A Swedish Midsummer party

May 26, 2015

If I said meatballs to you what would you think? It might be the cafe at Ikea, which like one friend makes the visit there bearable, or you might imagine them in tomato sauce on a bed of spaghetti, or perhaps you think I'd lost it. Either way it's likely that you wouldn't be thinking of a Swedish Midsummer party, because generally here in the UK it's not something we celebrate.

So when the people at Scan Meatballs invited me to see how the Swedes celebrate Midsummer, I was keen to find out more. I arrived at Aveqia in central London on a sunny day in the middle of May ready to discover how the Swedes celebrate.

Midsummer's Day is 21 June and the holiday in Sweden is always the Friday nearest to the summer solstice, so ensuring there's always a long weekend and plenty of time to celebrate what is probably their biggest holiday. It's definitely as big as Christmas, with the build up we're so familiar with here and families planning their menu's in advance.

The holiday is thought to pre-date Christianity has the feel of legends, mystery, paganism and well wishing. It celebrates the start of Summer and given that often at Christmas it's -10 and dark it's no wonder the Swedes embrace summer and the light it brings.

The celebrations vary, but are often community based and there's often a Maypole which is decorated with flowers. Flower garlands are traditional and they're worn by both the men and the women - and no one spends Midsummer in the city.

After decorating the Maypole it's time for lunch with beer and schnapps and then some dancing around the Maypole - and you can't help but wonder if the accompaniments to lunch help this along a little...

After lunch there'll be cake, and a snooze - it's sounding familiar isn't it? In the evening there'll probably be a barbecue and then it'll be back to the park to hear the live band.

And the sun doesn't set.

I'll admit my knowledge of Sweden up till then was pretty limited; I'd once toyed with the idea of visiting Stockholm but never quite made it there. The closest I've got is a few days in Helsinki as part of our Baltic holiday probably about ten years ago, where we also visited St Petersburg and Tallinn. Oh, and growing up a love of Abba!

The day involved cooking your own lunch and we split into two teams to prepare a meatball smorgasbord platter with dips, a herring and apple starter, meatballs with lingonberry sauce and a potato gratin with anchovies.

POP SONGS, ANCHOVIES... THE WINNER TAKES IT ALL

I was on the hot meal team making the meatballs in lingonberry sauce (similar to cranberry sauce but less tart) and the potato gratin with anchovies. Both were easy to make and tasted divine - and in fact those anchovies aren't anchovies, they're more like spratts, so if they were putting you off, don't let it. And those Abba ones have been preserved in an almost pink dill-infused liquid and I may just have tasted one or two straight out of the tin...

Meanwhile the other team had been preparing the smorgasbord (or buffet) of beautifully presented herring and apple cocktails, a beetroot and dill dip, a red pepper hummus and a yogurt and dill sauce and of course meatballs.

And there was cake too. Strawberries, elderflower cream and many layers - absolutely nothing wrong here, although after tasting the food we'd prepared and some pickled herrings, there wasn't much room left for cake. Although you'll be pleased to know I did my best...

STRAWBERRY AND ELDERFLOWER CREAM LAYER CAKE

As well as preparing lunch we also made some beautiful flower garlands, but more on that later this week. I had a fun afternoon learning more about and experiencing a Swedish Midsummer party - but thankfully no Maypole dancing, I last did that when I was in the Brownies! The meatballs were tasty and we'll be eating them again, and you never know I may actually make that trip to Stockholm at some point too!

There's a range of recipes on the Scan Meatball site so if you fancy cooking something different with your meatballs, go take a look.

Black & white photos: Chelsea Flower Show

May 24, 2015

On Friday evening we visited the Chelsea Flower Show, we'd been before but not for a few years so after watching it enviously on the television last year I was determined to get tickets this year. It lived up to my expectations, but there was just so much to see and I don't think anyone could do it justice in the two and a half hours we had.

It was much busier than I remembered too, and while we saw the show gardens and walked endlessly round the main pavilion we only got to see some of the artisan gardens as the crowds there were just too large. So note to self, next time get a day ticket!

There's so much to see and experience and you'll not be surprised to learn that I took lots of photos, many of which I'm sure I'll share here in the next few weeks or so. But today I thought I'd share some as a teaser in black and white.

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Love this #58: Another show, another table

May 20, 2015

At the start of the month we headed along to Grand Designs Live - you'll remember I went armed with plans of our garden, and came back with lots of advice. Well we also had a look around the rest of the show walking a fair few miles in the process.

We saw lots and quite a few things that had been at the Ideal Home Show a month or so earlier, but quite a lot that hadn't as well. Despite falling in love with the Danish wooden table and chairs that I shared last month and coming up with a Plan B to source the wood ourselves, we couldn't help but check out the tables on display here.

Bad move. Incredibly bad move.

It would only have been a worse move if we'd've already ordered our new table. We hadn't so it wasn't that bad, but...

You see we saw this white glass table. And loved it.

We thought we'd sussed out our criteria for tables, and that was:

wooden, or preferably a wooden top and metal legs,
the legs should be offset and not directly under the corners of the table, as I think this makes the tables look too block-y and appear bigger than they actally are,
a mis-matched approach to chairs and one length to be bench seating.

So why then were we both swooning over this white glass legs-on-the-corner table?

Well in my defence, these on-the-corner-legs don't look chunky and that's because of the sleek design. The other thing we liked was that it extends, and easily too - and that's something the wooden tables we liked haven't had.

And it comes in a range of neutral colours. The salesman's face was a picture when he asked us what colour we were after and our reply was wood! He could clearly (and rightly) tell that we liked this table, so our answer was a little puzzling until we explained we thought we'd decided firmly on wood. But have we? Now we're not so sure!

We left the Cadira stand bemused and clutching a brochure - and usually I don't bother with these as they're only something else (for MOH) to carry and to recycle when we get home, far better to leave it for someone that has a need for it in my view - debating which colour we'd choose. And if we'd find a white gloss bench (or a non-wood bench) at all, let alone one that matched the size of the table.

We did agree on one thing though, and that was those chairs weren't quite for us - and thankfully it's not sold as a set. So more table-related thinking and pondering to follow, but thankfully no more shows in the diary...