Scandinavian Kitchen

Christmas Opening Times

We're popping home over Christmas to celebrate with our families.  Our opening times over the festive season are:

22nd and 23rd:  Open as per usual

24th:  open from 8 am till midday for those last "oops I forgot something" buys.  No cafe, only coffee and shopping.

25th Dec - 4th Janaury - closed.  No herring, no coffee.  Use this time to go visit your Nan and have a few sherries, maybe?

5th January - open as per usual.  New year, new start - and maybe a cinnamon bun and a latte...

Thanks for a wonderful year, folks - and see you in 2009.

Bye for now

The Kitchen People

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Christmas time at Scandi Kitchen

      

Danish language

A Norwegian clip about writing songs....(Norwegian only, sorry)

Best of the random clips 2008

Preben and Preben or is it Seb and Henrik?

We got great feedback on our words that mean something else in English

Tesco's war against Denmark

Norwegians make fun of the Danish language

You can always click on the subject "random stuff" or "amusing stuff" to get a full list if you've got nothing better to do.

We're on the telly (hi Mum)

Some nice people from Danish TV DR1 (TV Avisen , go'aften) popped over to London last week and came in to chat to us about the falling pound. 

We all had a lovely chit chat, although Bronte is slightly concerned that she sounds like linguistically confused Dane when she speaks.  We're expecting Mrs Blomhoj to call up to correct her grammar any day soon now

Pop forward to 16:43 minutes.

click here

WIN the new Finnish movie The Christmas Story

Win the new festive Finnish Movie called The Christmas Story. The touching story of how Santa Claus came to be Santa.

To be in with a chance to win, answer the following question:

What is “Father Christmas” in Finnish?

a. Tomte

b. Yule Goat

c. Joulupukki

d. Sinterklaas

Answers by e-mail, please to iloveherring@scandikitchen.co.uk before next Friday.  Usual rules apply.

A bit about the film: 

Hundreds of years ago the world’s greatest story was born…
In a remote village in Lapland, young Nikolas loses his family in an accident. The villagers decide to look after the orphaned boy together. Each family will take care of Nikolas for one year. At the end of each year, -on Christmas Day-, Nikolas has to move to a new home. To show his gratitude to the villagers, Nikolas decides to make toys for children of the families as good-bye presents. Over the years, Nikolas’ former adoptive families become many and soon almost every house has presents on its doorstep on Christmas morning.
When the village suffers a food shortage, the villagers have to send Nikolas to work as an apprentice for the hermit carpenter Iisakki. Under the cruel tutelage of Iisakki, Nikolas develops skills that enable him to create even better presents and to work even faster. The child-hating Iisakki, however, forbids Nikolas from making presents. The Christmas present tradition is in danger of coming to an end.

More details:

http://www.finnsworldwide.com/christmasstorymovie.html

St Lucia day of celebration

13^th December every year is the celebration of St Lucia (or St Lucy) – a festival widely celebrated across Scandinavia.  Girls dress in white robes and carry candles in a long procession and sing the hymn about Lucia. The candles symbolise the fire that refused to take St. Lucia's life when she was sentenced to be burned.   Traditionally a Catholic festival, it is thought that this tradition survived in Scandinavia because it is celebrated during the very dark days of winter.

Some people believe that back in the day when us Scandies celebrated Yule (or Jol) at Winter Solstice, it was both a season of giving, kindness and celebration - but also a season of fear of dark forces – the scariest night of all at that time was called the Night of Lussi – Lussinatta.  Some believe that the festival of light is from this time to fend off the evil forces.

Whatever you choose to believe, for us it is really all about saffron buns and trying to persuade Henrik and Seb to wear Lucia costumes and crowns of candles.  So far no luck.

In Sweden, a traditional kind of bun, Lussekatt ("St. Lucia Bun"), made with saffron, is normally eaten on this day.  It’s rather yummy – and we’re serving these all week in our little store so do pop by for your fix.

