Food journal number 57: Skaldjursfrossa, with a recipe for Västerbottenpaj

Skaldjursfrossa – a happy Swedish word. The mouth, which opens for the first syllable, puckers as if for a kiss for the second, and the two last vowels jump out of the mouth with a joyful intonation. True enough, the mouth also puckers and lets out sighs during a skaldjursfrossa. The word means a seafood feast –literally "seafood reveling".

The eating of seafood, especially crustaceans, are quite special events here as the price of fresh seafood is quite high. The last Friday of September, with its start-of-autumn weather, was our backdrop to the seafood feast. Margareta had the idea of buying crustaceans home instead of eating them out, and invited us to our own little seafood party in their home.


We had havskräftor, or Norway lobster, boiled plain (in Sweden, they are called "ocean crayfish" but this is a misnomer; they are related to lobster more than they are to crayfish). These were normal-sized and thus much, much larger than the frozen Norway lobster which we baked during the crayfish season. Even for being a lobster though, don't expect its tail to be bigger than a thumb. It's thumb-sized pure seafood goodness! (I'm humming to the tune of "Les Poissons").

Another yummy creature in the buffet are these crabs from the west coast of Sweden. They translate to Wikipedia as "edible crab" (sometimes also "Cromer crab") and live in the Atlantic. Their shells are darker and thicker than the crabs I'm used to from the Pacific. The Atlantic crabs' arms are hairier, and their bodies are almost pure fat, except for the areas around the arms and the arms and claws themselves. Lovers of crab fat – a delicacy that can be bought in bottles from the Philippines – will love this.


We also had shrimp. Though medium-sized, they really are shrimps, figuratively, in comparison to the size of other crustaceans out there.

Some differences between how Filipinos and Swedes prefer to eat their seafood are the sauces and the side dishes. In the Philippines, cloudy vinegar is the preferred dip to boiled crustaceans, and they are eaten with rice, the steamier the better (crab fat with rice is a major yum, by the way). In Sweden, there is a dill- and mustard-based seafood sauce, and it is not uncommon to eat seafood with some kind of vegetable or cheese quiche ("paj"). Mats whipped up that seafood sauce in the small footed bowl in the above pictures. The quiche, which you see in the background, is a cheese quiche out of a special Swedish cheese called Västerbottensost, baked by Margareta.

Västerbottensost is a cheese has traditions from the second half of the 19th century. It is cooked and stirred in its vat for a longer time and ripens for 18 months, resulting in a strong taste. Västerbottenpaj is also a classic autumn quiche and can be made with chanterelles (another autumn delicacy). And because I can't make seafood from scratch, here's a recipe of the Västerbottenpaj to round up this post:

Västerbottenpaj

10-12 slices

2.5 dl flour
1 dl grahams flour
150 g butter
2 T cold water
whisked egg for brushing

4 dl milk
2 dl cream
350 g grated vAsterbottensost
6 eggs
salt
black pepper

1. Heat the oven to 200 C.
2. Combine the two kinds of flour, salt, and cut the cold butter into the mixture until it resembles crumbs, preferably with a food processor. Add the water and knead quickly into a dough.
3. Press the dough into a pie form, ca. 28 cm in diameter. Make high edges. Set aside in the refrigerator to cool for 30 minutes.
4. When the 30 minutes are done, whisk up the egg and brush the unbaked crust with it. Pop in the oven for 10 minutes. After the 10 minutes, take the crust out and take the temperature down to 150 C.
4. Heat milk and cream in a large pot, and take away from heat. Add the grated cheese and stir until it melts. Stir in the 6 other whisked eggs – they will not coagulate, surprisingly enough. Add salt and pepper to taste, and pour the filling into the pre-baked crust.
5. Bake again for 45 minutes.

Serve with seafood! :-)

Thanks again, Margareta and Mats, for all that seafood yuminess!

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Fashion advice, please?

I haven't touched this blog for more than a week. Not that there isn't much to say; it's been really activity-filled for the last two weeks, but I think I'll save telling about them for another time since they kind of all have to do with exercise and I'm all for varied content here ;-) Besides, I'm still waiting for more pictures before I can blog about the other topics I've been meaning to share.

Until then, let's talk about me. ...Err, I mean, hair!

