September 03, 2006

What to eat in August & September

Elections or not, I need to eat and enjoy myself so here I am on this very rainy Sunday, hammering away on the keyboard...
Today´s issue is to get rid of some of the mushrooms in the freezer, because the forests are filling up again after some rain and the still warm weather, and my man has started bringing home bag after bag after bag. I have some fresh lasagna plates in the fridge and plan on some sort of mushroom lasagna. I also plan to make some beetroot mince beefs for dinner and freezer, and oh, I could really use some apple pie or something. Autumn is so wonderful with all these fine produce, I could stand in the kitchen all day. This Friday, by the way, I made some of
Johanna´s cantuccini with ginger, almonds and pink pepper corns. The combination sounds crazy, but they are so good! I will make them again and try to not put in too many eggs like I did this time. They were fine anyway, though...

But it was crawfish I was going to write about. This is the main topic in Sweden in August and September: have you had crawfish, what brand, frozen or fresh, and were they any good? These were really good! Last Friday I felt like having a little crawfish party on the balcony, just for the two of us, and bought 1 kilo of frozen Turkish Jumbo crawfish. The ideal thing is of course to fish and cook your own crawfish but that is a complicated procedure involving a boat, a trailer or pick up truck, cages, bait (dry dog´s food is ideal, smelly and easy to handle), some free evenings, patience and a cold-blooded father-in-law willing to cook the poor things alive with lots of dill. Anyhow, these made do this time and they were really tasty. I love crawfish and I eat until they are finished, not only tails and claws but also the roe and heads. Yum, yum, yum.

The other thing to eat this time of year is surströmming, fermented herring, which people tend to either love or hate. You see, they smell. And some people have an issue with smelly food. I on the other hand loves it, and compare surströmming to Danish cheese, which is also very smelly but taste delicious, very piquant in a way. One of my paternal aunts once said about a Danish cheese on the table "take away the cheese!". Not because she thought it was smelly, but because she couldn´t stop eating from it. I feel the same way these days, about crawfish, my new cantuccini and surströmming - if I could find someone who would like to share a tin with me. On the balcony (oh yes, you don´t want to eat it inside because the smell gets stuck in all padded furniture), with thin bread, boiled potatoes, onion and sourcream. Oh, the joy.

4 comments:

Steve said...

I hope your balcony furniture can survive your surströmming party.

Anonymous said...

Oh, I'd really love to eat all of those on your balcony!!!
On one of our trips to Europe, my husband jumped off at a train stop to get of some sandwiches and made it back just as the train started up again. Those were the smellest things going but my goodness they were the best - surströmming and lots of red onion!!! Wish I could have one for lunch today.

Karin said...

There´s a special saltiness to surstromming. oh it´s so good!

Anonymous said...

Hey Kristina! Yeah, election's coming up, huh? ;-) I'm back in Brisbane, working on my masters thesis, but on every Saturday morning I go to green market nearby and get some fresh veggies and fish to do some cooking - to destress. I feel that it's like a therapy, haha. But more effective therapy would be to chat with you at your terrace over your food...!!! Hmm, I hope someday I can go back to Stockholm... in summer! ;-)