A change of seasons...and chocolate shops.

On Saturday Mountain Man and I made some big decisions.  We've been in Sweden for almost a year now and...well, it hasn't been easy.  Of course, as my Grandad would often remind me, if it was easy everyone would be doing it!  Despite that nugget of wisdom and truth, or perhaps because of it, we have decided to shake things up a bit and cram more fun into our lives.

Malmö is a great place to live in many ways - it's close to Copenhagen, right by the sea and has wonderful cycle tracks and parks.  It's seriously lacking on the restaurant and foodie end of things though and we both miss that.  For that and lots of other reasons, we have decided to move from our beautiful apartment in Malmö to the University city of Lund.  Mountain Man will cycle to work every day, I will meet him for lunch and every now and then,  pop into St. Jakobs Bageri for a cuppa, mosey in the Saluhallen for fresh fish, meat and cheese and maybe, once in a blue moon treat myself to some divine chocolates from Hovby No.9 Chocolaterie.

As we walked around Lund on Saturday, luxuriating in the buzz, the smells of fresh food from the Saluhallen and the joyfully autumnal flowers at countless market stalls in Mårtenstorget, we stumbled across a sign for Hovby No.9 Chocolaterie.  Mountain Man remembered someone telling him it is the best chocolate in Sweden, so what could we do but follow our noses?  The signs and smells directed us through a little courtyard and down a set of steps into a surprisingly warm, tiny chocolaterie.

An hour later, we resurfaced, having learned the story of Hovby No. 9, of the warm and funny owner Inger and her many careers and of course, with a box of very special chocolates in tow.

Inger opened the chocolaterie 13 years ago, having spent 12 years in Switzerland and some time in Paris learning the art of chocolate making.  She grew up on a farm and chose to name her chocolaterie after the place and people she loves.  She was preaching to the converted when she told us 'I would rather have nothing if I can't have good quality.  No, I just do without until I can afford the best quality'.  Over the years, in different guises, working with the best quality has been her raison d'etre and she has brought this deep respect for quality to her latest venture, which she tells us proudly, she began at the ripe old age of 55.

I loved standing at Inger's counter, she was so warm and generous, listening to our story as she weaved hers around us.  She told us, with such passion, about an ingredient she had discovered and insisted we try a chocolate she had made with it.  When she learned we wanted to move to Lund, she laughed and said '...the best thing about Malmö is that it is close to Copenhagen!'  She insisted on sharing her email with us and taking mine, in case she heard of anything becoming available.

Mountain Man and I grinned at each other as we basked in the simple act of chatting with a stranger...oh how we have missed that!  Inger may not have realised it, but her kindness & openness gave us the final nudge we needed to make the decision to move.  Lund here we come!

Decadence on a Monday

A jar of molasses does not travel well on it’s side. 

I know this now, but when I left Cork and packed it on it’s side, in my plastic box of baking ingredients, I didn’t.  

This was the result.  A gift really…on cleaning up the mess I discovered that quite a few packets of dried fruit were out of date and thankfully chucking them out saved me from cleaning molasses off their packets.  Narrow escape.  That task complete, I was inspired me to make something sweet.

I borrowed the recipe from Susan Jane White, a nutritionist in Ireland who creates the yummiest food, always keeping in mind food intolerances and sugar levels.  So the below recipe is a version of her Raw Cacao Brownies but doctored a bit, as I didn’t have everything specified in my dwindling box of goodies.  These are dead easy to make and full of nutrients – the nuts provide oodles of B Vitamins, Vitamin E, Calcium, Magnesium, Manganese, Iron, fiber & essential fats as well as tummy filling protein.  There's buckets of stress busting magnesium in the cacao powder and a lovely balance of electrolytes from the salt.  One of the beauties of this treat is that it doesn't have lots of refined flour, processed sugar and weird flavourings and preservatives as so many shop bought treats do.  As well as that, it is fit to bursting with goodness, usually removed from the raw ingredients used in chocolate or sweet offering in the shops.  A decadent treat that is actually good for you, wow!

What you’ll need:

½ cup of walnuts

½ cup of hazlenuts

Pinch of Himalayan Crystal Salt

2 tbsp maple syrup

1 dsp agave syrup

5 dates (soaked in water as they weren’t all that sticky)

4 tbsp raw cacao powder

1 tbsp normal unalkalised cocoa powder

50g or so of dark chocolate

Put everything except the dark chocolate in a blender or food processor and blitz until it starts to come together.  Susan Jane suggests you stop blitzing as soon as it starts to make a ball, otherwise you’ll overdo it.  I had to add the agave syrup, as it wasn’t coming together at all.  Perhaps due to my dates not being super sticky, so start without the agave and see how you get on.

