Try the World Box: Sweden

The Sweden box was a bit incoherent. It had plenty of treats, but not enough ingredients for a Swedish meal. The recipe card included recipes for salmon and dill toasts, Swedish dumplings and ham & cheese toasts. There was also a pointer to a Swedish meatball recipe. The closest thing to an ingredient for these dishes in the box were the crackers and lingonberry jelly to garnish the dumplings.




We did make the toasts, and dumplings. They were good, but not enough for a meal. We augmented it with a Swedish shrimp sandwich called räkmacka that I learned about on a business trip to Sweden. Räkmacka is a pile of tiny shrimp with a lump of mayo and egg on the side. People mix as much of the egg and mayo as they want into each bite. Together these dishes made a mini Swedish smorgasbord.

Sweden also has a tradition of fika, which is a mid-day sweet snack with coffee. Swedes will drop everything in the middle of the workday: "Time for fika." The box included cookies, licorice, fudge and coffee in support of fika. Swedes like strong coffee, and have barely heard of decaf.


The box included:

Mörsjö Deli gourmet crisps - A thick salty cracker, that was good. Our package was a little bit crunched up.

Nordic Rosehip Fudge - This very soft fudge was flavored more like penuche. It was very good, but we didn't taste any rose flavors.

Tillmans Elderflower saft syrup - This was the star of the box. A little of this in a glass of seltzer made for a deliciously refreshing non-alcoholic cocktail.

Gille Double Chocolate Crisps - This was an interestingly elaborate cookie with two cookie layers enrobed in chocolate sandwiched with some caramel.

Löfbergs Kharisma Coffee - Good strong Swedish coffee.

Hafi Lingonberry Preserves - Lingonberry jelly just yells Sweden to me. It's sort of sweet and sour like a mix of strawberry and cranberry.

Lakritsfabriken Sweet Licorice - A good, strong licorice with a slightly salty flavor. This was a softer version of the center of a Good & Plenty.

Liss Ellas Sweet and Hot Mustard - This was a decent hot and sweet mustard with big mustard grains.

Making Coffee Art

I've been making drawings in my wife's coffee for a while now, and she posts the best on Facebook. Recently, a few people have asked how I do it. Here's a video of the process so you can make your own.

To make your own, you will need the items in this picture:

• Espresso maker (including the tamper)
• Espresso
• Low fat milk
• 1 wide mouth coffee cup
• 1 deep coffee cup
• 1 normal coffee cup
• Paper towel
• Spoon
• Flat toothpicks
• Coffee maker and coffee (optional)
• Sugar (optional)

1. Make the espresso or coffee. Gail likes coffee as the base, but you could use a cup of espresso if you prefer. Fill the wide mouth cup about half full with the coffee or espresso. Sweeten it as you like. This is the final serving cup.

2. Make the espresso in a separate normal coffee cup. You need it for the dark foamy stuff on the top. This is called crema. I drink the remaining espresso when the art is done.

3. Make the milk foam in the deep coffee cup. Surprisingly, we find that low fat milk foams better than whole milk. You can sweeten the milk a little before foaming if you like.

4. When you have the coffee, espresso and foam ready, gather them together with your spoon, toothpick and paper towel.

5. Make the "canvas" by pouring and spooning the foamy milk into the wide mouth coffee cup over your coffee or espresso and smoothing it with the back of the spoon.

6. Wipe the spoon clean with the paper towel.

7. Use the spoon to skim some of crema off the top of the espresso to use as the "paint." Use the spoon as a thick paintbrush or the toothpick as a fine paintbrush. I like the flat toothpicks because one side is wider than the other, so I get two thicknesses.

8. If you want to highlight the image, you can use some leftover foam for white highlights like eyes, or mix the crema with milk foam to get a medium tone.

9. Don't forget to take a picture and share it with me.

Pumpkin Latte Tasting

Gail and I compared pumpkin lattes from Dunkin' Donuts, Starbucks and Peet's today. These were remarkably different from each other. I preferred the Peet's and Gail preferred the Dunkin' Donuts. Here's the breakdown.

Dunkin' Donuts Pumpkin Latte: $3.19 for a small with a doughnut. We got it without sugar added, and added one pack of sugar on our own. It had a light pumpkin flavor, and started out with the right level of sweetness. After a while, it seems like syrup at the bottom of the cup mixed in, because it became far sweeter, beyond what I liked. If you have one, stir it well before adding more sugar. The other oddity was that nobody steamed any milk while making it. Despite the steamed milk coming out of a machine, it was thick enough to hold up a stirrer.

Starbucks Pumpkin Spice Latte: $4.01 for a small. We didn't add sugar this time. It was still very sweet for me. Gail said it tasted like pumpkin pie, which I thought was a good thing. Gail doesn't like pumpkin pie. The pumpkin and cinnamon was very pronounced in this drink.







Peet's Coffee Pumpkin Latte: $3:75 for a small. Once again, we didn't add sugar, and this one was not nearly as sweet as the other two. The Peet's latte had a cardamom flavor that Gail didn't like. I liked this one best, but I think it was mostly because the sweetness was lower. Even though this was my favorite, I don't think I would get another pumpkin latte. They were all just too much for me. Peet's gets an extra shout out because we were served by one of our favorite neighborhood teens.

