Scandinavian Kitchen

Welcome, ladies

Two lovely new girls started working at Scandi Kitchen this week - the lovely Moa from Sweden and Mette from Denmark.  Be really nice to them if you see them around.

Left to Right:  Moa with the prawn, Mette with no prawn. 

Random places to visit in Scandinavia #1

Should you ever end up in Iceland, take a break from your Blue Lagoon trip and pop in to visit the willy museum.  Apparently, it is quite interesting.

Happy Burn's Night, youse lovely Scots

We quite like Scotland.  Some of us here at SK used to live there and on top of that, well, the Scottish are quite similar to the Scandinavians in many ways. 

So, happy Burn's Night to you all on 25th Janaury - the famous Scottish poet is 250 years old.  We hope you enjoy your haggis, neeps and tatties.

Did you know a lot of Scots words stem from Scandinavian languages?  Bairn is a Scottish word fro "child" - and relates to the Scandinavian "barn".  To "greet" in Scots means to cry - and this is grade or grata in Scandinavian.  "Ken" means to know - and stems from the Scandinavian "kenne".

R Burns - the inventor of great poems as well as fantastic side burns.

Good service in Scandinavia?

We were in the Guardian on Saturday, commenting a bit about consumer service in both Denmark and Britain.  Afterwards at Scandi Kitchen we had a little chat about the little things that are very different between Scandinavia and Britain in terms of consumer service.  How the British are amazing at queueing.  How you get 200 Kronor if your bus is more than twenty minutes late in Sweden and how major Danish supermarkets do not accept international credit cards.

Feel free to add your comments - a link ot the article is here

Mini semlor - The cute new canape craze?

We made semlor canapes today, just for fun.  As it happened, they were really yum and we've now decided that for a limited time we'll add them to our canape repetoire.  They are nice little beautiful bite sized buns - a bit like canape burgers, excet they are not burgers at all, they are stuffed with cream and vanilla-marzipan.  Eh...

If you are hosting an event and fancy some canapes or some catering done, then look no further:  we do it.  Well, Scandinavian stuff anyway: at our place you'll not find mini sausages or spring rolls; we do all handmade, lovely Scandinavian open sandwich canapes and large open sandwiches for those extra special meetings or events.

http://www.scandikitchen.co.uk/canapemenu.html

You can have a bit of a peek here for our canape menu and Extra Special open sandwich menu

This is our Sara, eyeing up the mini semlor...

Semlor - it's time.

A semla (semlebullar) is a cardamom  yeast bun filled with marzipan and whipped cream and dusted with icing sugar.  It's divine.  Every year at around this time, Swedes across the world get home sick and go in search of these cakes.

The tradition is to eat them in "fat Tuesday" in February - the day before the faste.  Now a days the Swedes eat them from New Year and all they way to end of February!

We bake some nice Semlor here at Scandi Kitchen in London and from Saturday, you can come get yours, although until February we're only doing a limited amount (so best to order if you want to guarentee availability).

Photo courtesy of Helena. Thanks.  It's very nice.

Dark days

This is what Great Titchfield Street looks like at 5:58 am in the morning, just before some of us start the day preparing open scandwiches.  Nice and quiet and very cold and dark.

Just to let you know we now serve warm porridge in the mornings - with homemade apple and clove compote, cinnamon and sugar or lingonberry jam. 

We open at 8:00 am so do pop by and get fuelled up.

Hello and Goodbye

Marcos, who is off on his world tour of India: we will miss you lots, not least for your crazy potato peeling techniques.  And welcome Jeanette, who joins us this week - be nice and say hello to her if you see her around.

 

 

And the survey says...

To be magically transported to the survey page CLICK HERE

Usually, we do the talking. Now it’s time for you to tell us what is what – we feel we don’t ask as often as we should: We’d really love it if you told us a few truths. Over the next few weeks we’ll be asking both in the shop and on line: what do you think of us? You can win great prizes too – from bottles of the finest Scandinavian aquavit, free lunches and a signed photo of Sebastian*

Thanks so much for your help.

Last entry is 20th Janaury. 

*maybe

Happy Birthday, Helga

Helga is 100 years old - and what a fresh and youthful looking lady she is indeed, pictured here with all her family.

We made the food for her birthday party and learned from Helga's daughter that she will not be getting that all important telegram from the Queen (neither Danish or British version).  Why?  Because Lizzy only sends them to British citizens and Queen Margrethe of Denmark only sends them to Danes still living in Denmark.

We think that is a bit unfair, really.  So we've started a little petition - do click on the link and sign up and we'll forward it to Queen Margrethe when it is looking full - and ask her to reconsider.  It won't take her long to write a little card - and when you reach 100 years old, it should be a big deal and you should be made a fuss of by Queen and Country. 

CLICK HERE to sign the petition http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/lovelyhelga/

Boris and Emil - the same?

Thanks to one of our blog readers who commented last week that London Mayor Boris Johnson bears a striking resemblance to Swedish Emil.  Same person?

Feel free to send in any other suggestions.

   

Observation about Scandinavia # 1 - Swedish tubes

Welcome to a bit of a new thing on our blog:  observations about Scandinavia. Feel free to send in your links or make comments on this.

We found this clip from a Canadian chap living in Sweden who ponders, as we have done many times ourselves, about this obsession in Sweden with putting everything in tubes...?

Thor scares off burglar

We love Thor.  Not only does he do thunder very well, he also scares off burglars in Scotland.

Full link here

Back to normal

We're back after a well earned break, loaded with a bunch of New Years resolutions:

• Elisabeth has vowed never to let drunk people cut her hair in 2009
• Jonas vows not to grow a moustache this year
• Henrik would like a girlfriend
• Sara is learning Geordie (aye aye mann)
• Bronte's resolution was not to spill drinks on people on New Year's Eve (completed)

• Seb promises himself to buy more stuff he doesn't need (he never buys himself anything, apparently) and to be more cheerful in the mornings

See you in the shop soon.  Opening hours are back to normal.  Do pop by and see a fresh faced moustache free Jonas.

The Kitchen People