10km in 56:46!

Ran Tjejmilen this year again – it's the biggest race for women in Sweden with more than 21,000 participants this year. The Swedish "mile" (mil) is not 1.6 kilometers but 10, and is an old unit of measurement for a distance you can walk or run without needing to rest.

The track was both harder and easier than I remembered it to be last year. Although I knew in my head what to expect (and that gave some kind of psychological readiness), my body is still new to this track. The brochures describe the track as a "friendly" track, but it gets really hilly after the 5th kilometer before it straightens out and rises to a long, long killer hill at the end. It was a real endurance run from the 7th kilometer on for me.

The positives:
- I beat my old time by almost 2 minutes! (last year's result was 58:24; this year's is 56:46). That's despite stopping to pour a glass of water on my head on the 7th kilometer.
- I also felt that I ran at a more consistent speed than last year. My time at 5 kilometers was almost exactly half that of my 10-kilometer time. That's great, but that also explains why I didn't have energy enough to sprint at the end: I think my body really has to get used to running distances longer than 10.
- I'm not in a lot of pain the day after :-) I stretched and took a cold shower after the race, and I biked slowly home from the train station when I got back to Norrköping from Stockholm.

The negatives:
- I get annoyed at people who line up in the wrong (faster) start group. Why line up in the under-59-minutes group if you plan to walk after the first kilometer? It makes it hard and stressful for us who want to run and keep a goal time to have to weave our way through you, especially since you also tend to walk in lines blocking the road. The sign already says you have to run – not jog – all the way if you want to have the slightest chance of getting under 59 minutes. So, please, ladies! I appreciate it that you want to get motivated to exercise, but if you haven't been training in the spring, please start in a slower start group.
- In an attempt to be environmentally friendly, the organizers stopped giving the participants bottled water when they reach the finish line. Instead, they had compostable paper cups which volunteers filled with water from a bucket. That's all well. The thing is, I saw a woman who, after drinking, dipped her cup a second time into a bucket in front of these volunteers. In this time of swine-flu paranoia, that's just sick!
- I was a bit sniffly a few hours after the race. I drank a vitamin C drink first thing when I got home.


...With the sniffles gone, only a very slight body ache, and a good result though, I'm willing to temporarily forget the negative bits and look forward to next year's race. It's part of the experience, I guess. And overall, Tjejmilen is really a very good, well-planned and exciting event that really tests personal goals.

My goal for next year is to run under 55, which means that I have to run so much faster in average (12 seconds faster per kilometer) to put the time down an additional 2 minutes. Then there's the endurance part, too: keeping that speed without losing gas. It's a hard challenge. Come back next year and see how I do ;-)

Butterfly effect

We should have made a lamb stew in a clay pot today, a two-and-a-half hour project that should have been tonight's dinner. We were here at home and just got so long into the process as to submerge the clay pot in water (step zero, that is) when the whole project had to be put to a stop, and my dinner became a 6-piece McNuggets and a McDonald's blueberry pie.

The reason? This stranded boat:

Image from Norrköpings Tidningar (NT) Online. Original article and more pictures here.

Today at Söderköping, a small city south of here, they celebrated the Kanalfesten, or the Canal festival along the Göta canal that runs through the city. Some military boats were parked there for a public viewing, after which they ran the boats along the canal for an exhibition.

NT's photographer described what happened: "First, the boat drove away from the locks towards the bridge over the E22 highway. It then turned and headed back in full speed. Something wrong happened and the boat began to wobble back and forth, it's fore was low into the water. Then it just went straight up and landed on the bank of the canal."

Bizzare.

Anyway, I told you guys that Marcus was part of the home guard, and as the boat is stuck on land waiting for equipment to get it out, the home guard was tasked to keep an eye on it. They called Marcus just as we were preparing the clay pot, and he had to pack for Söderköping on short notice and probably has to stay there until Monday.

