Adventures

Dear readers,… dear friends,

Do you know how long it’s been since I posted anything to my blog? Heck, I can’t even remember myself.

Ok, I just checked. July the 5th. That was three and a half months ago. Far too long, and I’ll excuse myself in advance because I’m sorely out of the habit of writing, as you may have noticed from my weirdly disjointed sentences thus far. The sad fact is that I’m still not quite back to my baking-ways, and will still not be for a couple more weeks, because life has a habit of getting in the way of things, but I did want to give you all a little update so that you know that I’m still around, and that I haven’t given up on FiveEuroFood entirely.

So, what have I been up to in my unacceptably long extended hiatus? Well, I’ve made an 11-part video course on WordPress Blogging for Beginners. This course covers all the aspects of getting set up as a self-hosted WordPress blogger, along with some basic tips on how to grow your audience and monetize your site, and you can check out the course over at Curious.com.

When I wasn’t glued to the computer, taking long walks with my son William was a nice way to spend some time while my wife was working – even if I almost did get eaten alive by mosquitoes more than once…

We spent some days at a local beach (there’s one just 20 minutes away which I never knew existed… but that’s perhaps rather silly of me considering the town I live in is literally right on the edge of Sweden’s coastline).

Do you remember how I mentioned I was growing things? Well, not everything turned out as planned, but some of my attempts were very successful. I had a good harvest of beetroot (albeit rather small), peas, yellow courgettes, tomatoes, and potatoes. I did manage to grow a few small red peppers, and some espelette chillies which finally ripened – and tasted pretty good – though sadly my efforts to grow beans, leeks, cucumbers and lettuce came to naught. The potatoes pictured three images down are called “Apache” – red skin, flecked with yellow spots. I also grew a variant called “Blue Congo”, which are completely blue all the way through (even in the flesh), and some “normal” potatoes for good measure.

Annoyingly my yellow courgettes kept dying, and it took me a while to figure out why. They weren’t getting pollinated! After I armed myself with a little paintbrush and adopted the role of “plant matchmaker” they seemed to flourish.

After the summer fun, autumn rolled around and it was time to participate in the long-awaited activity of berry picking. I wanted to go lingonberry and mushroom picking too, but didn’t get a chance. Blueberries were sufficient for my first year I think, and what a crop! I filled an entire bucket. About six kilograms in total. More than enough for a huge load of jam, tarts, and muffins.

Of course, picking out all those twigs and leaves was a bit of a pain. There are two schools of thought here.

1. Use a special berry picker which works incredibly well, but has the unfortunate side-effect of occasionally wrenching up big clumps of bush and leaves. Not often… but occasionally. Obviously, you can mitigate this a little with a good technique, and also by using it only at the extremities of the bushes, and at times when berries are very plentiful.
2. Pick all the berries by hand so you’re left with a bucket of berries and nothing else.

Obviously, I subscribed to the first belief, since… well, I’m greedy, that’s all there is to it, but I can see how not having to spend literally about 8 hours picking out all the trash from the bucket later might have its attractions.

 August the 19th was my son’s second birthday. Here he is in the morning when I took him out for a father-son fika, eating a cinnamon bun the size of his head!

So that was my summer. And Autumn.

Now winter is here, and I woke up today to a ground covered in snow, which wasn’t entirely unexpected, but never entirely welcome. Looking through the summer photographs in writing this post, seeing all the wonderful warm weather, I find myself longing for it once again. Instead I’ll have to wrap up, hunker down and try and keep warm since I have a sneaking suspicion that this winter is going to be pretty bad.

I’ll be back soon – I promise, and certainly not in three and a half months time – with a real recipe. I just need to find my camera battery charger which seems to have vanished somewhere. For anyone who has left comments on my blog – my apologies that I just stopped replying. I will start again from this post. I don’t think I’ll be going back to three or four month old comments to reply, but rest assured that I did read them all. If you had any specific questions that you did want answered, please feel free to post them again here, and finally a small request. I made a modification to the way my website loads, so if it appears to be loading incorrectly for any of you, please do let me know.

Stay warm!

Hi folks, I’ve had a few people asking about what it’s like where I live so I thought what better time to share a few photos. I braved the -25 Celsius temperatures today to take a walk around and get some shots. We’re finally getting something worthy of being called a winter here – a bit of snow, some low minus temperatures, and all the fun that comes with such weather conditions.

