thing number 2

one of the most special places i have ever been to in the world is the Danish island of Bornholm. the "sunshine island" has so much charm; it is hard to put into words why i love it so much. the combination of quaint seaside villages, freshly smoked fish, homemade ice cream, fresh licorice, old castle ruins, fields of rape (the plant!), and local beer are only a small fraction of the things i love about Bornholm. i have been fortunate to go 3 times on paid work trips where we spend 2 full days biking around this lovely place and exploring everything that it has to offer. after 90+km of biking in a weekend, your ass is definitely sore, but the views, food, and ambience are worth it. even though i don't go to Bornholm all the time, it is still a magical place that i am going to miss having access to.

so, you can only imagine my excitement when my favorite "gourmet for the people" restaurant chain offered a menu inspired by Bornholm and its special ingredients. i was determined to get morten and i a table during the 2 week campaign and was successful :) we enjoyed a delicious 4-course meal, all inspired with ingredients from Bornholm -- mackerel, chicken, pork, blueberries, and after dinner treats of licorice. it was definitely the second best thing to actually being on the island.

which i guess brings me to the second part of this post, which you can consider as a 2-in-1 "thing i am going to miss"... oh cofoco. you are the best restaurant chain and i will miss your campaigns, deals, competitions, and the fact that you can get gourmet food at a cheap price in copenhagen. eating at a cofoco restaurant was one of my first dining out experiences when first moving to copenhagen, and it will be one of my last, as morten and i will celebrate my last day of work with a milan-inspired 5-course menu. nom nom nom.

so here is to bornholm & cofoco. two great places in themselves and two places i plan on visiting again in the future. and as for you, cofoco, i will see you already in december when it comes to the pebernødder competition. i am determined to win this year!

cofoco's Bornholm inspired menu

a handsome face i am so fortunate to spend my days with

things i will miss about denmark

i've been inspired by a recent conversation during a bike ride with a friend of mine. she asked me what i would miss the most about copenhagen. it is too difficult to narrow it down to just one thing, so i figured i would just do some shout-outs over the next few weeks as i think more about the question :)

Thing number 1:

The Mosquito. The Skeeter. Skeet skeet. My bike.

copenhagen is a city dominated by bikes. city planners work hard to redesign roads and bridges to accommodate those that commute by bike -- bike lanes get wider, car lanes get fewer, bridges only for bikes get built, etc.

they say that 30% of copenhageners commute by bike, but it feels like every day the number grows. there is no better way to get around the city and no better way to explore its inner crevices.

getting a bike was my number 1 priority when i moved to copenhagen in 2007. i inherited an old, used bike from a colleague and it got me where i needed to be, but after a year, it was time for it to retire. in fact, it has been parked outside of my old apartment enjoying the fresh air for the past 1.5 years (think retired racehorse in the pasture).

the mosquito was a gift to myself after being hired permanently at dis, and it has been my trusty stallion for over 2.5 years now. we have had 1 major crash together due to too many cocktails at the ice bar and the fact that i forgot to eat dinner (a lesson i learned the hard way). my second crash with the skeeter was last summer after i decided to "press the eject button" and tuck & roll across the pavement. don't worry -- no injuries that time :) but she has endured it all, including being knocked over by a man with a cello outside my window as i write this (thank you, sir, for at least picking her back up again).

i will miss her trustworthiness, her ability to get me to work on time, and the sound of the spokes when riding in 3rd gear across the lakes. however, i will not miss the hole in the seat that soaks up rainwater and leaves wet circles on my butt. it definitely gives the wrong impression...

so skeeter, this one's for you (this is when you raise your glass for her). thanks for all the good times, the scary times, the brake short times, the flat tires, the broken chains, the bike gang times, the "broke my tights times", and all that was in between. may you be as loyal to your next owner as you were to me, and may you go for a decent price when i put you on the market. skål and tak for det hele!

time time ticking

in exactly 1 month, i will have my last day at dis. wow. words can't really explain the feeling at all. one minute i am sad because it has become such a big part of my life, and then the next minute it feels like my last day will never come. i guess that's what happens when you love your colleagues, but are burnt out on your job. needless to say, the past week or so has felt like a rollercoaster of emotions, and i feel like my body is taking the toll. there is just so much that needs to be done to wrap things up and move across the ocean and it is so overwhelming. i worry about everything, if i will be happy in atlanta, if morten will be happy in atlanta, how can we afford to do this, will it hurt our relationship, why would he give up everything to come with me to a place he knows so little about, how are we going to get our stuff over, when are we going to pack, what if it all doesn't fit in our bags, how will we afford furniture and rent when we both won't have jobs, will our financial situation damage our relationship?