Olympics Day 6: Jamaican Jerk Chicken

It's early still, but we haven't seen a bit of Olympics. That doesn't mean that it hasn't been an Olympic day. We started it off with our last international coffee, Starbucks Brazil Peaberry Yellow Bourbon. Finally, a coffee that was better than what we usually get in the grocery store, although probably not better enough to be worth the extra price. The beans were smaller than normal, note the "peaberry" in the name. There was a noticeable aroma, and a full, but not burnt coffee flavor. It was a nice, rich coffee.

We made Jamaican Jerk Chicken for dinner, which was quite an adventure. The Simply Recipes recipe called for a habenero pepper, which freaked both of us out more than a little. I cut the pepper, carefully holding it with a paper towel to not get the capsaicin on me. I decided to pick out the seeds to moderate the heat.

After adding the chopped pepper to the marinade, I was careful to wash everything that touched pepper very well. I scrubbed the knife a few times, and then tested if I got it clean by licking the side of the blade. I was surprised that it made my tongue tingle, so I washed it a few more times.

Gail and I both admitted that we were a bit afraid to eat the resulting chicken. I took the first bite, and while it was slightly spicy, there was no problem. I would call it mild. I think we were wise to be careful, but after cooking it and discarding the extra sauce, I would have liked a bit more heat.

The chicken had strong flavors of the lime and cinnamon, and we both enjoyed it. Neither of us thought the flavor was worth all the fuss.

To extend the Jamaican theme, I poured a Red Stripe lager. It's been a long time since I drank a Red Stripe. I was surprised at how much I enjoyed this easy-to-drink beer. It had a simple, malty flavor with very little sweetness. I particularly noted the full mouth feel with no lingering aftertaste.

Olympics Day 5: Egg Drop Soup

First, coffee. Gail made Peet's New Guinea Highlands this morning. Again, not better than what we could get in the grocery store, but perfectly good. This coffee had very slight aroma, but a rich mouth feel. It lacked any metallic notes, and had a full, almost woody flavor.

Gail made egg drop soup for dinner, which we rounded of with some take-out Chinese appetizers. Her recipe tasted just the way I like it. When I have it out, I always have to add pepper and a little soy sauce for flavor. Gail's recipe needed neither. I thought I tasted white pepper, but Gail said there was none. I think the garlic and ginger combine for that flavor profile.

Egg Drop Soup

Serves 2

1/2” piece fresh ginger
1 clove garlic
2 ½ c vegetable stock
1 T med-dry sherry
1 egg
2 T cornstarch
2 T water
1 scallion
¾ t sesame oil
2 t soy sauce (optional)

1. Thinly slice ginger; crush garlic.
2. Bring stock, sherry, ginger, garlic and soy sauce to boil in heavy saucepan. Remove ginger, and garlic if piece is large enough, with slotted spoon; discard.
3. Lightly beat egg. Turn off but leave pot on burner; slowly add egg to soup while stirring in a circular motion; let stand undisturbed until egg strands cooked, 1 min.
4. Combine and stir in cornstarch and water; stir in scallions and sesame oil.

We looked all over for a Chinese beer, but all we could find was Tsingtao, which I don't like enough to buy a six-pack of. So, we looked for something different, and found only one type of rice wine as an alternative. This bottle of Pagoda Brand Shao Hsing Chia Fan Chiew is my first Chinese rice wine experience. The clerk at the liquor store said it was nothing special. He was right. The dark color out of the bottle concerned me at first. On tasting it, the color made more sense. This is just like sherry; average sherry. The bottle is very cool, and since we use sherry mostly for cooking, we will use it happily.

Olympics Day 4: Peet's Costa Rica Coffee

It's tough to do much Olympics on a work day, and today is extra hard because I am going out to dinner for work. We did talk about the Olympics at lunch. Yes, I am the biggest Olympics nut at work.

Gail did make me an international coffee. She made Peet's Costa Rica. It was a pleasant coffee, but no more special than what we usually get from the grocery store. There was little aroma, but the coffee was not at all bitter. A nice, simple coffee.

Olympics Day 3: Traditional English Breakfast

Yesterday we picked up a few coffees to extend the international fun. From Starbucks, we got the Brazil Peaberry Yellow Bourbon. From Peet's we got the New Guinea Highlands, Costa Rica, and Kenya Auction Lot, which I'm drinking right now. We were surprised that Starbucks didn't have more variety, and that they only had pre-packaged beans.

The Kenyan beans were notably shiny. We ground and brewed them the way we usually do, using half a scoop per cup. I expected strong aromas, but the cup lacked any aroma. The flavor started out watery, but finished strong and bitter with a taste of iron.

When we were in London last year we enjoyed the traditional English breakfast. Gail made one this morning including eggs, bacon, sausage, fried potatoes and tomato. This is sometimes called a fry-up for obvious reasons. Look how nicely the eggs came out of the pan. The most unusual part of this breakfast was the tomato. That was an excellent sweet addition to the saltiness of the sausage and bacon. Looks like I'm developing a taste for sweet-salty.

The traditional English breakfast is supposed to be a hearty, "full" breakfast with eggs, two meats, and various side dishes. The potatoes and tomatoes are very common, as are beans. We decided to skip the beans thinking our intestines were sufficiently full of cabbage.

Monin Pumpkin Spice Syrup

Gail has been on a fall quest for a a pumpkin latte that we can make at home. We may have found it. This morning I made us lattes using a tablespoon of Monin Pumpkin Spice syrup in the foam. Yum.