No recipe today alas – I’ve been quite tired from my studies so just didn’t have the motivation to start whipping things up in the kitchen, but I hope you enjoy the photos of the Swedish countryside, and if you happen to like any of the photos you can buy prints, canvasses, mouse pads or even paper-weights in my online store here. My store also contains all of the photos I previously shared from my road-trip to Sweden and I’ll be adding more to it over time.

It was actually lovely to be outside. It was cold, sure, but the important thing is to wear proper clothing. Thick socks, good shoes, a good coat, a hat (especially important when you have a shaved head!) gloves and, I’m perhaps a little embarrassed to say, long johns. It might not be “hip”, but to hell with being cool… I’d rather be warm.

In the end, the only part of my body which actually felt cold at any time was my cheeks, but I was lucky – there was no wind at all. On such a cold day, wind would lower the temperature even more and no doubt make you feel quite miserable. In case anyone is wondering what the lowest operating temperature of a Canon 60D is (the model I have), I can confirm that it works fine in such chilly conditions, although the auto-focus motor in the lens was sounding a bit laboured the longer I was out (though still working fine).

I’m lucky to be living in a place that is close to “civilisation” but I can literally go outside the house, walk for five minutes down the road, turn up a little lane and feel like I’m in the middle of the Swedish countryside. OK, perhaps it’s not as remote as many places but it’s surrounded by forest and fields and nature and that’s good enough for me.

If you stray away from the main highway onto smaller country roads you’ll find that they’ll usually look like this in the winter. A thick layer of packed ice covering the carriageway doesn’t make for awesome driving conditions and for that reason snow tyres are a legal requirement. You’ll also come across a great many houses such as the one in the corner of the picture here. Eva from KitchenInspirations was wondering what most houses were made from – wood is the answer. I don’t actually know where the nearest house made from brick or stone is around here (although there are many offices and hotels in the nearby city built in stone). You do see brick houses occasionally, but timber is the most common material in construction – even for supermarkets and churches.

Notice as well the stick at the side of the road in the foreground above. That’s so you know where the edge of the road is when there’s lots of snow, and don’t end up driving into the ditch (all the roads also have a deep ditch on either side for the snow to go into when it’s ploughed).

There are a few empty houses near where I live. This one has been uninhabited for 20 years or more and all the windows are boarded up. It’s hard to see from this angle, but it’s a handsome little house in a beautiful location. It seems so sad to just let nature take it over.

The sky was actually a lovely pale blue colour when I went out. Later, it became cloudy and started snowing a little again, so it was lovely to have a bit of clear sky and sun and see the trees covered in snow when I looked up, without getting a load of snowflakes straight into my eye!

It was the same with the dead grasses and bushes by the sides of the road. The snow was of such a type that, despite being very light, it wasn’t too powdery so it clung to everything it touched.

On the way back I passed by some trees and as soon as I’d cleared the last one I was greeted by a beautiful, low, orange sun. Not really warming, but definitely a nice sight.

Such is life though, and literally five minutes later the sun had all but disappeared down below the horizon, with just the top peeking out still. Further on down the road I saw someone taking their horse out for a ride. Notice the reflective vest she’s wearing – very important when you’re out taking a walk in the winter here. If the weather becomes bad then people in cars may have real problems seeing you by the side of the road so these help a lot. Even the horse had little reflective bands around its front hooves!

Back at home I was eager to step back inside for a cup of coffee to warm myself up but I thought you’d like to see a picture of the snow flakes I spoke about earlier, so I stopped to take this photo. It makes for very strange snow – really light and fluffy, and if you try to gather a big clump together it’s like squeezing a ball of plastic wrap – really pliable and elastic.

I hope you’ve enjoyed these few photos of a small part of the Swedish countryside. I’ll be back soon with a giveaway, so do tune in for that! In the meantime though, take care, and stay warm. I know I will!

So, here I am in Sweden at last, safe and sound, though not without some stories to tell. There is so much to do and no doubt it will be some weeks before we have taken care of the things that need to be taken care of, but things are gradually calming down. My son is greatly enjoying being able to see his grandparents, my cat seems to have endured the trip like a champ, the car has been unloaded and the clothes unpacked, and we can now start to have some semblance of normalcy again in our lives.