so many thoughts, stresses, questions, and worries. i think i spend most of my time worried about this change and less time doing something about it. the schizophrenic nature of the weather here in copenhagen really isn't helping either. one week it is warm, sunny, summer weather, and the next week i am digging through my remaining clothing looking for anything i might have left behind that resembles fall wear.

anyway, i guess all i can do is focus on the positive, try to stay healthy, and focus on the summer fun that is ahead. music festival from wednesday afternoon until sunday night. family trip to the fjords in norway in 2 weeks. there is a lot to look forward to, and a lot to prepare for..

it's-a-ravioli-time

so this is definitely the post i set out to write today, but wrote the other one instead. and i know if i don't do this now, i will probably forget and try again in another 2 weeks. so lets just rewind back a few weeks to the month of may, when things were a bit chillier in copenhagen.

it shouldn't be much of a surprise to anyone, who either reads this blog or sees our photos on facebook, that morten and i love food. we love being creative in the kitchen, trying crazy recipes, and really just having fun with the whole idea of cooking together. most sundays result in homemade pizza night with toppings differing each week. during the week we are a bit more adventurous, and are currently really loving rhubarb. we have put it in our salads and in our meatballs. if you don't really eat, cook, or use rhubarb that often, i highly recommend it!

well, anyway, after our adventures in homemade pasta, we decided to take it up a notch and give ravioli a go. yes, we know it isn't difficult, but it sure does take a lot longer to make your own pasta and filling then it does to just rip open a bag of pre-made ravioli and call it dinner. we knew we wanted to finally take the time to make ravioli, and it was so much fun.

we decided to go with a porcini mushroom & ricotta cheese filling. however, it being denmark and grocery stores being unpredictable, they were sold out of ricotta, so we subbed with cottage cheese, and that worked perfectly. mixed in with this filling was some finely chopped parsley. it's a good thing that the recipe made more filling than we needed for the pasta, because we definitely could have eaten that all night on some crackers!

the pasta was basic. egg. flour. salt. knead. last time we did homemade pasta, i started the rolling out process, but couldn't finish it because it was so difficult and needed so much strength. this time, however, i was bound and determined to roll that baby out and to get it as thin as possible.

rollin'... rollin'...

i'z is proud, iz you?

then came the fun part. cutting out little circles. i swear, morten was a pro at putting the filling on the dough and folding it over to seal it. you may laugh now, but it required a bit more precision than you might think!

neatly pressing...

it's-a-great-success! *italian accent*

all of our little raviolis

final product... voila! (served with chicken breast & zesty tomato sauce)

so that sums up our latest "back to basics" kitchen adventure. it was tons of fun and i can't wait to try it again with another type of filling. actually, next time, i'm thinking chinese dumplings! nom nom!

sunny summer days

so summer has finally arrived and boy is it nice. i always forget how amazing a danish summer is -- blue blue sky, 17 hours of daylight, light breezes, and smiling faces. since morten and i know that this will be our last real danish summer for a while, we are doing our best to really enjoy it. knowing that your time is limited really lights a fire under your ass to get out there and do things. last weekend, we went to louisiana museum for modern art. this was a place i had been wanting to go for so long, but just kept putting it off. we went on the last day of the picasso exhibit, and i am so glad we made it for that! in between exhibition viewings, we took a nice little rest outside of the cafe to enjoy some elderflower juice and a cinnamon roll.

at louisiana, overlooking the øresund, sweden is in the distance

light exhibit at louisiana

this past week of work has been pretty lax. we had a public holiday that fell on a thursday, in the middle of a 5 day street festival throughout the city. so lets just say things weren't very productive! after three days of drinking in the sun every afternoon and evening, morten and i were ready for some "healthy time". i have always wanted to go up to dyrehaven, a large park that used to be royal hunting grounds, for a picnic. we decided saturday was the day, so we made some salads, pick up some paté, cheese, bread, fruit, and wine, and started our 12 km bike ride. well, it was totally worth it! within 10 minutes of stepping in the park, we saw a large flock of deer walking around on the paths. it was so cool to be so close to them. after our little feast, we jumped on our bikes and headed up to the royal hunting lodge and in the fields in front of it, there must have been hundreds of deer. again, it doesn't get much cooler than that :)

our picnic spread!

