Nobody wants Cabbage every day

There's a problem. Sweden is so darn far north that living on local eco-friendly veggies and fruit just won't work for me. Here's a short list of common options for local fresh greens: potatoes, cabbage, carrots, onion and perhaps some cauliflower. The problem is also that organic choices often look terrible compare to its conventional counterpart in the veggy section. The big well-known organic certified label in Sweden is KRAV (transl: demand or requirement), every so slowly there's more choices available, but still there's a long ways to go.

(I think don't think that people in California get it, how fantastic they have it, really....)

I found a local unhomogenized whole milk, really terrific stuff, from Järna Mejerier with a creamy milky flavor. I'll guess the flavor is still there due to careful, lowish temp pasteurization, 72 C (161.6F) says their web site. It only has six days shelflife. The one liter "Kontiki" package is funky for sure, but alas, it does the job. Empty, it takes virtually no space in the trashbin.

I also had to try one of the local swedish cheeses, Prästost. Translates to Priest's Cheese, in the old days it was the farmers payment/tithe to the priest. This one is known back in history as far as the 16th century apparently, also known as Smålandsost. Sweden is from what I read, one of the worlds largest per-capita consumers of hard cheese, preferrably sliced thin, with a special cheese slicer contraption, available in every single swedish home. (Also common in other Nordic countries). Most typical Swedish factory cheese, including Prästost, doesn't get to age much, so the flavor isn't there. I'm told that Sweden has a good reputation for making hard-ish cheese. The best one of this particular type I've found so far, is called Prästost 1878, aged 18 months, from the maker Falbygden Ost, founded in 1878, hence the branding. Made with pasteurized cows milk, quite grainy, somewhat pungy, small holes, really nice tang, unique flavor. The key is that it's aged. Elsewhere, the standard variety Prästost basically has very, very mild (useless I think) flavor, instead, you have to know what to look for.

Aside from snaps, the traditional Swedish herring table includes a well-aged hard cheese, often eaten on crispbread or perhaps a dark rye bread.

In all honestly, I will be spending more time commenting on the fabulous imported foods from south of me in Europe. Cabbage gets to be only so interesting...

I'm going to list a few of the really well known typical Swedish cheeses that Falbygden promotes as their top of the line versions, in quotes below is their trademarked most-aged variant. That way I'll have something to go on. One more cheese, Västerbotten cheese isn't listed below because it's only made by one single factory in the way-up-north-town of Burträsk.

Herrgård (Falbygden calls theirs "Arn", Emmentaler-like, rich/strong aged 18 months)

Prästost ("1878" aged 18 months, already mentioned, Svecia-like)

Grevé ("Birger Jarl" aged +12 months. Jarlsberg/Emmentaler-ish. Sweden's newest cheese, invented in 1960's)

Brännvinsost a vodka doused Prästost ("Morfars Brännvinsost" aged +12 months)

Svecia ("Viking" aged 18 months. The only European Union "PDO" protected cheese from Sweden. )

Findling local foods in Sweden

In a casual sort of way I mentioned earlier that I'm for now located in Stockholm Sweden. So now I'm slowly trying to get a taste of local artisan/ small-scale foods made here. Sweden being so far up north, with a short season, can't compete with places like California, but still there is a thriving agricultural industry.

I think I've found a Swedish organization that promotes and speaks for local artisan food makers: Eldrimner. Amongst many of their services they also offer a book, an Atlas of sorts, that lists all known producers and where they're located in the country. I'll be sure to order it. It seems to be similar in what Sonoma County Farm Trails aims to do, create public awareness.

The top picture shows the store front of "Källan" (eng: "the source"), a small and discrete retail store in a western suburb of Stockholm, specializing in organic and natural products. The scruffy looking place is very small so unfortunately there's not much space.

I'll simply mention a few noteworthy local products that I found in the shop.

