Control Your Climate

In the spirit of ‘don’t ask what the climate can do for you, but what you can do for the climate’, Swedish interior designer Anna-Carin McNamara will guest blog on how to control your climate, stay warm/cool and have a fatter wallet to show for it. Please enjoy some climate words of wisdom....

“You should be used to the cold – you are Swedish!” is something I get told very often. The fact is I have never felt or been colder than here in Australia.
Creating a comfortable indoor climate, something Swedes are quite spoilt with, seems for some reason an unsurmountable task for Australians. Delusional believes that we live in a tropical climate and a “That’ll do” attitude is drying out our skins and our wallets without us even being aware it could be so different.

I know it comes down to dollars and “cheap and quick” is the mantra. To spend money on heating and cooling for the lifetime in a draughty house is conveniently neglected when the renovation budget is tight. Not sure about you but I think we use our heaters from April to October – 7 months out of 12! Still, heating and insulation are neglected and cooling is always prioritised.

If Australians were to adopt some of the Swedish ways of construction, not only would we leave the cold out in winter but also prevent the heat from coming in during the summer.

So what would it take to build the Swedish way?

Insulated walls and floor - lesson number one in building technology in my Swedish college was to calculate the time it takes for heat to travel from one side of wall to the other thereby classifying - depending on where you live -the type of wall you need to build to maintain a perfect (20-22 C) indoor climate. And I can reveal it was never just double brick.

Windows - Double-glazing or at least a “no gap” frame.

Controlled ventilation – no, the beach towel in the gap between the windows does not qualify.

Heating - hydronic (ie water) carried heating in either radiators strategically placed or as underfloor heating.

Voila! The perfect base for a pleasant room climate, to be enjoyed without your fleece and woollen beanie.

Colours/lighting/ furniture are rendered useless if you have to spend your time rubbing hands for heat or hover around the heater in the corner…. If you are like me generally by bedtime- finally – an acceptable temperature have been achieved and then the next morning it all starts again with slippers and mittens…

So go for it, take control of your indoor climate and you’d be surprised how much more pleasant life will become, summer and winter. And your wallet will also be happier in the long run.





Image courtesy of belowtheclouds.com

Semla, the Creamy Story of the Perfect Bun

There are so many wonderful reasons to love Sweden and all things Swedish. But I feel that if you want to capture in a nutshell WHY you should indulge in a bit of amore Suecia it has to be in the little tradition we call fettisdagen and semla.
How many countries do you know that urges you to stuff yourself full of yummy cream buns, all in the name of tradition? And basically as often and as much as you want around this period in time?

The official fettisdagen (Fat Tuesday) is calculated according to ol’ Christian calendar tradition and this bun-eating extravaganza takes place the day before the start of a particular fast, which falls in February or March. In true hedonistic self-indulgent style, we dropped the tedious idea of the fast but kept up with the devouring of delicious cream buns. How appropriate!
So at this time of the year in Sweden there will be whipped cream-filled buns tempting you at every bakery, cafe and home. Many people bake their own, invite some friends and family for a bun-fest in the afternoon. Then the very next day you just roll into a bakery and pick another one to go with your coffee. ‘Tis the time, no questions asked, no guilt being placed upon your bun-munching self. There is no holding back, the nation is urging you, ‘keep eating these buns, you are part of living tradition’!

I have found an outlet in Sydney for my semla crave, Cafe Svensson makes some fantastic ones! But most of the time I happily bake them at home to wild delight of la familia. It’s an annual winner that put you in the good baking books for months, perhaps even years.

Here’s how you whip some up yourself.