But the McNuggets? Well, as it happens, the Canal festival in Söderköping coincides with Norrköpings own yearly August festival. As Marcus was packing, a friend was just reading about the festivities in NT (and actually saw the article about the stranded boat). Though she didn't know that Marcus was going off to home guard duty and that I was rendered planless for the evening, she texted me if I wanted to watch a free play with her in connection with the celebrations. I agreed, and with that, both Marcus and I had altered our evening plans, and that is why there was no lamb stew tonight.

Dinner at McDonalds, although I can't really complain about it, isn't really a substitute for homemade stew, I know. Thankfully, it's not often that a stranded boat causes changes to my dinner plans.

Food journal number 56: Crayfish season with baked Norway lobster

At last, something that's not a pie or a cake!


It's crayfish-fishing season again in Sweden, which means it's time again for eating crayfish. At the grocery though, I thought I'd try something different, read: something on sale. Norway lobster, usually very expensive, was on sale frozen for 80 kronor a kilo. I've never eaten this delicacy before so with a quick ring to Marcus to make sure he knew what to do with them, I went away from the grocery with a box of 14.

Norway lobster is called "sea crayfish" in Swedish, but is actually a close relative of the lobster. It is smaller, longer and resembles big shrimp but has small claws. It's fished in the Atlantic from northern Norway to southern Portugal.

The tail section, which is also called scampi, are the bulk of the meat because the claws, although containing the tastiest meat, is really minuscule. The tail's taste is however, tasty and surprisingly lobster-like. The fat (or whatever orange stuff there is) at the head seems to me to taste a bit like mussels.


Even when raw, Norway lobster is bright orange (the first picture in the collage is actually raw defrosted Norway lobster)! The cooking instructions said that they should just be cooked in boiling water for about 3 minutes. Since these were frozen though (and probably don't taste as nice as fresh ones), Marcus decided to pimp it up a bit with other ingredients and make baked Norway lobster. This made perfect sense and reminded me of baked mussels, a really delicious light meal that we used to have in the Philippines and sold as an accompaniment to beer. We wanted to have wine with this though, and the helpful staff at Systembolaget (the government alcohol monopoly store), suggested a fruity and sweet Riesling to match the saltiness of the baked lobsters.

By the way, an interesting detail about Systembolaget is that when you ask them for advice on wine, the first thing they ask is what price range you have in mind. The bottle we bought cost 80, as much as the kilo of Norway lobster. Anything more expensive than our on-sale smaller-than-usual frozen lobsters would have been outrageous. I haven't seen regular-sized Norway lobsters in my life, but Marcus says that these ones are indeed small in comparison – another reason why pimping it up with other ingredients was a good choice. This is a light dinner for four and a big dinner for two.

Baked Norway lobster (gratinerade havskräftor)

1. Defrost overnight if frozen

2. Four hours before baking, cut the Norway lobster in half lengthwise with a knife, exposing the tail meat. With tweezers or tongs, take out the red globular stuff at the head (but not the black or orange stuff) and the "shit string", as it's called in Swedish (very visual, isn't it?)

3. Marinade the halves with 3T olive oil, 3T lemon juice, 1t paprika powder, 1t salt, a dash of white pepper, Tabasco, some Worcestershire sauce, and 1 deciliter white wine (even cooking wine will do). Brush each piece individually before pouring the marinade on everything. Refrigerate.

4. While the seafood is marinading, prepare the crust. Grate 3 to 4 pieces of plain white bread (better than using instant bread crumbs). Combine with grated Parmesan of the same volume (around 2 deciliters), 1 deciliter finely hacked dill, and 2 pressed garlic cloves. Combine and put in the refrigerator in the meantime until the marinade time is done.

5. When the marinade time is over, preheat the oven to 250 C. Arrange the halves meat side-up on a big baking pan. Sprinkle evenly with the bread crumb mixture and drizzle about 3T of olive oil carefully and evenly across the whole surface. Place the plan on the top half of the hot oven, bake for 8 minutes. Serve with garlic bread, and if you want, some salad. Have some dark chocolate for dessert. :-)

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Liiiiiiseberg!

