Letter from the Kameda Medical Center, Japan

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I got this email from John Wocher this morning and thought I’d like to share it. John is long time family friend. In times of great catastrophies such as these, I can’t help but reflect how the decisions we make, define who we are.

john_wocher_kameda

Update from Kameda Medica Center. 80km south of Tokyo directly on the Pacific coast, in a town called Kamogawa.
Photo © John Wocher, March 14, 2011

From John
Good Morning – May be sporadically on the forum, maybe not…

Everyone knows that on Friday at 3:29 Japan suffered a massive earthquake which now has been revised as a magnitude 9.0 quake. Here on Monday morning, the full devastation has been the subject of major news worldwide and it is horrific. An hour ago, another nuclear reactor explosion.
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Blueberry Muffins Knowledge Conceptualization and the Knowledge Spiral

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Icing sugar on blueberry muffins.

Blueberry muffins, A Sunday’s afternoons delight.
Photo © JE Nilsson and C M Cordeiro-Nilsson for CMC 2011

Sunday afternoon, I’m leafing through at least two cookbooks and several leaflets of muffin recipes that my mother had handed over to me over the years, in search of consistencies between the recipes. I could of course try the Internet too, but that would most likely compound the problem of coming up with a trustworthy recipe for something as simple as a muffin, since depending on culture and beliefs about information sharing, authentic recipes over the Internet are rare finds.

Blueberries into the batter.

I used 300 grams of deep frozen blue berries softly stirred with white sugar. Whole fresh berries might have been better.

In this day of social media where technology lends overwhelming support to the creation and sustenance of the knowledge economy, it leads to the fact that a lot of people are managing their expert know-how to their cooking by just not wanting to tell how they do it, thus leading to any number of nonsense recipes on the Internet, being just plain wrong.

It’s frustrating, time consuming and infuriating to not be able to get all details to the cooking or baking, from the ingredients and their quantities, to more precise information such as when eggs are best used, to if they should be cold or room temperature before whisking them them together with some butter to get the right consistency.
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A crisp Potato Salad

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plate-dry

A homemade potato salad with fresh, crisp green apples that goes splendid with barbecued chicken.
J E Nilsson and C M Cordeiro-Nilsson © 2011

A while back I asked a friend, Torbjörn Eliasson, about his thoughts on a potato salad that would go nicely with a barbecued Chicken, and after a quick raid in the grocery store, he came up with more or less this suggestion. He refuses though to take credit for this recipe since I am not using “the right yogurt”, which neither of us remember the name of anyway, but it is a thick, French made yoghurt with a stiff consistency, which is important for the salad’s ability to stay firm.

Presented in this post is a pretty close version of this day’s original potato salad anyway.

Choose the juiciest and most wholesome barbecued chicken you can find, straight from the store, and you’ll have a gorgeous lunch.

applenstuff2

Only cold ingredients go into this salad, even the boiled potatoes.

Ingredients for 4-6 persons

Base:
5 or more cold boiled potatoes of a firm cooking type (Asterix)
1 peeled green apple, all cut to dices
2 chopped up shallots or/and maybe half a red onion, in small dices

Sauce:
300 ml crème fraîche
300 ml thick yoghurt
(If this becomes too thick or fatty depending on brands, add up to 300 ml of whipped cream to taste)

Flavour
1-2 tbs capers
Some spring onion strands to taste
The seeds from 1 pomegranate, stir in some or add all on top of the finished salad together with the spring onion
Add salt and black pepper, and taste! This is very important since your local ingredients can be so different from what we used.

For the potatoes use firm potatoes, already boiled or boil a new set and set them aside to cool before mixing. Carefully fold the ingredients together, and the salad is done! The pomegranate seeds comes the very last since they will color the whole thing pink otherwise, or you can skip them entirely if you want.
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Walnuts in honey, to Parmigiano Reggiano

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Walnut in honey, with Parmigiano-Reggiano from Parma, Italy.

Walnut in honey, with aged parmigiano reggiano hard cheese from Parma, Italy.
J E Nilsson and C M Cordeiro-Nilsson © 2011

One of the most fun culinary discovery trips is when you take a known concept and add a twist to it. Here, we’re having Parmigiano Reggiano from Kulla Gourmet, a company whose family produces the cheese in Parma, Italy, accompanied with walnuts in honey, produced by another family owned Swedish company, Birgittas Matbod in Öland.