I will be gradually returning to cooking again soon, but in the meantime I thought you might all enjoy some photos of my trip! I didn’t take so many photos during the beginning of the journey. We spent a night in Kaarst, Germany, a night in Odense, Denmark, and a night in Gardermoen, Norway, but the scenery was rather unremarkable in these areas, and besides – I wasn’t there to sight-see!

As with any long car journey, things were bound to go wrong. First off, I had to drive across the bridge between Denmark and Sweden, since I had to make a stop in Helsingborg, Sweden, in order to have my tyres changed to studded, winter tyres. I merrily tapped in the destination while preparing to leave from Odense, only to be met with the message “No routes found which do not involve ferries”. Ahem… in the end I could choose an option to “Travel via” a point on the map, so I went to the map, tapped on the bridge, and lo and behold, it planned a route for me to Helsingborg. I started driving along happily, went over the bridge, marvelled at the wonders of modern construction and engineering, arrived in Sweden, paid the bridge toll (€35!), took a few turns and ended up right back on the bridge again back to Denmark. Oh dear. Back to Denmark, turn around again, back to Sweden, two more bridge tolls later I’m on my way. I had followed my GPS instructions to the letter, so I have no idea what happened there but an expensive mistake it ended up being.

On the journey from Gardermoen to Trondheim, Norway, is where it got really exciting. The weather wasn’t great – cold with traces of snow in the mountains, we took a little detour off the highway  to see a Stave Church in a place called Ringebu. These are medieval churches, built entirely of wood.

The church at Ringebu dates back to the first quarter of the 13th century. Sadly it was not possible to go inside, but just to be able to see it was an experience in itself. It was bitterly cold, so after a few snaps we jumped back into the car and I plotted a course for Trondheim. “Fastest route” I selected… oh dear. The idiotic GPS decided that a 50km track through a deserted mountain “park” was the best way to go. I say “park” because I couldn’t actually see anything. There was snow everywhere, there wasn’t any kind of building or other person in sight, and worst of all, in a lot of places I could barely even see the road!

I managed to successfully navigate this bit of wilderness and we were well on our way to finally rejoining the highway when… yup, I came around a snowy corner just a teensy bit too fast. The car spun around and there I was sitting at a jaunty angle in a ditch. Not what I really wanted to happen! As luck would have it, a couple of friendly Norwegians stopped, one of whom had a truck, and could pull me out. After more than an hour I could finally get going again, albeit feeling a bit freaked out.

We arrived late in Trondheim, and as seems to be typical for all good little Scandinavian towns, every restaurant in sight closed up by 9pm so alas the only “food” option available for us was the local McDonalds. Still, food is food and it was nice to feel replete after such a day!

Leaving Trondheim to head to Mosjøen, Norway, the next day, you’d never have thought that the weather could have been so bad the day before. There wasn’t a trace of snow in sight, although as we headed further north the weather definitely became significantly colder and more icy.

The hotel we stayed at in Mosjøen (simply called the “Hotell Mosjøen”) was very nice. I doubt many people will find themselves up in that part of the world, but I can strongly recommend it if you do. It seems to be a family-run place, so the rooms, while simple, felt decent, and it was nice to not have that “chain hotel” experience, where every room is identical, every piece of furniture is exactly the same and so forth. A free dinner buffet is included in the price, including breakfast as well. It had a cosy little lobby and dining room which made you feel like you were a guest in someone’s home, and very friendly staff, and when I woke up in the morning, I was confronted by this view which was pretty incredible – something I hadn’t noticed at all in the night when we’d arrived.

The next day it was time to undertake the final leg of the journey. Crossing back into Sweden and driving to meet up with my wife, son and parents-in-law at their home. The weather was not good – the roads were very bad, and my car was severely laden down which made the handling less than favourable in the adverse conditions. Despite this, and the fact that the 7 hour journey ended up taking about 11 hours, we still managed to take in some sights and marvel at the breathtaking scenery.

I hope you’ve enjoyed seeing some of the photos of my trip. It’s definitely a trip I would undertake again if I had the opportunity, although perhaps not in the winter! I’m gradually getting back into the swing of things again here, including adjusting to the freezing temperatures all the time. My wife feels a bit sorry for me since, as she says, “it’s only going to get colder”. Yay, I say – bring it on!

