Kara and her husband Jim were just here for a long weekend and since the weather was sunny for the most part – with the occasional shower thrown in – we opted to save the museums for a rainy day. I’ve lived in Stockholm long enough to adopt the local custom of being outside as much as possible!

The storybook buildings of Stortorget.

With this in mind, here’s a look at what we did on their visit on days one and two. (Most of day one was taken over by jet lag!) For Baltic and nature views, as well as a look at some expensive real estate, we took walks along Strandvägen and the perimeter of Djurgården. For general people and boat watching, we stopped to have drinks at Strandbryggan Sea Club.

Trying a crown on for size at the Royal Palace gift shop.

Walking around Gamla Stan – the old town – is a given for souvenir shopping as well as to see some of the oldest buildings in town. We went straight up to Stortorget – the big square – to see the beautiful old buildings dating from the 1600s there. And of course, you have to pose by the fountain which was where the Stockholm bloodbath of 1520 took place when Danish-Swedish King Kristian II  had 90 people beheaded and hanged.

Strandbryggan Sea Club.

For a calmer scene, we walked to the Royal Palace. Designed by Nicodemus Tessin the Younger, it dates from 1754 and has a Roman style facade with a French interior. We took photos from the courtyard by the entrance to the state apartments – this is also the spot where you can watch the changing of the palace guards and where the royal family will wave from a balcony on such celebration days as the king’s birthday. Even though the royal family doesn’t actually live here, the guards put on a good show with horses and music. For the best views of the palace overall and to get a better idea of its enormous size, walk down the steep hill Slottsbacken and to the water along Skeppsbron.

To avoid going on too long in one post, I’ll cover days two and three where we cycled around town and explored the archipealgo separately.

Slottsbacken, looking toward the National Museum and storm clouds in the distance.

A portion of the Royal Palace and its 608 rooms.

"Artichokes from our garden." Not MY garden, but Rosendals'.

Sage, parsley and chives.

Tips from the garden: lavish with herbs...sage and black cabbage cooked in butter .... dill and red beets together with browned butter.... Time for enjoyment!

With some girlfriends, I had lunch at Rosendals Trädgård yesterday. Located on Djurgården, Rosendals is an open garden that has the noble goal of showing organic vegetable, herb and flower cultivation to the public. Plus, you can eat the fruits of their labor at the cafe – we had the carrot soup – or buy fresh produce to take home.

It was one of those spectacularly sunny and gorgeous days and everything was blooming in full – all the beans, tomatoes, artichokes and herbs looked to be at their peak and were mouthwateringly good looking. There’s something about being at a farmer’s market this time of year that makes me want to buy everything. I resisted, for the most part, and settled for just taking some photos instead. I’ll share some of the flowers tomorrow.

Perfect yellow beets.

And huge broccoli.

Pretty flowers – some kind of daisy? – and leeks.

I wanted to pop one of the tomatoes in my mouth.

The purple color of these beans was spectacular.

There was definitely rain out in the distance, but it stayed far away from us last night.

I took the day off yesterday. It was my birthday and while I’ve probably reached the age where I should not even mention my birthday anymore and especially not how old I am, I still enjoy celebrating them. The day started with breakfast made by my hubby and then continued with lunch at a Mexican restaurant with friends which extended to a coffee afterwards. And for dinner, Robert surprised me with a dinner cruise on the Baltic. The weather was gorgeous, the food  and wine were good and the views were spectacular.

There were some beautiful boats out on the water.

Thanks to the technology of e-mail, facebook and skype, I had birthday wishes from all over the world, including but not limited to Stockholm, Sydney, Canberra, Helsinki, Oslo, Paris, Barcelona, Berlin, Dublin and London, Cincinnati, New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, Ottawa, Columbus, Cleveland, Atlanta, Washington DC, San Francisco and Winston Salem. I heard from family, people I knew from childhood and university, my first job out of school, writing classes, past and present book groups, former bosses and interns and so many more. I was even sung to in English, Swedish and Spanish. I felt blessed indeed to have such a lovely day.

We were liking the look of this archipelago house, especially since it had a matching boat and sauna house.

For an appetizer, we had salmon with shrimp. And we also had a wine tasting menu with a different glass for each course. We started with a cava from Spain and ended with a dessert wine from Italy.

Our turn around point was Waxholm.