Swedish fresh Goatmilk SEK 39/ liter from Dalsspira Dairy, Dalsland County. Suprisingly similar to cows milk, just a teeny hint of goat. It's actually really good. The dairy also offer some eleven or so goat based cheeses that I haven't tried yet. I'm not sure the shop carried theirs.- A goat yogurt is also planned for 2008. On the goat milk package I can see read: 2.9% fat, low temperature pasteurized, not homogenized. Can be frozen.

The store offered a nice assortement of natural breads, I always have my mind set on hearty pure sourdough rye bread, and I found one that was fantastic, Nibbles rågbröd from Nibbles Bakery, in the town of Järna. That town I think, is basically the Swedish center for all Anthroposophy activities. With regards to agriculture they take it a steps beyond "commerical organic", with biodynamic farming, creating a self-nourishing system and so on. "Being one with planet earth", something like that. But to get back to the bread, it's fantastic, I'm surprised that it's not dry and not the typical solid brick which is often the the case with this type of bread, the short ingredience list: rye flower, starter and sea salt, that's it.

Sweden, being so far north is naturally a huge importer of fresh foods. If I want still want any local fruits this close to winter, then I'll have to stick to simply apples and pears. (Which I'll admit I won't doing) Interesting note is a variety of apples I had never heard of, Ingrid Marie, which I'll guess is a variety created in Denmark.

I did see two local artisan cheeses from two dairies before I left the store, Strömmens Gårdsmejeri, (Strömmens Dairy) , they use sheep milk and the other was, Jämtspira Goat Dairy, Jämtspira also seem to produce, surprise- cheese from moose milk. Definately something I have try, (at least once.) Unfortunately I was not in a buying mood just yet, there's still too many cheeses in the fridge.

Smoked Baltic Herring - yummy?

One of the fabulous old local foods here in Sweden, that I had not eaten in a long time; Alderwood Smoked and carefully brined Baltic Herring. (Clupea Harengus) Oh man, what a wonderful treat this was. The Baltic Herring is not as fat nor as big as the Atlantic version.

I ended up reading some disturbing news about fish from the Baltic Sea: the Baltic is dioxin polluted. So this fish can't be sold into most countries around the Baltic. Sweden and Finland have currently a temporary exemption on this EU-rule. (Please correct me if I'm wrong) So unfortunately I won't be buying Böckling (eng. Buckling) fished from the Baltic Sea from now on.

Finland and Sweden have been given exemption to sell these fish locally, however, the fish must not be exported.

Swedish handmade cheese: Stafva Gårdsmejeri

Well, I finally made it to Sweden, to the capital Stockholm to be more precise. I seem to be off to a good start in finding some new local foods. In a fairly well-stuffed grocery store, Sabis at the mall, Fältöversten I found cheese from a family cow dairy: Stafva Gårdsmejeri, located on Sweden's largest island Gotland. This fifth-generation family farm, the von Corswant's, with their eighty cows, is one of about one hundred small scale dairies in Sweden. They produce three soft-ripened farmstead pasteurized cow milk cheeses: Stafva Vit, white cream, Stafva Blå, blue veined and Stafva Ockra (washed rind). From what I read, they produce about one hundred kilo's worth of cheese per week. Silly of me I only bought a piece of the washed rind Stafva Ockra, price 590 SEK/kg, (that's $41/lb ouch!) a really wonderful creamy, pungenty thing with an orange rind. They themselves refer to this as a Taleggio-type of cheese. Much like a northern California cheese-favorite of mine, Red Hawk from Cowgirl Creamery. During a few sommer months they also offered a black hard truffel cheese, aged 5-6 months. A batch will be released for christmas they said.

Washed rind cheese is called 'kitt-ost' in Swedish. When I grew up, a ridiculously mild washed rind (barely any flavor) swedish Port Salut was often on the breakfast table, not something I'd buy again.

By the way, by "local" I'm going to mean the whole country, nine million strong, somewhat the size and shape of California. As a reminder to myself: in the near future I'm going to look for a few Swedish cheeses producers: Skärvångens Bymejeri and Oviken Ost, both from the county Jämtland way up north. Stenviks gårdsmejeri from Ljusterö, Jürss mejeri from Flen and maybe Grythyttans Ysteri. A Swedish newspaper, Dagens Nyheter posted a list of quality cheese outlets that I'll try and go to, since I'm (especially) on the hunt for local artisan cheese makers.