*Note: I found a video of Kanonen on YouTube, which I added at the end of the post. It's so funny! :-D

Liseberg. The largest theme park in Scandinavia located in the heart of Gothenburg city. 35 rides and attractions around hills, trees and water. Running since 1923.

I was there last Monday, and I want to go there again! I want to go there again! I want to go there again! (I may be developing hyperactive ADHD.)

Waiting for our turn at Balder. Me, Marcus and our friend Per with whom we stayed with during our stay in Göteborg

It's been a long time since I went to an amusement park, but it always seems that my initial reluctance ("why don't we just buy a couple of coupons?) always turns to addiction ("let's ride again?") as soon as I hit a couple of rides. So, after 2 water rides, 2 takes at the bumper cars, 2 vertical rides, the swing carousel, 3 rides in Balder, 2 rides in Kanonen and 4 Lisebergsbana rides – spending a whole day there from when the park opened and closed, that is – I still haven't had enough. And we haven't even tried all the exciting rides yet like the free fall and the giant suspended swing. Liseberg 2010, I can't wait! (What did I say about ADHD?)

I loved all of the three big roller coasters in the park and we rode each of them several times. Of these, the Lisebergsbana must be the most scenic of the three, that is, if you manage to keep your eyes open. It goes up, down and sideways around the hills and trees in the park, and stops with some real scary braking power. The two other big roller coasters, Kanonen ("The canon" – so called because the train shoots out from standstill and reaches its top speed after 2 seconds) and the all-wooden roller coaster Balder (named after a Norse god of light) do, however, top the thrill list.

Kanonen and Balder

Kanonen is so scary and exciting that it's a pity the whole ride only takes less than 2 minutes. It has a 90-degree vertical fall ("Eeee!"), a twisting loop, and a 360-degree turn on its track that hangs you upside-down over the other people waiting in line. Waiting in the line with the riders above you upside-down really builds up anticipation, I must say! My scream wouldn't catch up with this ride. As soon as you pass one scary angle, there's another one waiting around the corner for the whole duration of the ride.

And then there's Balder, the roller coaster whose frame is made entirely out of wood. The first fall is at a 70-degree angle and the whole ride has lots of bumps and falls that make you feel weightless. Parts of these falls occur inside wooden tunnels so that you have an illusion of falling into a rabbit hole. I squealed a lot. It was GREAT! :-)

Well, since pictures say a thousand words, I might as well show you these:


Eeek! I thought I'd never ride it again after that, but a few sour candy pieces later and I changed my mind. Marcus never squealed one peep! He looked like he enjoyed watching me get jittery, though. Haha!

Our friend Per was also with us, but he rode a different train in the Balder. Too bad, Per, I would have liked to know if you squealed during the ride. I think you were thinking this, though:


Anyway, my expression in rides 2 and 3 didn't get any better:



And, did you notice that I was surrounded by fearless kids and adults who made faces (and a calm Marcus)? Gloaters!

By the way, this was the last ride of the night; we were the absolutely last people to make it to the Balder line before they cordoned it off. What a way to end the day. I had loads of fun!

Visit the Liseberg website! Lots and lots of fun!

P.S. Kanonen :-) Tee hee hee!

Food journal number 55: yet another pie (it's blueberry)

I'm pretty proud of this food photo. The lighting that afternoon was perfect and the shapes and textures on the white plate just feels right. I'm pretty damn proud of that pie too, because I did everything myself, including picking the berries. Okay, that's everything short of harvesting and processing the wheat and sugar beets for the flour and sugar, and raising the chicken for the egg. I didn't make the baking powder either, but you get the picture. The blueberries though, the star of the show, are as I said self-picked. And as you can see, the little things are just beautiful.

