Tove told me a surprise was coming.
Dessert? I squealed hopefully. Ooh, I know! Swedish pancakes? Not edible, she replied. Hm. A non-edible surprise? I was skeptical.
We were flying from Malmö, Sweden, to Stockholm. Malmö is the southern port town where Tove grew up and where, in 1945, my German grandmother, my Oma, spent a year recovering from concentration camps. At that point, her parents and sister were dead. I thought about my family across the ocean.
The day Tove and I spent in Malmö was rainy and gray, so we passed a cozy afternoon in a cafe that smelled wonderfully of roasting coffee beans. At one point, Tove left to fetch our food and I watched people outside walking past the cafe windows. I closed my eyes and thought about Oma in 1945, six years my junior and walking down the same streets, seeing the city through eyes that had seen things no eyes should see. I shuddered and opened mine to see a smiling Tove returning with our sandwiches. It was more than a comforting sight.
High up in the clouds, I'd already been impressed by the complimentary sandwich we received on our hour-long flight. The soft yet delightfully hearty bread was covered in a paprika cream-cheesey spread, much of which remained smeared on my fingertips, turning them a lovely shade of orange.
I was rubbing my fingers together, trying to clean them but instead creating a layer of sticky gray residue, when a smiling flight attendant strolled by and lowered a tray of steaming white hand towels in front of us. Surprise! sang Tove.
We eagerly snatched up the towels and then dropped them - aiii! - scalding hot killer towels! I poked at mine until it seemed a decent temperature, then rubbed my fingers clean with the happiness of someone taking a shower after a week of camping in the mountains.
And on the eighth day, God created wet wash cloths to clean sticky fingers and make people on airplanes very, very happy.
The smiling lady came back with a straw basket for us to drop our dirty towels into. I turned to Tove and shook my head in that way that says, Hey, I'm really impressed.
Hey, I'm really impressed, I said out loud. It's like a sushi restaurant... only it's an airplane.
Sweden is impressive in the air and even better on land. It's a beautiful country brimming with two of my very favorite things: good bread and people on bikes.
I'll save bikes for another time. Let's talk about bread.
Well, first let's talk about cheese. French cheese is hands down the tastiest I've had (so rich! so sharp!), and I love the enormous variety of tastes and textures. But I won't say that French bread is the best of the best. The baguette has its time and place -- fresh from the boulangerie and snuggled under a slice of sharp Compté cheese -- but I do not believe it is the be-all, end-all of breads. My knight on a white horse arrives not with a baguette in hand, but with loaf that is rich in color and filled with crunchy nuts and seeds, or chewy dried fruit. Above all, it is impossible to roll my dream bread into a ball. Go ahead! Call me a bread snob - I've already accepted it.
And I've found my bread king up north. Swedish bread, or bröd, is chock-full of tasty stuff. Seeds and nuts, spices and seeds, nuts and spices, hurrah! In Malmö, we regaled ourselves with Tove's mother's home-made breads. One was cut into small squares and exploding with whole hazelnuts. Another, sweet and tangy with honey and caraway seeds, was cut so thin that I sucked down entire slices in a few bites.
Back in cheese country, I'm finding fine, seedy substitutes and remembering that above all, variety is how we appreciate different tastes and textures. While hearty bread is delicious in the morning, slices of fluffy brioche (light and slightly sweet) make for excellent tartines (toasted bread with sweet or savory toppings) and pain perdu (the French call French toast "lost bread." Million dollar question... why do we call it French toast?)
And the most delicious thing I've learned, confirmed with every bite, is that everything tastes better with friends.
We were flying from Malmö, Sweden, to Stockholm. Malmö is the southern port town where Tove grew up and where, in 1945, my German grandmother, my Oma, spent a year recovering from concentration camps. At that point, her parents and sister were dead. I thought about my family across the ocean.
The day Tove and I spent in Malmö was rainy and gray, so we passed a cozy afternoon in a cafe that smelled wonderfully of roasting coffee beans. At one point, Tove left to fetch our food and I watched people outside walking past the cafe windows. I closed my eyes and thought about Oma in 1945, six years my junior and walking down the same streets, seeing the city through eyes that had seen things no eyes should see. I shuddered and opened mine to see a smiling Tove returning with our sandwiches. It was more than a comforting sight.
High up in the clouds, I'd already been impressed by the complimentary sandwich we received on our hour-long flight. The soft yet delightfully hearty bread was covered in a paprika cream-cheesey spread, much of which remained smeared on my fingertips, turning them a lovely shade of orange.
I was rubbing my fingers together, trying to clean them but instead creating a layer of sticky gray residue, when a smiling flight attendant strolled by and lowered a tray of steaming white hand towels in front of us. Surprise! sang Tove.
We eagerly snatched up the towels and then dropped them - aiii! - scalding hot killer towels! I poked at mine until it seemed a decent temperature, then rubbed my fingers clean with the happiness of someone taking a shower after a week of camping in the mountains.
And on the eighth day, God created wet wash cloths to clean sticky fingers and make people on airplanes very, very happy.
The smiling lady came back with a straw basket for us to drop our dirty towels into. I turned to Tove and shook my head in that way that says, Hey, I'm really impressed.
Hey, I'm really impressed, I said out loud. It's like a sushi restaurant... only it's an airplane.
Sweden is impressive in the air and even better on land. It's a beautiful country brimming with two of my very favorite things: good bread and people on bikes.
I'll save bikes for another time. Let's talk about bread.
Well, first let's talk about cheese. French cheese is hands down the tastiest I've had (so rich! so sharp!), and I love the enormous variety of tastes and textures. But I won't say that French bread is the best of the best. The baguette has its time and place -- fresh from the boulangerie and snuggled under a slice of sharp Compté cheese -- but I do not believe it is the be-all, end-all of breads. My knight on a white horse arrives not with a baguette in hand, but with loaf that is rich in color and filled with crunchy nuts and seeds, or chewy dried fruit. Above all, it is impossible to roll my dream bread into a ball. Go ahead! Call me a bread snob - I've already accepted it.
And I've found my bread king up north. Swedish bread, or bröd, is chock-full of tasty stuff. Seeds and nuts, spices and seeds, nuts and spices, hurrah! In Malmö, we regaled ourselves with Tove's mother's home-made breads. One was cut into small squares and exploding with whole hazelnuts. Another, sweet and tangy with honey and caraway seeds, was cut so thin that I sucked down entire slices in a few bites.
Back in cheese country, I'm finding fine, seedy substitutes and remembering that above all, variety is how we appreciate different tastes and textures. While hearty bread is delicious in the morning, slices of fluffy brioche (light and slightly sweet) make for excellent tartines (toasted bread with sweet or savory toppings) and pain perdu (the French call French toast "lost bread." Million dollar question... why do we call it French toast?)
And the most delicious thing I've learned, confirmed with every bite, is that everything tastes better with friends.
Nice post as always!
ReplyDeleteBut where are the fikas?
Keep up the good work!
food and friends... what else can we ask for m'dear? :)
ReplyDelete