Ingredients:
To make a dozen Swedish semlor, you will need:
• 25g of fresh yeast (or dry yeast if you can’t find fresh)
• 75g of margarine or butter
• 200ml of milk
• 2 eggs
• 1 teaspoon of salt
• Half a teaspoon of cardamom
• 500ml of sugar
• 700ml of plain flour
• 2 teaspoons of baking powder
For the filling and topping, you will also need:
• Roughly grated almond paste
• Whipping cream
• Milk
• Icing sugar
How to make a semla:
• First, melt the butter or margarine in a saucepan, add the milk and heat until lukewarm.
• Crumble the yeast into a bowl, and add some of the liquid to dissolve the yeast. If you use dry yeast, follow instructions on the back of package.
• Add the remaining liquid, plus the salt, cardamom, 1 egg, sugar and 600ml of the flour.
• Work the mixture together into a dough.
• Cover with a cloth and leave the dough to rise for around 30 minutes.
• Mix together and work into a dough, a kitchen-machine makes this easy.
• Mix together the baking powder and remaining flour and work into the dough. Knead the dough until it becomes smooth.
• Separate dough into maximum 12 round balls.
• Lightly grease some baking sheets, put the buns onto the sheets and allow them to rise for 35-40 minutes.
• Beat the other egg and use a brush to glaze the tops of the buns.
• Heat the oven to 250 degrees C and bake the semlor in the middle for 10 minutes.
• Cover the buns with a cloth and allow to cool on a wire rack.
• Before eating your semlor:
• Cut a circular “lid” off the top of each bun. Use a spoon to scoop out the inside of the bun.
• Mix together the grated almond paste with the inside of the bun, add milk to make a smooth mixture and use this mixture to fill the hole.
• Whip the cream and spoon the cream on top of the bun filling.
Replace the lid of the bun and decorate with icing sugar.

Recipe courtesy of communityofsweden.com

When the going gets tough, Christmas keep coming

Here we are again, Christmas around the corner, faces in brown bags hyperventilating while trying to figure out how they will have time to fit it all in BEFORE that special time called Christmas. Breath in, breath out, it will all be fine.

The answer is, just make a little list, not the wish-list sort of list, but a tick-the-boxes-kind-of-list. I love them; they work so well for me, very satisfying, even if you don’t get past one tick. Still, one tick is one tick off a list…

So, when we stare down Christmas in the white eye, feeling like a bunch of lemmings charging for the edge with no chance to swerve that final drop off the cliff towards certain Christmas impact, my advice is, embrace it!

Back to the list, write down the five most important things about Christmas that is absolutely imperative to the whole idea of Christmas.
My guess is that presents might be on that list. That’s fine; I’m not judging anyone.
Just remember, online shopping as a wonderful thing, go out there and go crazy. Why not spend your dollars at a place where your gift keeps on giving. Head to Oxfam, great gifts, great organisation.
When it comes to presents, and when children are involved, it is easy to overcompensate. Start making a little list (another one!) in your head and figure out who else except you will give that child another item that will gather dust in the near future. All of a sudden you have a whole chain mail, a pyramid scheme in your head! You really don’t have to buy more than two. It’s true, and the chances are your child will end up with 40 gifts regardless.

For everyone else above the age of 18, buy tickets to a show and make an outing of it, together! And if you really can’t stand each other that much, buy tickets to separate shows and avoid any further family feather ruffling. Hot tips, Sydney Festival, theatre or concerts. We all love them.

Socialising, family and food will probably also be on that list. At least I hope so. Family, do what you need to do and don’t whinge about it. Once a year, it can’t be that bad (surely?!). If it is, don’t bother, make changes that works for you, as well as the consequences of those changes. Friends, remember, the world as we know it won’t stop after the 25th, there is always time to catch up after Christmas. Food, very important. As the years goes by, my Christmas foods get more and more creative, and sometimes have absolutely no relevance to Christmas at all, if I remember right, Christmas Eve dinner last year was lamb roast and potato gratin with sparklers in a rice pudding. But guess what, it was a great night, lots of laughter and dancing and happy children, and there was no pressure to judge if I had got it right, because I was so wrong. So for this year, I’ve got open slate for what to dish up on that smorgasbord. It might be a tad more traditional, I feel. But as my husband fondly says, festive Swedish food is almost all the same; it’s potato, fish and meatballs, in different creative variations.

My top 5 list goes as follows:
1. Presents
2. Christmas tree
3. Lussebullar
4. Christmas food to some extent (think, ham, or herring, or salmon in some constellation together with other foods)
5. Family and friends – the number one out of the five

Wishing all and everyone a Merry and Happy Christmas, and just remember, there is more than one way that’s the right way,
just do it your way!

Midsummer Delights

When the eves of lightness stand long and fair in the Swedish summer it is a good time to be alive. As introspective and melancholic as the Swedish species can be in the darkness of November these characters opens up to the light as a sun-thirsty flower craving some D-vitamins. And before you know it, it is an absolutely bearable lightness of being all around.