There's a cool feeling using ingredients you pick or grow yourself. (I'm also growing some jalapeño peppers on the kitchen sill, by the way. They've just sprouted. Watch out for it in a few months!) If you haven't read it yet, I refer you to my entry on my blueberry-plucking experience. I suffered too many mosquito bites in my hand that it swelled up for three days as if I had water retention. But it was worth it for the pie and the many bags of blueberries in the freezer.

The recipe is again from Annas pajer. There's no pre-baking required for the dough which makes this one of the easiest dessert pies I know of. For cup-measurement users, you'll have to look up the cup conversions yourself this time. There are conversion sites on the net you can use. A deciliter is a little less than half a cup though, although I don't think it's very important just for this recipe to be so precise.

This must be my favorite pie evah!

Oh, and I know this is the nth pastry recipe I've posted this summer. Trust me, I'm trying to eat low GI the other half of the time to make up for it, but sweets really are my weak spot. Don't worry – I'm working on it!


Blueberry pie

Dough:
3 deciliters flour
1/4 t baking powder
1 dl sugar
100 g butter
1 medium-sized egg

Filling:
4 deciliters blueberries (or any other kind of berry). Frozen will do if slightly defrosted.
1 t vanilla sugar or vanilla extract
1/2 dl sugar
1 T potato flour * the potato flour is nescessary to absorb the extra moisture from the berries. I didn't have this, so I substituted corn starch, which works pretty well if you freeze the pie for 5 minutes after it has cooled completely.

1. Start with the dough. Measure the dry ingredients in a bowl. Cut the butter into thin slices work the butter into the mixture with your fingers until the flour mixture resembles bread crumbs. Make a pit in the middle of the mixture for the egg, and mix the whole thing together with a spatula until a smooth dough is formed. For the last bit, use your hands to knead.

2. Save a third of the dough for later. Use the rest to line a pie form ca. 22 cm in diameter, pressing the edges to the form with a fork.

3. In a separate bowl, mix the berries with the vanilla sugar and potato flour (or corn starch, in my case). Pour the berries into the form and top with sugar.

4. The remainder of the dough should be rolled using a rolling pin and cut into thin strips to lay criss-cross on the berries (any design of your preference will do, like stars using a cookie cutter for the Christmas season)

5. Bake in a preheated oven at 175 C for ca. 30 minutes. For the last minutes, increase the temperature to 200 C if the dough seems colorless.

6. Let cool completely before flash-freezing in the freezer for 5 minutes without cover. If desired, decorate with sifted confectioner's sugar (which is actually fine sugar mixed with – guess what – corn starch. Corn starch goes a long way; don't ever underestimate it.)


Slice the cake, eat, repeat!

...and if you're like me, lick the plate clean.

P.S. Published in absentia. I will just have arrived in Göteborg central station Friday morning when this blog is automatically published online. The great wonder of automation! See you again sometime next week when I return.

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The story of Little Checkered Riding Hood

There was a young girl from Quezon City
who tried her hand at picking blueberry
Her fingers turned blue
She had an itch in her shoe
So she thought: these better be tasty!

- Limerick by Mats Persson, revised

Once upon a time, in a far away land called the Kingdom of Sweden, there lived a little pretty girl (ehem!) called Little Checkered Riding Hood. She was not very tall indeed by the height average of the Kingdom, which is why she was called Little. And she was called Checkered because she borrowed a checkered shirt from The Fairy Godmother in the countryside where, and as we all know, everybody owns a checkered shirt.

One day in the high summer, Little Checkered Riding Hood went off to the forest with her Fairy Godfather to look for some blueberries. It was the right season for blueberry picking and they thought it was a great idea to fill their freezers in anticipation for the dark times to come. So they rode a silver Saab motorized horse to the edge of a forest where the terrain was right for blueberries to grow.

