By the fireplace in the main hall of Tjolöholm Castle for this year’s Christmas table sitting, in Halland, Sweden 2022.
Text & Photo © CM Cordeiro & JE Nilsson 2022
Tjolöholm Slott, video compilation.
It began to thaw a little in the west coast of Sweden about a week before Christmas. But it’s always a pleasure to walk the expansive grounds of Tjolöholm Castle, witnessing the last gold rays of the sun dive below horizon.
The weekend bake, vörtbröd, at Styrsö Sweden, 2022
Text & Photo © CM Cordeiro & JE Nilsson 2022
Just out of the oven warm.
It’s been some years since we last baked our own Swedish Christmas vörtbröd. I love bread baking but I’ve often found this dough difficult to work with because of the delicate combination of sticky molasses and dark ale. There are variations to the recipe that can be found online, so it’s easy to tweak to make your own favourite version of vörtbröd.
The weekend bake, lussekatter, revisiting our own a recipe from 2012 at Styrsö Sweden, 2022
Text & Photo © CM Cordeiro & JE Nilsson 2022
I saw the boundaries of festive periods, often indicated by the appearance of certain foods, dissolve when I recently walked into a grocery shop along the Swedish west coast, and found a luscious twin pack of semlor (a specific February treat), in mid-November. The appearance of a Shrove Tuesday food appearing just past All Saints took us by surprise, and it took us all of two seconds to grab that purchase. It seems the semla is the new Swedish preserved herring, soon to be eaten year round at all Swedish festivities, so we’ll roll with that.
The beginning of the festive winter season at Haga, Gothenburg, Sweden, 2022
Text & Photo © CM Cordeiro & JE Nilsson 2022
The plan was to head to the Design Christmas Market happening at the Culture Arena in Gothenburg, but as plans go these days, we found ourselves walking the nearby cobbled streets of the oldest quarters of the city, at Haga. We had a window of fair weather under a clear blue sky in the morning, which promised sunshine and crisp winter for the whole day.
Having lived in Tromsø for the past four years, with snow on the beach, I haven’t had the opportunity to walk these streets in a long while. So, I was totally happy to be peering through the various café windows. In the background was the soft murmur of crowds and the symphony of clunking boots on stone.
At Kungstorget, Gothenburg, Sweden, for the Ghost Parade or Spökparaden 2022 for the Feast of All Hallows.
Text & Photo © CM Cordeiro & JE Nilsson 2022
The Feast of All Hallows of alla helgons dag, is always celebrated in Sweden on the Saturday between 31 Oct. and 6 Nov. This year, the celebration was in the form of a ghost parade. I first saw the invite on Facebook with a modest note of 3 interested persons curious to attend. The organizers were attempting for a Guinness World Records for largest spook parade. The instructions attached to the event invite were, “Come dressed as a ghost”. That didn’t sound too demanding at all, and being inner witches and warlords, we thought it fun to impersonate a relative.
Continue reading “In celebration of All Saints’ Day in Sweden”
Tromsø, Northern Norway Photo by Thomas Lipke at Unsplash.
Text & Photo © Thomas Lipke, CM Cordeiro & JE Nilsson 2022
It was pictures of Tromsø by individuals such as Thomas Lipke that made me fall head over heels in love with the compact Arctic City. I spent all of two days somewheres in early 2018, browsing tourist information sites that featured Tromsø, and after closing several consecutive running windows on my laptop, I decided that I could move there to live and work, time indefinite. I completely ignored the fact that I was city born and bred in equatorial Singapore.
Continue reading “Postcards from the Arctic Circle July 2022”
Donsö Hamnfest or Harbour Festival 2022, Swedish west coast, Sweden.
Text & Photo © CM Cordeiro & JE Nilsson 2022
The Midsummer Pole at Styrsö Bratten, Swedish west coast, Sweden 2022.
Text & Photo © CM Cordeiro & JE Nilsson 2022
The summer solstice on 21 June marked the day of maximum sunlight in the northern hemisphere. In Gothenburg, Sweden, these are the days when you can see the rim of the sun lightly touch the horizon and then rise again.
Continue reading “Summer solstice and Midsummer’s Day 2022 Styrsö”
Grilled salmon at the Tromsø Seafood Festival / Sjømatfestivalen 2022, Norway.
Text & Photo © CM Cordeiro & JE Nilsson 2022
It has been some years since the Arctic City, Tromsø, saw such a great buzz of activities that appealed to people of all age groups. It seemed like the majority of city folk and its suburbs were out on the streets this morning with the Seafood Festival weekend for 2022.
There were several activities on-going simultaneously, and I was eager to catch them all in action at the same time. In Tromsø harbour, at one pier, starter guns and flares were up in the air at regular intervals for a rowboat race. The participating crowd dressed in festive costumes for the race. Two teams caught my eye, the first was a group of women who wore black t-shirts and gym tights, paired with colourful tutus, and the second team who had beautiful costumes chose the more elegant bunad or Norwegian folk dress.
At Flickorna på Färjenäs Café, Karl IX:s väg 1, Gothenburg, Sweden.
Text & Photo © CM Cordeiro & JE Nilsson 2022
Karl IX:s Göteborg is the city of Gothenburg before present day Gothenburg. It was founded in 1603 by Karl IX at Färjestaden on Hisingen with the intention of creating a trading post and an enclave for Dutch naturalized foreigners to the Swedish west coast. The Danes weren’t happy about the idea of a thriving and competing trading post near Denmark, so Karl IX:s Gothenburg was burnt to the ground in 1611. What to do? Well, move the city upstream and build fortresses with as many cannons Denmark facing as possible. That new city upstream is now present day Gothenburg. Power of attorney was given to Dutchman Cornelius Corneliusson on November 9, 1603, to construct the new city of Gothenburg.
Continue reading “Flickorna på Färjenäs, Karl IX:s Göteborg”