It was during our 2008 visit to Florence, Italy, dining at Trattoria Quatro Leoni we experienced a memorable moment having Italian hard cheese with honey. And since then, we’ve been experimenting with different honey, cheese and wine combinations. (See, A caseinic tour of Europe), trying to find our favourite combination of flavours.

We brought back a few things from the past week’s Passion för Mat food fair, and this weekend lent a serendipitous discovery by combining Swedish made walnuts and honey to our 24 months old Swedish-Italian Parmigiano Reggiano. What’s more? No cooking needed. Simply cut the cheese into squares, lay it on the plate, pour out the walnuts in honey… and enjoy!1

Passionate about food, a walk through Passion för Mat 2011, iGothenburg, Sweden

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Leif Mannerström testing homemade ice-cream.

The Grand Old Man of Western Swedish Gastronomy and Guide Micheline star Chef Leif Mannerström gives the thumbs up of one of the new flavours at the Österhagens ice-cream stall. No surprise perhaps. Stig’s and Inger’s efforts are well known, and recognized by Diplomas of Execellence awarded by the Western Swedish Academy of Gastronomy in 2008 and by the Swedish Academy of Gastronomy in 2010.

Adding the last touches, ahead of opening

Vintage 1960 van crowd puller, used for serving coffee.

Early Friday morning the staff at the Swedish Coffee house Löfbergs Lila were adding the last touches to their stall. Besides coffee, they feature a vintage 1960 French delivery truck with forward opening “girl catching” doors, painted in their corporate colors and rebuilt into a coffee van. Together with the smell of freshly brewed coffee samples, nothing beats this as a crowd puller.
Photo © JE Nilsson for CMC 2011

Yesterday, Friday the 25th of February, 2011 – the forth installment of the food fair Passion för Mat 2011 at Eriksbergshallen in Gothenburg opened its gates for the expectant crowds.

This particular food fair is a crowd pleaser in that its exhibitors are overwhelmingly generous with giving out samples of most everything displayed to be sold.

I had arrived well ahead of opening hours this first day, since I had planned to help some at the booth of the Western Swedish Academy of Gastronomy friends organization. The steady paced group of exhibitors – bright, friendly and enthusiastic – are so passionate about what they do that it’s a joy to be there. Taking my time, I strolled around the expansive hall to say hello to friendly faces who like me, were adding a last few touches to their stalls.

One of the trends today in upscale dining is that the food comes with a story. The produce should be grown as close to the consumption as possible. Both in time and geography. The fish should ideally be alive when it goes into the pot and as one Chef puts it, if we push this just a little bit further, people will need to bite into the cow in the barnyard. So, people here know what they are selling. If they hadn’t baked, cooked or canned everything themselves, they at least knew those who did.

After grabbing a coffee from the remarkably attention grabbing purple vintage 1960 van at the Löfbergs Lila stand, I wandered on.
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Triple chocolate, organic raw cacao chocolate chip cookies

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Chocolate chip cookie with raw 100 percent cocoa, chocolate chips.

Triple chocolate, chocolate chip cookies with Pacari 100% organic raw cacao.
Photo © JE Nilsson and C M Cordeiro-Nilsson for CMC 2011

The event for all food lovers in Sweden is happening end of this week, Passion för Mat! from 25-27 February, 2011 at Erikbergshallen in Gothenburg.

At this year’s tradefair, as with Passion för Mat 2010, a segment of the very large hall will be dedicated to an open to public Cooking School or Köksskolan, where reknowned personalities from the food industry and celebrity Chefs make their appearance at various hours, tutoring and entertaining the public on how to cook different types of food. What sounds most interesting this year is Friday’s (25th February, 15:00 hrs) focus on the basic raw ingredient of eggs and how best to fry an Omelette, where a competition will be held to see who can serve up the best creation! That, and several tutorials on from how to best cook fish and wild meat to how to cook Vietnamese and Italian, will be topics that pique my interest.
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Valentine’s Day

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Strawberry and banana sponge cake to Valentine's Day.

A simple Swedish sponge cake filled with strawberry and bananas, topped with whipped cream and fresh strawberries.
Photo © JE Nilsson and C M Cordeiro-Nilsson for CMC 2011

I’d like to share with you all a simple Valentine’s and Birthday cake that we had in Sweden today that’s made of a three-layered sponge cake filled with strawberries and mashed bananas, topped with fresh cut strawberries and a rose. This cake is usually enjoyed in the summer time here because its light texture complements well, the warmth of the summer sun, so it made an early appearance this February, in the middle of winter.

