Category: Sweden

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A Walk Through Leaves Then Snow Then Vinglögg Or Seventeen Ways Of Looking At The Svecofennian Orogeny.

Trees branch across land, sea and sky here in the northern fall as you walk leaves floating in front of your face and those already at your feet; all that crumples, all that pushes upward. Lakes rustle in northern light trying to stretch and warp; roots and trunks bending like a bow. Indefinite set theories … Continue reading A Walk Through Leaves Then Snow Then Vinglögg Or Seventeen Ways Of Looking At The Svecofennian Orogeny.

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An American Cooks Gumbo In Nacka, Reveling In Migration And Public Transportation, While Surrounded By Cuisines And Travelers Of All Kinds And Sorts.

Out and about on a day of shopping for my first gumbo in Sweden, which affords a moment to celebrate living in such a cosmopolitan, community-friendly city as Stockholm.  For instance, I’ve found public transportation in the Greater Stockholm area affordable, clean, efficient, quick and yes, multicultural.  I pay two hundred and fifty dollars for … Continue reading An American Cooks Gumbo In Nacka, Reveling In Migration And Public Transportation, While Surrounded By Cuisines And Travelers Of All Kinds And Sorts.

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A Cup Of Coffee While Translating Tomas Gösta Tranströmer . . . Well, Not All Of Him, Just One Poem And An Appearance By Bob Dylan.

My days begin with coffee.  For close to forty years, my days begin with coffee.  In a previous life, I’m sure I frequented London Coffeehouses of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.  Am I dependent on coffee?  Yes, yes I am.  And yes, since I drink coffee I am cosmopolitan, I believe in the free flow … Continue reading A Cup Of Coffee While Translating Tomas Gösta Tranströmer . . . Well, Not All Of Him, Just One Poem And An Appearance By Bob Dylan.

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Onion Pie With A Cold Eye Cast On Fear And Hate In America.

Early 1960s America and Nietta Dunn defies Jim Crow laws by sitting at the H. Green lunch counter in downtown Lexington.  African-Americans may buy food, but they may not sit at the counter.  Here’s the thing, food doesn’t work well with fear and hate–not when planting, not when harvesting, not when cooking, and especially not … Continue reading Onion Pie With A Cold Eye Cast On Fear And Hate In America.

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Arriving In Sweden.

Around 12:30 pm on Monday, October 22 I walk out of the Stockholm Arlanda airport and into the arms of Gabriela and Demian and my new life in Sweden.  Fifty-five years living in the States, the last thirty years in Houston, and now I have “Permanent Resident Status” to live with wife and son a … Continue reading Arriving In Sweden.

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Sausages And Cooking Murder.

Louis Vincent Palliere renders in bright colors the infamous Slaughter of the Suitors” by Odysseus and Telemachus, note those gorgeous capes tripping hues between orange and red. I love cooking sausages.  All sorts of sausage.  Beef, chicken, lamb and pig; andouille, bloedwurst, boudin, bratwurst, chorizo, hot dogs, kielbasa, knackwurst, linguiça, longaniza, merguez, morcilla, saucisson, soppressata,  … Continue reading Sausages And Cooking Murder.

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Blood In The Kitchen.

My morning thoughts do not immediately turn to blood, but then I read an article by Katie Macleod which offers a wonderful observation of blood sausage and what we will eat when we’re young and what we will not in Blood for Breakfast is Wasted on the Young.  And then, all my thoughts turn bloody. … Continue reading Blood In The Kitchen.

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Broth Of A Forest Floor: Walking On Storön.

Midsummer in the Stockholm Archipelago and I’ve finally become accustomed to falling asleep in daylight.  Important to blanket windows, shut eyes tightly, and dream about water and land washing, breaking each other.  It’s about four in the morning when I wake to light and silhouette, and what can I do, emerging colors call me out … Continue reading Broth Of A Forest Floor: Walking On Storön.

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Storön–Vignettes From The Big Island.

We’re set floating in this light on midsummer day’s eve.  The Baltic’s still, now that its been channeled around one island after another, though the surface slightly bends like a plate of glass heated and slowly turning in and out of itself.  Think of a mirror dulled with age reflecting a dusted blue sky ringed … Continue reading Storön–Vignettes From The Big Island.

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There’s An Island In The Baltic Sea

After a forty-five minute bus ride out of Stockholm, the road ends at Stavsnäs with a pier jutting out into the water, pointing toward an archipelago, a labyrinth of islands we’ll navigate on our way to a greeting and hospitality.  This is Tomas Tranströmer’s realm as translated into another island language by Robin Fulton, a place of sky … Continue reading There’s An Island In The Baltic Sea