we spent almost a whole month in portugal, and once more, i decided to keep track of the special things we ate, so that we could make another food list. we’re quite predictable, as it turns out, and return mostly to the same staples: lots of bakery items and sentimental food our moms make. here are the highlights:

butter toast

octopus rice

cookies cake

pork à la alentejana

pork steaks with ‘shrooms

chocolate salami

palmier

mom’s marmelade

mom’s tomato jam

sweet bean tartelet

pão d’ul

P.’s mom meatballs

pumpkin’s smoked sausage

galão

punched potatoes

limiano cheese

natas

broa de mel

berlin ball (the real ones!)

codfish burger with açorda

burger with potatoes

fancy french pastry

another french pastry

strawberry-profiterole pie

grelos (broccoli rabe)

butter croissant

cheese/ham toast

croissants

butter toast

jesuíta

chocolate croissant

salmon with chestnuts

another berlin ball

pastel de nata

alheiras

meia de leite

my stomach is grumbling already!

when i make these lists, i get the feeling people might think we only eat crap… well, it isn’t true. what you see here is a glimpse, a condensed version of the more interesting things me and P eat. the other stuff, the plain omelettes, soups and other very mundane dishes are not that interesting, and are therefore omitted. believe it or not, all in all, we eat quite decently. :)

flavoured marshmallow balls, covered in chocolate. sometimes, happiness is a really simple thing indeed! :)

roadtrips are practically an art form, but like all travel, they must be done with the right people. for us, this means easygoing friends who share our interest in food, nice landscapes and all kinds of kitschy or cute things. so when our hosts (lovers of all things kitsch and tasty like us) suggested we do a roadtrip around skåne, our answer was a very enthusiastic YES! :D

in the morning, we rented a wreck and drove around the countryside of central skåne, dodging the heavy rain in search of a famous moose park… which was unfortunately closed. all we saw were 3 sad mooses…

to make up for that small setback, we decided to stop on one of the biggest second hand stores of the region, where we checked out the dishes and christmas decorations…

the weather had cleared up by then, so we did a first quick stop by the baltic sea, to check out the beach and the war bunkers that still exist there:

we also stopped at a burial site that we saw on the way. the stones in this region are all very round, due to erosion.

by then it was time for fika, the traditional swedish coffee break, so we stopped at a little quaint town by the sea. after having crossed the dozens of fields of apple farms, we couldn’t resist a piece of apple pie!

then we turned south, driving along the coast. there are many signs of bronze age in this part of sweden, and we got to see a few marks of the early populations on the polished coastal stones. boats and axes are featured prominently.

a bit further southt, we made a detour to see ale’s stones, sweden’s own stonehenge: a set of massive stones set in an ellipse on a cliff by the sea. nobody seems to know very well why they’re there, but they’re quite impressive nonetheless – and the cows seemed to love them as scratching posts!

we couldn’t resist the calling of the sea, so naturally we descended the cliff and picked rocks at the beach.

with the sea air opening our appetite, we had to make a pit stop for refuel. we drove by a place in skurup that has awesome fast food: meatballs with lingon jam, red danish sausage, fish and chips, and an amazing wrap with sausage, cucumber and mashed potatoes. skurup is famous for being the starting place for the wonderful adventures of nils (the boy that traveled sweden on a goose), and they have a great slogan “when in europe, don’t miss skurup”. it’s a really small place, but i guess it’s worth it for the food and the sweets! :P

on the way home, we passed fields upon fields of sugar beets… i had never seen one up close, so we made a quick stop on a recently harvested field to snatch a leftover beet, which we cleaned and chopped when we got home. it didn’t taste like much except… sweet! :)

all in all, a very successful roadtrip!

nordic water peace is a special ben & jerry’s flavour that is only available in nordic countries. it’s their first local flavour, a joint effort with wwf towards the conservation of the baltic sea. from the words of the finnish wwf marine programme manager:

“Achieving good environmental status in the Baltic Sea still requires substantial public outdoor and cooperation of all parties. WWF operates in the Baltic Sea on a number of ways, including through the establishment of wetlands and the training of volunteers. Now everyone can support our work in the Baltic Sea, and even have fun in the way: by eating ice cream!”

it’s actually quite good, very chocolatey and you can barely taste the salty water… :P

the good thing about visiting cities that are not very big or well known, is that you don’t feel the pressure to do all the touristy things that are almost mandatory in big cities. and so you free up much more time for other fun stuff. like sampling the local cuisine and looking at stuff at the supermarkets! these are some of our local favourite finds:

huge knäckebröd wheel

jam in a plastic tube

cute chocolate packaging

liquorice flakes

topping sauce

lingon tea

lingon jam

nutella & fake nutella

barcaffe coffee & turkcaffee – same thing, apparently, but they sell it under that name outside slovenia!

rain boots drier

in my head, netherlands has always been the holy grail of sweet temptations, the anti-diet country: they had vla! oliebollen! stroopwaffles! chocolate letters! hagelslag! speculaas!

but here in sweden… just, wow. i feel like we’ve entered a whole new saccharine dimension. we’re in a constant sugar high, giddy from all the treats and the excitement of discovering a new country. sweden is refreshing, clean, organised… and sweet, like you wouldn’t believe it!

case in point: nöt-crème.
these little things were invented by a family who started a company to produce one health product based on honey, herbs and all that good stuff… but that didn’t go very well with the customers.
so they thought “hey, how about we do something that resembles cake filling instead?”
they grabbed some hazelnuts and did just that, and suddenly they had kids queuing to buy the stuff and eat it straight from the package!

how cool is that? :D

clean streets and soaked socks, this is how i’ll remember our day in copenhagen. :)