Yes. It's about me and my hair. I've been in a pony-tail for most of my life, and since about two years ago, I thought I'd get bangs and wear my hair down (picture here). I think bangs are great! Problem is, I can't seem to keep them on my forehead like bangs should be. They want to go to the side, or worse, to both sides (which looks strange when I tie my hair). Another problem is the whole 'do gets kind of awful when the bangs get longer (read: bad hair day for a week or two. Just look at some of my Facebook pictures, ugh!), so every three weeks or so, I have a dilemma between letting the bangs grow or cutting them short myself. I usually do the latter.

Here's my question. I want to keep my bangs, but I want to update my look to save me from bad hair days. I want something that will change my look and has a feminine touch. Whenever I go to a salon though, they tell me that I should know what's best, but actually, I'm clueless. Lately, however, I've been thinking about either one of the two things. Should I:


(1) Have it cut short like picture number 1?
(2) Let my bangs grow, and color my hair, like in picture number 2?

Please look away from the fact that these hair models have the silliest poses on earth to display their hair with. And my hair doesn't have to look exactly like the ones in the pictures; that's just to give you some idea. My hair is wavy; I'm willing to use products to tame it if need be, but lately I actually don't have any problems about it puffing out into a mane, which is why I'm daring to change my look.

Related hair-questions: if you know anything about hair and styling, can you guys also tell me how I can keep my bangs down? With a round brush? With spray?

And what are your opinions on color highlights? Cheap? Flashy? Labor-intensive? Do you have any suggestions on color?

Advice appreciated!

Thanks,
Bangsy Joy

Joy the cat

There's a good reason why this picture looks crumpled. It is.

The year it was taken, thinking that it would stop the jokes about me being afraid of water, I thought I'd rip the picture in pieces. Photo paper, as it turns out, isn't that easy to tear, as you know if you've tried it yourself. Frustrated and on the brim of tears, I tried desperately to destroy that source of ridicule (with an audience trying to convince me otherwise), only to despair that the damn thing won't even crumple properly. The photo paper merely opened up again, defeating my efforts. I was too stupid to think of scissors. Thank goodness though, because it's a pretty funny memorabilia now.

That, however, sums up my uneasy relationship with water. I never was comfortable with water. As a kid, I insisted on shampooing my hair with my head facing up, and I absolutely disliked being washed on my face. I would wash as long as it involved scooping out water from a big pail, but I was wary of the shower for the longest time, thinking that it would somehow drown me.

Through the years, I tried to get over my fear of water which I think, at least nowadays, just pretty much boils down to my inability to swim, or rather, my incapacity to stay afloat in water. Where I can't see the bottom, I feel a light panic. I don't even trust life vests a 100%.

At 12, my mother enrolled me in a summer swim school. I passed the final exam, but it was only because I held my breath until I could see the tiles clearly beneath me and actually stood up to breathe some air before finishing the lap. I gave swimming another try at 19, with my college friend Val who was in the swimming varsity. With her encouragement, I dared to kick across the pool to the deep end using a kick board, although later she admitted that she was a bit afraid I would panic. A few years ago, I also did some water exercises with Marcus to make me comfortable with water. That was all well too, but since I still can't stay afloat long enough on my own machine, the deep end has always been my limit. It's a spatial limit, but I know that the limit exists simultaneously inside my own head. The deep end scares me like you wouldn't guess how, but I also know that the only way outside my mental- and physical- barriers is to – yes, swim there. That mental image makes me somewhat nervous and excited, but I've already made up my mind.

I have been thinking a lot about the swim school for adults organized by the local swim team – in fact I've been pondering over (and delaying it) for about two years. The topic came up again over lunch with colleagues last Wednesday, and when I rang the swim team that same afternoon, they told me they had one slot left for a class that started the next day. Did I want to take it? I was taken by surprise. But well, why not?

The first day of swim school last Thursday went surprisingly smooth. No group activities; we were just instructed to wade in the water and feel it out as the instructors came to us one by one to help us with our individual goals. I learned the basics of the breast stroke in a shallow pool, and I even dared to swim in the deeper pool in the last 5 minutes of the session. Sure enough, the mental trigger struck again when I got "too far" and I had to hold on to the instructor. But if I could swim over 4 meters on my first lesson, the rest of the 14 sessions seems promising. I've decided to go all out on this and bought dumbbells to develop my arms and legs (the latter with squats and lunges). I've even been watching how-to videos on YouTube to plant the breast stroke in my brain. I look forward to Thursdays. And I want to cross that limit by December. There's no excuse. Wish me luck!