The Food Issue

This post is going to have a lot of pictures of food. If you are feeling a bit hungry, I suggest you go find a snack now.

Much of the past two days have been spent in the garden or the kitchen. On Wednesday Jacob and I switched jobs. I took on the manual labor, while he put on the apron and baked in the kitchen.

It was challenging, but digging flower beds in the garden and transplanting trees was fun and (sort of) empowering. Meanwhile, Jacob was in the kitchen, baking up a storm and having a blast. Jacob got the extra satisfaction of selling a number of his confections that day in the cafe (with compliments to the chef!).

First I will show you my favorite stool in the kitchen. It's my favorite because: 1. It's pretty, 2. It's handy, and 3. I stand on it or use it several times a day to take pictures of food that we made, foraged, or dug up in the garden. You will be seeing it a lot.

The Stool

This stool is a good example of our role in the kitchen: Apprentice. We are learning to run the cafe the way Amy does, which means we do a good amount of watching and listening before we can jump in. But when we do jump in, we get to make some pretty awesome stuff.

Key Lime Pie

Chocolate Cupcake

Homemade Bread

Once we were done with work, Jacob and I decided to bike into the closest town of Skinskatteberg - 10 km bike ride each way. It was a very pleasant bike ride - mostly flat, with beautiful views of fields and forest and storm clouds on the horizon. Once we arrived in town, we found a train station, a church, a grocery store and one town square. That's about it. Tiny.

Regardless, it was nice to be in a town for the first time in a week.

Today consisted of more baking and digging in the garden - but this time Jacob and I worked together. Since the summer season in Sweden is winding down, Amy has tasked us with working through her garden to harvest vegetables and find creative ways to preserve them for the winter. For obvious reasons, I'm thrilled with this job. The first thing we harvested were garlic and potatoes. For a mid-size garden, the variety and quantity of vegetables in those beds is constantly surprising.

The Daily Crop of Salads

Garlic, Beets, and Carrots from the Garden

In the afternoon Jacob and I went for a walk through the woods and found a treasure trove of mushrooms called Summer Chanterelles. We had heard from Amy that they could be found everywhere this time of year if you just knew the right type of forest to look in. Jacob and I had been searching for them on every walk we had taken, and now we have finally found the right forest. We stuffed the huge pockets of my coat with the mushrooms, and took them home with us.

Summer Chanterelles

Tonight we are going to participate in a traditional Swedish summer celebration - the Crayfish Feast. Jacob and I have been really looking forward to this. I'll tell you how it is in a couple days!