Soon they reached an old forest and tied the motorized horse by a small road. From where they were, they could see that the forest floor was literally covered with blueberry bushes. Little Checkered Riding Hood gave out an inner squeal of joy. It was a fine day and a perfect day for berry picking!

With her red bucket and bright orange made-in-Sweden berry picker, Checkered Riding Hood went deeper into the blueberry forest. There were berries precisely everywhere. Everywhere she laid her eyes on was something waiting to be plucked. The bushes were thick and grew up to her little knees.


Even though Fairy Godfather could see that others have also been there berry picking, there were more than enough berries left for many more pickers for the next weeks and days. Such was the abundance in this blueberry forest: Even if two people picked more than four people could eat and several more batches for freezing away, and even if Little Checkered Riding Hood's greedy eyes and greedy fingers made her pluck and pluck away like she was in a mania, the blueberries still seemed undiminished.

"I'll pluck there!," she thought. "Or there! Or there!". Sometimes she could quite literally catch a few blueberries just by carelessly swinging her berry picker in the air.


Otherwise, she was careful not to destroy the plants when picking the berries. Careful mass-plucking was possible with her clever bright orange tool. She takes a branch, rakes the tool carefully upwards against it to catch the berries and, with a flick of the hand, the berries make a jingling sound on the way down to the collector on the underside of the tool.

For a long while, Little Checkered Riding Hood and Fairy Godfather were there alone, picking several meters away from each other, with only the distant sound of a brook and the occasional sound of berries jingling down the collector to break the utter silence of the forest.


Several hours later, when the afternoon was getting late and just when Little Checkered Riding Hood's back was beginning to hurt from all the stooping, swarms of giant nasty mosquitoes awoke from their slumber underneath the bushes. They buzzed fiercely around Riding Hood's ears and around the places where she hadn't put mosquito repellant on. "I'll never complain about the price of blueberries ever again!", she thought as she desperately tried to brush the mosquitoes away. Her bucketful of blueberries will definitely save her several hundred Swedish kronor, but now she also knew that nasty mosquito bites were the price of her tightwaddedness, and of course, the price of experiencing berry picking. As everyone in the Kingdom knows, there can be no berry picking without mosquito bites. "Good mosquito repellant of the brand Mygga is still cheaper than a liter of blueberries," Little Checkered Riding Hood consoled herself.

The red bucket was heavy and almost full when the two companions decided to head for home. The blueberry forest was still teeming with berries when they left so that Little Checkered Riding Hood couldn't help feel a bit of reluctance leaving the forest. Blueberry forests had that magic effect on people, you see. One becomes obsessed with the picking after a while that only after leaving the forest is one remedied of the obsession. The companions' next challenge was to find their way back to where they left the motorized horse without getting lost deeper into the forest. Fairy Godfather used the sun as a reference but also had an magical map of the Kingdom (a.k.a. GPS) which they didn't need to use because they turned out to be a hundred or so meters from the road. The magical map was another one of those tools against the enchanting powers of the forest. Many a man have been said to have been lost in blueberry forests, enthusiastically picking in a stooped position and eventually losing track of where they had come from.


Back at the gingerbread house, leaves and crushed berries needed to be sorted away before the berries could be kept in small bags. This was a quick affair with the help of little gnomes:


In the evening, everyone enjoyed the fruit (don't mind the pun) of Checkered Riding Hood's and Fairy Godfather's labors, in the form of a blueberry pie. Everyone in the gingerbread house lived happily ever after.

Happiest of all was probably Riding Hood herself, who smacked so happily on her pie that she managed to tint all her teeth blue. Her fingers also turned blue from the picking, and a day later, her right hand swelled so much from the mosquito bites on her thumb that she had to take antihistamines and use a creme. Otherwise, peace reigned in the Kingdom and she too, lived happily ever after.


* This story is based on fact. Any resemblance to real life and real people is entirely uncoincidential!

* Blueberry pie recipe coming up next! I – or rather Little Checkered Riding Hood – deserves her piece of cake.