Papaya carpaccio

The Thanksgiving weekend is a long four-day feast of healthy food, book-reading, walks, and socializing for me. So relaxing.

For lunch today I made papaya carpaccio. So easy. Just some mixed salad as a base. Then thinly sliced papaya on top. Squeeze some lime, add some sea salt and olive oil and then sprinkle some pecan nuts on top.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Thanksgiving is for Americans what Christmas is for us Swedes. Pretty important with other words.

More than an estimated 39 million Americans travel to see friends and family during this weekend and a lot of turkeys are eaten. And remember that when you eat that stuffed commercially produced turkey, you eat a turkey where 70% of their weight comes from their breast, thereby making it impossible for them to reproduce naturally. Most turkeys born today have come to this Earth through artificial insemination. Just so you know.

Raw Food Rehab gives a creative-looking alternative to the ordinary turkey.

Apart from turkeys, there are loads of other delicious products to buy in the grocery store right now. How about some pumpkins and squash that can be roasted in the oven or turned into soups and desserts.

Have a great weekend everyone!

Intelligentisa coffee and tea in Venice Beach, CA

A few months ago when I visited LA, I took my family to a really cool cafe in Venice Beach called Intelligentsia coffee and tea. I am not posting the link to their website since, unfortunately, they do not show any of the cool pictures of their cafe there.

It is a very unusual place well worth checking out if you are in the neighborhood. They also serve cakes if you need something with that tea or coffee.

And I am real sucker for how things are served. Isn't this a beautiful setup?!

Happy Friday!

On Sundays, Irene goes to Swedish School to get her fix of Swedish, and I usually go for a walk and a cup of tea with a friend.

A few Sundays ago, a friend and I decided to go to Pike Place Market to have a look. Pike Place Market, which dates back to 1907, started with a few farmers selling their produce to become a full-blown market that sells not only produce and other types of food but also all kinds of things you might need, or not. And they sell beautiful flowers. So a flower from Pike Place Market is what I share with you today.

Happy Friday everyone!

A Swede must know how to ice skate, right?!

It is funny the way we think our children should learn things that we ourselves were taught as children.

Where I grew up in Sweden, everyone learned to ice skate. And this is, of course, something that I want my children to know how to do. The difference is that in Sweden there are so many opportunities to ice skate during winter. Here in Seattle not so many opportunities, next to none actually. Still I want my children to learn this, which could be said to be part of the Swedish culture, or at least used to be when I grew up. What if my children will never ice skate after they have learnt it?

My oldest daughter learnt how to skate when she was around 2.5/3 yrs old and ice skated every winter when we lived in Sweden.

After 7 yrs here in Seattle, she has ice skated less then 5 times in total.

Well, that did not stop me from taking the little one to ice skating lessons. At 7, she was more than ready.

After having walked like a zombie over the ice, she started running like her pants were on fire. And she said to me that she was the worst skaters since she was falling over all the time. I told her to go slow and practice on her technique, but I guess that was silly of me knowing she does not understand the concept of slow. I am sure that she will enjoy knowing how to skate and I know it will come in use, at least once, when we head off to Colorado, where they have real winters, in February.