What kicks off this metamorphosis can normally be located at the base of the maypole. It is something about picking those wild flowers of gentle colours, alluring fragrances and petal fragility, it is something about the plumpness of the strawberries from the local strawberry farmer, it is something about the singing, the playing of old folklorish songs that continues to be passed down from generation to generation, it is something about the promise of summer delights, the magic of lightness, the shades of blue as the sky very slowly changes its ever-present glory of summer nights. It is something of about the feeling that it gives meaning and adds to the sum of who you are, a sense of belonging, a sense of a precious gift of beauty and a time when nature and humans celebrate unanimously the sense of possibilities in the circle of life, when we know that it won’t last forever, therefore embrace the moment and saviour the sweetness of the here and now.

So join the spirit, raise your glasses, dip that herring, clear your throats, sing from the heart, smile at the summer night, dance like the true hedonist we all are at heart and embrace life to the fullest on these long long days and light light nights of midsummer delights.

Swedish Christmas feel in the time of tropical heat

I hate to break it to you all white-Christmas pining-Sweden-loving-conflicting-Christmas feelings-of-cold/hot/light/dark-kind-of-people like myself; Christmas in Australia will never be like the Christmases back in the winter dark of Northern Europe, in the tomteland of Svedala. And I mean never, ever. Sorry to shatter any illusions but I think we need to agree on this point before we can move forward and find peace with working out an alternative.

This, however, doesn’t mean that one can’t create a little piece of Swedish Christmas celebration right in the middle of the 35 degrees heat, one just have to be selective and smart about it. And that’s exactly what I’m going to help you to do. I will help you, step by step, to navigate Christmas in the most possibly stylish, genuine and user-friendly way I can think of. Without too much stress or anxiety.

Firstly, Christmas for me is about the senses. For me it needs to smell like Christmas, taste like Christmas, sound like Christmas and look like Christmas, even if only from the micro perspective of your home. This can easily be achieved in a not too complicated manner.

To make it smell like Christmas you need to identify those smells that make the Christmas feeling kick in for you. Essential for me is a REAL Christmas tree. Yes, the price of a semi-real looking tree in Australia is comparable to at least half a regular pine forest in Sweden. But hey, comparing Christmas tree prices with the Great North is not getting you any closer to experiencing the ‘Xmas feeling’. Bite the bullet and buy the tree, see it as your Christmas present to yourself. Inhale. Decorate your tree with lovely things from funkis or IKEA and the picture is complete. Exhale.

Secondly, I have a very weak spot for oranges with cloves in them. And the smell is wonderful, makes me twitch with Yule-feel all over. Decorate your own oranges with cloves and you will reap the benefits throughout Christmas. These decorations also make a very nice present.

Unless you are the Stephanie Alexander of Swedish Christmas cooking, know your limitations and set your goals in a realistic timeframe.

If you don’t have time to bake ginger cookies, pop into IKEA, Coles or Woolworths and pick up some of Anna’s pepparkakor. If you want to make the ginger cookies more versatile, put a bit of blue cheese, such as Roquefort or the like, on top of a ginger cookie and you’ve got yourself a tasty nibble pre-‘julbord’.

‘Julbord’. Important indeed, but let’s not go too crazy. If you can’t recreate the ‘julbord’ of your childhood, don’t feel bad, and remember, you probably didn’t eat most of it anyway. Include the best bits only. My variation is Janssons frestelse, beetroot salad, meatballs, gravlax, ham, 2 styles of herring (mustard and French for example), knäckebröd, cheese and a green salad. Everyone can add any specialities that they feel are a must. Let’s remember, improvisation is good. And no one here will know the difference. And for pudding, I love a tasty Ris a la Malta.

The key to a relaxing Christmas in the Swedish spirit is to try not to stress madly the day of the 24th of December. Most things on my ‘julbord’ can be made in advance. Prep the Jansson frestelse and meatballs and stick in the freezer. Go crazy, have it done in November! Gravlax is so easy and takes care of it self that all you need to do is turn the little parcel about twice a day for 3 days. How hard is that? The herring sits nicely in the jar, keep it that way. The beetroot salad taste better if you prep it the day before. I can’t be bothered with making my own ham, I just buy ham of the bone and schlep a bit of tasty mustard on top. The Ris a la Malta can also be made the day before and kept in the fridge under some cling wrap. That leaves you with tossing a green salad on Christmas Eve. Easy.