 

 

Norwegian / Norst Ribbe

If you're a Norwegian looking for RIBBE for Christmas, we do not stock it (only lutfisk, pinnekjot, grandiosa pizza and everything else) - but you can order RIBBE through these butchers:

Macken Brothers Family Butcher (ask for Rodney)
44 Turnham Green Terrace
Chiswick, W4
Tel. 020 8994 2646

John Charles the Village Butcher (ask for Dave or Ken)
12 Blackheath Village
Blackheath, SE3
Tel. 020 8852 0470

Julbord

Hello all

Just a reminder link about our Julefrokost / Julord options

http://scandikitchen.typepad.com/scandikitchen/2008/11/traditional-julefrokost---scandinavian-christmas-lunch.html

We are totally booked for this week coming but have a few free spots still for week beginning 15th December

Little places in Scandinavia # 6 - Sara's Stockholm

Sara’s Stockholm – City of islands

Stockholm is made up by quite a few islands, 30,000 to be sort of precise. Faringö is one of these, located far out west in Lake Malaren. Färentuna - my little village - is located here, 40 km west of Stockholm city centre. My island is part of Ekerö municipality - a beautiful place (without too many fun things going on – apart from skinny-dipping) and famous for three things.

knugen

Sweden’s own Knugen Kalle, the missus and the kids (Vickan, Philip and every guy’s dream girl Madde) make up Sweden’s royal family. They have two royal palaces, one big monster in the middle of Stockholm and Drottningholm, their residence, a boat ride away on the island of Lovön. It even has its World Heritage listed Chinese theatre and palace gardens – good for greenery, Christmas markets and a bit of history.

For lovers of history, there’s even more to be had on the neighbouring island, Bjorkö, where you will find the only existing Viking town in the world, Birka. Although the Vikings left quite a few years back it is definitely worth a visit, if not to see how the Vikings used to live then at least for the beautiful boat trip there.

If in Stockholm and you find yourself hungry, try the Shanti – the best Indian restaurant ever (unless you’re in India).  It’s on Katarina Bangata 58.  For coffee and cakes, get yourself to Systrarna Hedin & Voltaire on Djurgarden.  It’s hard to find so ask me to draw you a map next time you’re in.

Job at Scandi Kitchen

Kitchen Angel / Superman

Our Timmo is going to seek his fame and fortune in the finance world and is leaving us as from January.  Therefore we’re looking for someone to join our wonderful kitchen team full time.

The main job responsibilities are:

·         Daily prepping of open sandwiches, salads and sauces

·         Part responsible for catering and out-of-house bookings

·         Daily baking of wonderful cakes and help invent new exciting ways/foods to keep SK ahead

·         Keeping the kitchen in excellent working order both operationally and with regards to hygiene

·         Responsible for stock takes, rotation and re-ordering of catering goods

The person we’re looking for is:

·         Experienced in the kitchen.  We’re not asking for a top chef here, just relevant all round kitchen/cafe/restaurant experience and knowledge of how working in a busy kitchen should be

·         Team worker and good people skills – you’ll be working closely with the other Kitchen Angel and will be sharing the responsibilities for the day to day running of the kitchen.

·         Flexible – we’re open 6 days a week and you need to be able to be flexible in your working hours and days

·         Good at a Scandinavian language and has excellent knowledge of Scandinavian food.  The language bit is so you can understand labelling, ordering, recipes and such practical stuff.  The Scandinavian food knowledge does not have to be from a professional side, but can be from a passion for Scandinavian food in general.

If this sounds like you, send your CV and a few paragraphs about yourself to: bronte@scandikitchen.co.uk.  

Please note we do not accept CVs from agencies and while we do try to get back to everyone, if you had not heard back in 2 weeks, we’re sorry, but this means your application wasn’t quite successful this time around.

 

 

 

 

Nostalgic Swedish Christmas calendar...

A while back we posted a Danish link for Christmas, bound to bring on nostalgia...  Here's our Swedish one:

Concert at the Norwegian Church in London

There's a big Chrismas concert happening at the Norwegian Seamen's Church in London on Saturday 6th December at 19:00 - read more here

Tickets are £25 - and can be bought from the Norwegian Church.

Helpful site for ex-pats in Denmark

We found this good site for ex-pats living in Denmark

http://www.lifein.dk/