Rose

Rose.

Thank You ALL for a the overwhelming Birthday and Valentine’s Day greetings and Thank You for making my day!

With Love,
Cheryl

Shortbread, an uncomplicated Love

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Shortbread cookie in the form of a heart for Valentine's Day.

Our Valentine’s Day shortbread cookies, being dusted with icing sugar.
Photo © JE Nilsson and C M Cordeiro-Nilsson for CMC 2011

I’ve been meaning to come up with some very decadent and fancy, most likely chocolate filled dessert this Valentine’s Day in celebration of Friendship, Passion and Love. Most everything crossed my mind from raspberry filled molten lava chocolate cake to Dulce de Leche brownies and chocolate fudge cake laced with Amaretto or Kahlúa.

But after pondering recipes and life experiences, my thoughts often came back to butter cookies and shortbread cookies. Shortbread was central in my life because it was my Mother’s favourite cookie. And it was also what I was immediately offered, crusted over with granulated sugar, first thing I stepped into my grandmother’s house regardless of whether it was lunch or tea or dinner.

Shortbread is, in all its simplicity, decadent and luxurious. What makes it so irresistible is the ratio of butter to flour and sugar that make these cookies melt in your mouth by the touch of the tip of your tongue to the cookie. Breathe over it and you risk having the cookie turn molten between your fingertips!
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Carrot Cake, an unexpected love relation

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Just Carrot Cake.

My favourite version of the Carrot Cake, sans frosting.
Photo © JE Nilsson and C M Cordeiro-Nilsson for CMC 2011

In preview of Valentine’s Day, here’s a culinary limerence of mine for something as basic and unromantic as the Carrot Cake.

My first encounter with this unlikely creation of the baker’s genius was, I believe, in the late 1980s or early 1990s. Possibly at Starbucks or Hard Rock Café in Singapore and in the company of a group of friends, possibly having some influence on my judgment. ‘Unlikely’, because carrots do not immediately strike me as a cake ingredient even today. Perhaps what sold me, was the frosting.

As all who have grown up in Singapore, I was mostly used to white carrots or radish in fried chai tow kway, a dish usually eaten at breakfast in the country.

But biting through the cream cheese frosting, into the coarse, dense texture of the Carrot Cake, the taste explosion I encountered on the fabulous bake treat after just one try had me head-over-heels in love with this creation. And after arriving in Sweden, I just had to learn to bake my own since it isn’t always that the café around the corner from my place has a tray of Carrot Cake for the buying.
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Meet-up with old friends in Stockholm

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Cheryl Marie Cordeiro-Nilsson at Stockholm's östasiatiska Museet, the East Asian Museum, Stockholm.

At the Östasiatiska Museet, Stockholm.
Photo © JE Nilsson and C M Cordeiro-Nilsson for CMC 2011

The Terracotta Army Exhibition currently ongoing at the Östasiatiska Museet in Stockholm plus girlfriends in town and a love for long drives all provided excellent reasons for a cross country weekend getaway from Gothenburg to Stockholm. Whichever way you choose to travel between the two largest cities of Sweden, the time needed is about half a day. If you can flash the corporate plastic and use a cab for the transfers, travelling by air is of course the best.

If you have plans to visit a number of places as we did, and like the freedom, a car ride is worth considering.

There is surprisingly enough, no expressways between Gothenburg and Stockholm but rather three choices of roads. One pretty much okay in terms of speed (E4), one decent (E20) and one, lets be polite and say – scenic – road (E45/E18). Being in no particular hurry we of course chose the last one for the leg up, while the return trip home was made on the E4. The former being an interesting route through a snow blanketed provincial Swedish landscape and the E4 with a few exceptions around the Lake Vättern, pretty much one long stretch of asphalt.

We made it to the Östasiatiska Museet early on Sunday to avoid the mid-day crowds. This exhibition which shows a number of pieces never before exhibited outside of China has so far turned out to be a great success, not in the least because of the fact that the museum managed to make accessible and use some formerly secret military caverns just under it for this exhibition, but the sensation of actually meeting with these lifesized figures – underground – where they were actually meant to be, gives an eerie aspect to the entire experience of it all, where you now and again catch yourself making sure that the figures are actually standing still.
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