I will be back soon with a new recipe, and I will now be able to resume checking out peoples’ blogs once again – sorry I’ve been gone for so long. In the meantime, enjoy this photo of one of the first views of “Sweden” I photographed after crossing over the border from Norway.

Greetings folks, I wanted to share with you a few photos and tales from my trip to England today. I’ve been having a wonderful time here. The amount of food I’ve been eating has been… ahem… quite scary and I’m not looking forward to stepping on the scales once I return to France. I should tell you all about my journey here though at the beginning of the vacation, because hey, a problem shared is a problem halved, right?

The day before I left I took the car in to the garage to have it checked out, only to be told that the clutch was almost dead. Yikes – not what I want to have to worry about when I’m making a 1600 kilometre round-trip. In the end I decided to rent a car. An expense we could have easily done without, but such is life. All well and good, we arrive in one piece (and the rental is a real joy to drive) except what do I notice when I’m stepping out of the car in England? Yup – a giant nail stuck in the tyre. Maybe I ran over it… maybe it had been there all along since France. Regardless, it had to be fixed (since the tyre went flat once I pulled the nail out), so I had to go and pay for a new one. Let’s hope the return journey is uneventful and easy!

As I’ll be sharing some photos today I thought it the ideal opportunity to share an old recipe of mine which I’m rather proud of myself but sadly, as is often the case with blogs, if you post something in the “early days”, well before you’ve really met anyone online you’ll have a load of recipes which go unnoticed and unloved. I’ve got a heap of those and I hope to breathe a bit of life into them slowly but surely. I’m going to work through my old posts, improve the photography and the layout and make them something worth seeing. After all – who says blogs have to be a linear thing… especially food blogs!

Today I’m going for something simple – my potato salad. I know – everyone has a potato salad recipe, but mine’s better! Well – I like to think so, and people do seem to love it so, for me, this is the ideal salad. Naturally, I’m always open to other suggestions. If you have a recipe you think I should try, shoot it my way! Anyway, check it out and do let me know what you think!

For today’s photos I’ll be sharing a trip with you to a little town called Imber. This rather sweet little place was once, no doubt, a hive of activity. Bakeries, schools, farms, children playing, adults going about their daily lives. And then the second world war came along, and so did the British Army, and they decided that Imber was rather a good location for army training, so the poor residents were effectively kicked out. There was the promise that they could return once the war was over but sadly this promise was broken. The town was never returned to the inhabitants and for most of the year it’s not even possible to visit this place, since it’s in the middle of the army’s training range. For a few days though each year Imber is open to the public once more – including the church in the town (as you may have guessed, if you have relatives buried at this church you have but a small window each year to go and pay your respects at their grave). It just so happened that Imber is open during the Easter weekend and I was determined to profit from this opportunity!

A short drive away from my parents’ home-town you have to first pass through some rather desolate landscape, which often looks like something out of the War of the Worlds. The silence at this point is striking. These days it is difficult to go somewhere where you really cannot hear anything. There always seems to be the sound of cars, planes, gardening tools or “something”, somewhere. Here there is nothing but the sound of birds, and you would be forgiven for thinking that some terrible disaster had struck the earth and you were the only people left.

Finally, you arrive at Imber. As you can see from the map, it really is quite isolated. Very few of the original buildings still remain, although there are one or two whose exterior structures have survived, although many modifications have been made to the doors, windows and internal structures to make them safer for the army during training, as well as having a newer roof put on.

The interiors of the buildings are usually a treasure trove of vile-looking ration packs and spent ammunition casings (blanks I should hope), although this isn’t so common these days as Imber apparently isn’t used so often in favour of another purpose-built village some miles away.

Up on the hill, overlooking the town is the church of St. Giles. Fenced off, this isn’t even normally accessible by the military, and an arrangement is in place whereby the ministry of defence will help pay towards the upkeep of the church. Judging by the state of it inside they evidently pay very little, but at least it’s not falling down. As I mentioned above, the few public holidays per year are the one chance relatives have to visit the graves of family buried here.

The large expanse of grass in the foreground of the photo above used to be an orchard back during the war era. Some apple trees do still exist, but those, much like the town  in general are mostly lost in time.

I hope you enjoyed having a little look around the town with me – I’ll be back in a few days with a recipe and also the winner of the little contest I ran last month (sorry it’s so late!). Have a good day everyone :).