Dining across cultures and the Chinese mid-autumn festival, in Sweden

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In celebration of the autumn equinox in Chinese tradition in Sweden, mooncakes. In the background, crème caramel.
Text and Photo © JE Nilsson and CM Cordeiro 2012

This weekend marked the mid-autumn festival celebrated most notably by the Chinese and Vietnamese cultures in Asia, in conjunction with the autumnal equinox and autumn harvests. Associated with the full moon, what makes part of this festival fun is the varieties of mooncake available as culinary adventure.

I read and viewed with interest, CNN’s story on the modern Mooncake by Ramy Inocencio, where I couldn’t help but notice how the three featured modern mooncakes were in themselves, a result of a fusion of culinary cultures, from using sweet white wine with custard to incorporating salty Itailan parma ham with sweetened nuts in another version of the hand moulded mooncakes.

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Långedrag Värdshus at Talatta

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Långedrag Värdshus

Beautiful dining even on a grey day…Långedrag Värdshus, Talattagatan, Gothenburg, Sweden.
Photo: C M Cordeiro-Nilsson © 2011

There’s something about lunch dining in the middle of a busy week at Långedrag Värdshus that puts a spring in your step regardless of the weather or the agenda for the day you have to deal with.

The location is one of the most significant in the history of the industrialized Gothenburg, being the location of the most famous of all pleasure sailing societies of the late 19th century where the rich burghers sought to gain some of the sun and fresh air that was not found inside of their dark, stale city offices.

The idyllic seaside location of the restaurant and the meandering drive from the city center of Gothenburg, out to the tip of land that connects land with the southern archipelago, literally relaxes both spirit and mind. Greeted by sea breeze on your cheeks as soon as you’re out of the car, the smell of the sea, warm coloured wooden panels of the building and billowing white and cream coloured chiffon curtains, for a brief hour or so, you’re transported to a Nordic Tiamo and can disconnect from your hectic day’s schedule. Here, you can mentally cast loose and set sail out in the open sea, trading in your daily chores towards the fierce competition of a sailing regatta of days gone by.
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An Italian Saturday lunch, in Singapore

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Janice Lee, Azul Ogazon, Cheryl Marie Cordeiro-Nilsson, La Braceria, Singapore.

The Girls!
Janice, Azul and Cheryl at La Braceria, Singapore.
Kevin D Cordeiro, Julie Choo, J E Nilsson and C M Cordeiro-Nilsson © 2010

In the past month of December 2010, I had the pleasure of organizing an executive education program delivered in Singapore for the Asian wing of a large Swedish multinational. The three moduled program that launched in Singapore focuses on the topic of Doing Business in Asia and the Singapore module in particular, focused on the Challenges of Leadership.
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Filé mignon on a mirror of red wine sauce

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ingredients

For an icy winter’s day, Filé mignon on a mirror of red wine sauce.
J E Nilsson and C M Cordeiro-Nilsson © 2010

Just back from exotic Shanghai, Hangzhou and Singapore, from a balmy 28C to a -10C outdoors here in the Nordic winter with chilly winds. No doubt, the snow covered land and the white Christmas upcoming is festive and promising, beautiful in its own way, but hardly warm.

So something to go with a deep, full, red wine sauce that warmed body and soul was what we craved. One that would stand up against a good cut of beef as an alternative to all those parsley and pepper sauces. And to that full bodied red wine sauce and a good cut of beef, I wanted a mashed root celery puree to see if the combination of flavours actually worked well when served together. I had an idea it would.

A visit to the local food store supplied the ingredients for today’s dinner that was teeming with ideas. The root celery was easy enough to boil and mash, to which I then added in some King Edward potatoes, a soft cooking kind of potatoes, utterly suitable for making mashed potatoes since that is what it becomes by its merry self if left boiling on the stove for only just a few minutes too long. A few pieces of beef of the filé mignon cut and some sunflower sprouts for a fresh green salad. A bunch of fresh green asparagus looked too tempting not find some use for them…perhaps they could go with wrapped baked bacon?
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Wool basic in herringbone

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Cheryl Marie Cordeiro, tailored wool pencil dress in charcoal grey, boatneck, Roberto Cavalli shoes

In a tailored wool pencil dress in charcoal grey, with Roberto Cavalli black patent shoes, vintage Trifari silvertone earrings and Cartier white gold ring.
Photo for CMC © Jan-Erik Nilsson 2009

Here’s the second tailored wool pencil dress, but in herringbone dark grey. Same features as the wool dress in stone grey, with three-quarter sleeves, calf-length pencil skirt and lined on the inside. This dress however, features a simple boatneck and a tie waist belt made in the same fabric as the dress.

Cheryl Marie Cordeiro, officewear, custom-made wool pencil dress in charcoal grey, boatneck

As mentioned above, I do love tailoring outfits when given the chance because a lot of what I get out of it is the process of creation, to see a rough sketch of an outfit turn not only real, but into something you can wear! I admit my fair share of disasters when it comes to tailored clothing, mostly because of the wrong choice of material. A lack of understanding of the properties of a fabric for example can cost the brilliancy of its design. But when everything goes right and the result is as you desired, then the feeling in this process is nothing short of a small success.

On the other hand, I could tell about one of my greatest tailoring disasters…

When visiting China you are often pounced upon by persistent tailors, wanting to create whole new outfits for you or at least shirts for your husband. A few years ago we actually gave in to one of these offers. I fell in love with some very dazzling silk fabrics and chose to have a traditional Shanghai style cheongsam made. The measurements were taken and on the very last day of our stay, a last fitting was made with me standing up and the tailor nipping, tucking, pinching and putting in needles all along the sides, from top to bottom. I must say I can’t complain about the attention or quality of workmanship, but that I should have tried to move some in the dress too, didn’t occur to me at the time.

Back home and after unpacking, I tried on the dress again and realized that the fitting was indeed “perfect”. It sat as if painted on me and I know now what shrink wrapping not only looks like, but feels like when wearing. I swear, if I had eaten an egg, that would have made me look pregnant. After a few years of the dress sitting in the wardrobe, I silently sold it off to one of those two-dimensional Asian model friends of mine who could actually wear it.