Glögg. I’m sorry to say this but this drink doesn’t work for me at all this side of the equator; I let it remain one of those things I only do when Christmas is celebrated in an environment that enjoys no more than 5 hrs of daylight per day. But if it makes you feel Christmas fuzzy, here’s a DIY.

In regards to making it sound like Christmas, the options are endless. In this day and age of high tech super highway kind of way of living, crank up Sveriges Radio and tune into a whole range of different Christmas feeler-gooderers 24/7 up to the 6th of January. You can of course also listen to the local Swedish Christmas variation of radio at SBS where the Swedish Programme will broadcast all kinds of Christmas songs. Or download or order some Swedish Christmas music on Amazon. Or maybe just sing some traditional Swedish Christmas music, the optimal way to get the Yule-groove going.

To get into the Swedish Christmas feel, there are not only things I recommend you to do, but there are also things I strongly recommend that you don’t do and actively stay AWAY from.

Some of these no-goes are:

Wildly blinking lights/Christmas decoration. Christmas shouldn’t be confused with a raunchy red light district. Bad for Christmas feng shui.

Any native Australian animal dressed up in Santa outfit. A definite NO. An absolute killer of Nordic Christmas feel.

And remember, don’t peak too early. Start Christmas preparations on the right side of December to minimise the anticlimactic feel of premature Christmas fatigue.

I hope this little Swedish Christmas guide can come in handy, and remember, you can take Christmas out of Sweden, but not Sweden out of Christmas, rock that reindeer!

The Big Chanterelle Myth

It’s been a good year, an amazing year. At least, so I was told.
2009 was the year when you couldn’t help but stumble upon chanterelles in the Swedish forest. They were EVERYWHERE. No exaggeration. Even if you didn’t try to pick them you seemed to come home with pockets full of them, simply by passing through a bit of nature. ‘Greta just popped out, and lo and behold, five litres of chanterelles while picking up the newspaper from the letterbox in the morning. ‘. Amazing. ‘Janne goes out every afternoon and scoops up more than he can eat and bring to work for charitable distribution’. Unheard of. No one gives away litres of chanterelles unless they are some other look-a-like but seriously poisonous fungi found in the moss.

So to put it mildly, my expectations in the chanterelle department of success was, as far as I was concerned, a given. It was more a question of HOW many amazing litres would I be able to brag about once I came out of the woods alive after my fungal expedition. Well, my chanterelle glee soon enough turned to chanterelle desperation, before finally settling on chanterelle failure. I found one. Not two, but one. And I covered the geographical landmass of an average county. Either they were all hiding from my terribly untrained eye or as my mother gently remarked: ‘someone must have cleared this place before you’. Sure, had it been the size of an average city park. Sure. But I’m talking an area the size of Tasmania. SURELY ‘someone’ couldn’t have cleared it all before me. And aren’t they meant to grow back?! And I have to admit, that single one I found was so pathetically small that any chanterelle picker worth their woven basket would have left it to grow. But hell, I couldn’t come back completely empty handed. The shame would have been unbearable.

So my theory is that the chanterelle myth strongly resembles the fish myth, you know the one that got away? Because, seriously, has anyone ever seen these 8 gazillion litres of chanterelles that people seem to effortlessly amass? Do you actually confront someone after they told their proud and happy forest story and insist on being shown the freezer box in the basement just to verify the truth factor? That kind of behaviour results in less Christmas cards. No one likes to be doubted, especially not in the chanterelly kind of way. So you just say ‘wow, that’s amazing’ and then the story is legitimate. It’s the truth, at least as far as you’ve been told. No proof shown, no proof needed.

Still, my single premature chanterelle teamed up with a small bunch of other chanterelle misfits and became a little taste sensation of a nibble before dinner. Butter, salt, white pepper and onion. And of course that rare species of a thing called chanterelle. Together they made my day, the delicacy of rarity is a fine thing to taste. And as I’ve always said, ‘better one chanterelle on the fork than six litres unpicked in the forest’.