Once the mix has come together, remove small lumps of the mix and roll into ping-pong sized balls between your hands.  You will get a bit messy, but you also get to lick your hands clean, so it’s worth it.

Poke a little hole in each ball and smoosh it together if it starts to fall apart.

Once that’s done melt the chocolate over a simmering bowl of water.  Once melted, put a small dollop of chocolate into each ball.  Susan Jane added probiotic yoghurt to the chocolate, but Mountain Man had finished off the yoghurt with breakfast, so I figured dark chocolate on it’s own would suffice.  Yum, it did…

If you have a little chocolate left over, as I did and some strawberries in the fridge, I’d suggest dipping the strawberries into the chocolate.  It would be a shame to waste it after all!

Pickled Fish?

I am sitting in our kitchen, flooded with light, enjoying the beautiful view over rooftops and into the courtyard below.  The fact that I am sitting here, rather that on the bed, balancing my laptop on my knees is cause for celebration.  You see, yesterday, we bought a dining table and chairs.  In the process we also made some Swedish friends.

Using a most wonderful Swedish institution (it seems) www.blocket.se we searched for second hand furniture and found what seemed like the perfect, inexpensive pine table and 4 chairs for just 300kr.  We contacted the seller and agreed to visit to take a look yesterday afternoon.  When we arrived we were shown the furniture, but also a beautiful walnut table and 6 chairs which were for sale too.  This lady is completely decluttering her house, her daughter piped up from indoors that she had already sold her bed and had to sleep on the couch!

For just 50kr more (that's about €5.88) we agreed to take the walnut table and chairs and proceeded to get everything into our car.  Following a rather sweaty 20 minutes, the lovely Hanna and Sten offered us a cup of coffee.  My inner introvert said 'No, I need to get going' while my lovely sociable husband beat me to it with a 'Yes, we'd love to'.


We stayed.  We drank coffee, sitting in their back garden in the sun.  We ate delicious little Swedish biscuits.  Maps were pulled out and we both shared stories and tips for our respective countries.  Sten has lived in Malmö all his life and was full of suggestions on where to shop, where to buy fish and on which day.  I grilled them on how to pronounce the new Swedish vowels that I am working hard to get my mouth around and I think I am a little closer to 'getting' it.  Susanne, their daughter was dying to hear all about Ireland and where she should go to experience a genuine Irish village with a proper pub & thatched roofs.

It seems that Malmö does not quite fit into the Swedish stereotype when it comes to food.  They are not big fans of the pickled fish that I have heard about, in fact Hanna advised we steer clear and wrinkled her nose at the thought of the smell alone!  They do not seem to have a particular favoured dish or speciality.  Perhaps this is because Hanna hates cooking?  She did get very excited when she started talking about a cake they enjoy in January & February called Semla, a combination of cream, sponge and marzipan. Not sure it would be my cup of tea, but I will certainly give it a try!

2 hours later, we departed with promises to keep in touch and help each other learn English & Swedish.  This is not the Swedish stereotype that I have been hearing about.  I did not expect to be welcomed into someone else's home so easily and so warmly.  There were so many jobs on my to-do-list yesterday, but I truly wouldn't have chosen to spend the day any differently.  Thank you Hanna, Sten & Susanne.

The big move...

I am moving to Malmo, Sweden.

In 11 days I will be on a ferry from Rosslare to Cherbourg, from where I will share the driving with my husband and my brother to bring all of our belongings to our new home.  We're going in convoy, borrowing my parents' van to bring everything with us.  That journey alone will be an adventure.

The bigger adventure is what comes next.  2 years in Malmo.  2 years where I get to choose how I spend my time, without having to work to pay the bills.  For the first time in a long long time, the plan is, there is no plan.  This is exciting.  So far, fear hasn't made an appearance, but I am sure it will.

Leaving my rather wonderful husband aside, my biggest love is food.

I am almost always hungry.  I wake up hungry, already thinking about breakfast, my day moving from meal to meal.  I adore food, finding new ingredients and turning them into something delicious.  I love meeting the people who put love and attention into producing much of the food that I eat and choose to feed those I love with.

I intend to eat (and cook) my way around Malmo.  I will recount my experiences here and share my story of living in Malmo as a Hungry Irish Cailín.