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. :)

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!

“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

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

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

after the first couple of times you’ve learned to drop the fries and soda… tempting as they might be, your taste buds can’t handle that much stimulation in a meal. just the burger is just right, and it ends all too quickly. now where did you put those napkins?

berlin burger international
pannierstr. 5
12043 berlin – neukölln

open monday through saturday, 13h-23h

so when i learned that they had it here in berlin as well, it was love at first sight. the maerkischekiste.de website is all in german, but with some help i was able to navigate it, and order our first box. it arrived this wednesday, bright and early:

it included tomatoes, cauliflower, lettuce, peppers, dill and cucumber, all fresh and luscious. we’ve already done some asian cauliflower fried rice, used the peppers and tomatoes on ratatouille and sprinkled the dill on grilled salmon. come to think of it, i don’t think i ever bought fresh dill on a supermarket before, so in a way it’s nice to don’t have so much control over the grocery shopping. the surprise vegetables are a good motivator to learn new recipes! :)

i wonder what next week will bring?

madame zucker is a breath of fresh air in these parts of neukölln. berlin cafés tend towards the shabby side, but not here. the mismatched white & red furniture is fun and light, there are wooden floors, red polka dot table cloths, a fresh flower in every table, low-volume music… it all seems to say “you’re too tense, relax here for a bit, have fun”. the word gezellig comes to mind :)

and then… we might have a slight obsession with pancakes, crêpes and the likes – it’s one of the first things we look for when we move. nothing beats a good breakfast for comfort, right? it’s my favourite meal of the day.

we’ve had other pancakes in berlin, but they were “cakey”, or drenched in cheap chocolate… do people really think they can replace nutella?! fools!! so it took a few tries until we found madame zucker’s pancakes, which were hiding just around the corner from our house, tucked away on the middle of an unexplored menu. behold this banana beauty:

it’s perfection! :) yes yes, they also have cakes, croissants and the typical german brunch fare – although why anyone would settle for less than exquisite pancakes on a cheat day is beyond me, but apparently some people (*cof* boyfriend *cof*) like variety. bah!

madame zucker, on wildenbruchplatz 5, is open everyday from 10am to 8pm. now you know :)