A visit to Sebastapol Farmers Market

A wonderful Sunday with a visit to a real farmers market in Sebastapol. If I guessed, perhaps fifteen or so farmers were present. I wished I could had stayed a bit longer and chatted with the farmers, but time flew. Just a few stands that I registered: Clark Summit Farm near Tomales offered organic pastured eggs and took orders of grass fed beef and pigs. Bloomfield Bee Honey offered samples of a variety of honey, I picked up a small jar of raw Blackberry honey, not available in stores, they can't ship in volume, they said.

Redwood empire farms showed off gorgeous, huge heirloom tomatoes, and I had to buy a few. They said the largest they every grew ended up at 3 lb, pretty huge. They offered samples of a sweet yellow watermelon variety, I don't think I ever tasted that before.

Lastly I knew that Golden Nectar Farms would be here, showing of a few of their grapes, and I picked up a bit of Black Muscat. A wonderful change from the run-of-the-mill Thompson Seedless. They grow twenty varieties of grapes, two miles away from our house.

One of the stands (can't remember which one) offered sweet round lemon cucumber that ended up in my salad.

The day continued to Petaluma with a delightful lunch at Water Street Bistro (open for breakfast and lunch) who offered great choices in coffee and organic menu choices, in a casual atmosphere. The day finished at Wholefoods Market where I saw Redwood hill Farms real Goat Feta, unfortunatly it wasn't the best Feta I've had, it had too little salt, too sweet/creamy, and not crumbly enough for my taste.

A great 'italian' in Santa Rosa: LoCoCo's

I had been on a small quest to try and find really terrific Cannoli's, a Italian pastry with creamy ricotta, that I got curious about after watching The Soprano's. After a bit of googling, a place in Santa Rosa, LoCoCo's Cucina Rustica popped up. They seemed to get rave reviews, so I had to check it out. Indeed I think they were right, the best darn Cannoli's I've had. I'll be back. Admittedly I had only had them in three other places before and they were all fairly terrible in comparison. I'm wondering if if the problem is that they had been refrigerated too long, I don't really know. It could be that this pastry has to be REALLY fresh to be good, and no other place actually made them in house, but these guys do though.

I had simple and great Calamari Fritti (fried calamari) as a starter, Pollo Milanese (chicken breast in a wine sauce) as a main course, and the Cannoli with an Espresso as a wonderful finale.

Before I forget to mention it: as we got seated, we were served sourdough bread with a homemade wonderful tapenade-type spread with chopped olives, olive oil and I think it had some walnuts. Too bad I couldn't buy it, it was terrific.

You can find this restaurant by the old railroad square in Santa Rosa. It's a fine Italian establishment for sure. Be sure to try the Cannoli.

A salumi tasting session

I decided to pick up some salumi (cold cuts) before I leave California to see which I preferred. On the picture above are four salumi's lined up, that I just picked up at Whole Foods in Sonoma. From left to right, 5 points to the highest, 1 point the lowest score. They were honestly all really great, I almost hate to compare.

• Fra'Mani - Salametto approx $10.99/lb (2" diam) 4 points
• Fra'Mani - Salame Nostrano $19.99/lb (3" diam) 5 points
• Columbus Artisan - Finocchiona $11.49/lb (4" diam) 3.5 points
• Fra'Mani - Mortadella $10.99/lb 3.5 points

I already had the nicely flavored Salametto in the fridge, but now I had the Salame Nostrano to compare. The Nostrano is more full flavored and sweeter I think. I stumbled on the huge diameter Columbus Finocchiona, and it has an interesting taste with fennel seeds, and perhaps a bit richer with its coarse ground pork. Finally the classic Mortadella without pistachio, is absolutely delightful and mild, nothing wrong here, except I got paper thin, too thin, slices cut by the store.

Afterwards I discover that the most expensive-per-pound salumi wins, I guess sometimes the expression, "you get what you pay for" works..