enjoying the sun in dyrehaven

eremitageslottet, the old royal hunting lodge

and to end a fantastic weekend, we spent all day today enjoying one of our wedding presents from a group of my friends from work. they were so sweet to get us this lovely package deal where we start with a delicious brunch and then head over to a spa to have massages and quality time in the spa. it was so wonderful! brunch was delicious with all kinds of treats and coffees and juices. nom nom nom! then we headed over to the spa to just relax before the massage. it was so fun to have our own little robes and slippers to walk around in. we almost had the place to ourselves, which made it even more special. and, yes, the massage was awesome. i was so sad when she said it was over. but at least we still had as much time as we wanted in the sauna, steam room, jacuzzi and pool :)

so now morten is out playing football with his guy friends before having their last mandate before we leave for the states. crazy to think that in less than two months, we will be in our new apartment in atlanta! time is flying by!

has it really been over a month??

wow, time sure does fly! what a super busy month april has been, and may is basically halfway over already! april was filled with a housewarming, 30th birthday party, and family hygge time. because easter vacation is 2 days longer in denmark, morten and i decided to take that opportunity to journey over the usa for a 2 1/2 week visit. i had a childhood friend getting married in the beginning of may, so this was the perfect opportunity to get some extra vacation time without it really taking away from my vacation days.

what a busy vacation it was! it completely flew by, but it was filled with so much fun and great memories, that i couldnt have asked for a better time! it was so nice to have morten meet most of my moms side of the family, along with some of my friends that were able to take time out of their busy schedules to either have dinner with us, or host us in their apartments while we travelled around the south. a big shout out to them for their wonderful hospitality! we promise to return the favor once we are settled into our new apartment in atlanta. we will entertain you with a home-cooked meal, wine, and a free place to stay :)

during our trip we got to squeeze in a quick trip to atlanta in order to see an apartment that we had our eye on for a while. we both got a great impression of the complex, the staff, the facilities, etc. and we went ahead and put in our application to reserve an apartment with the floorplan that we are interested in. so all we have to do is hope that an apartment on a higher floor opens up so that we can get off of the ground floor. fingers crossed!

we also got to spend 3 full days helping shear alpacas on the double o good farm. what an experience for morten! i think he was a bit overwhelmed at first, but he was such a great help that even the professional shearer & his assistant said that they were very impressed with him, especially since he had never seen an alpaca in his life until we got to the states! it was definitely a hard few days of work (probably the hardest manual labor either of us have ever done), but it was still great fun, even if we both still have the bumps and bruises to show for it.

the wedding we went to was absolutely gorgeous and also gave me the opportunity to show morten one of the prettiest places in north carolina -- beaufort! it's such a charming town with its architecture, marina, wild horses, and small town feel. the ceremony was located on this small piece of property that overlooked the water and everything about it was just stunning! the flower arrangements, the catering, the lanterns in the tent, the dresses, the weather, it was all just perfect, and couldnt have been better!

i know that this is a whirlwind update of our vacation, but i dont want to bog anyone down with details. photos are more fun, so here is a little update through the eyes of my mobile phone :)

wedding cake for the newlyweds!

sweet little mandy-kins

morten and an ewok. i mean, alpaca.

kiki!

baby being born on the farm

danish jam in a store in VA

mortens signature salad for easter

sweet little pooh-bear!

mortens first cinco de mayo!

wild horse on carrot island across from beaufort

morten sitting on the dock in beaufort

all in all, it was a great trip and i cant wait to show morten more of the states, and have him meet more people! :)

søndagshygge

as i have mentioned before, jamie oliver is huge in denmark. he's everywhere -- on tv, in the bookstores, his kitchen supplies are everywhere. he is pretty much a big deal here. so, with that said, morten and i were watching a jamie oliver episode where he was talking about eggs & chickens and blah blah blah. i was a bit disappointed with the chicken bit, because he took these two factory chickens that had been kept in cages for their whole lives and put them into a chicken coop. i wanted to see if their appearance changed at all, but jamie just left us high and dry.

anyway, he had a bit on homemade pasta and he, of course, made it look super easy with his pasta machine, but the idea still stuck with us (along with the idea to make merengues), and we decided to try our hand at homemade pasta today. it was super easy even without a pasta rolling machine, and it was delicious! basically, 1 egg/100g flour/person. bam. homemade pasta. the hardest part is getting it very thin with just a rolling pin.

morten rolling away

cutting the pasta

homemade bolognese

final product

and i swear i helped! i really did. it was all so easy and fun to try something new, and i really think that we have nailed the perfect bolognese sauce :) thank goodness there are leftovers! now, to start thinking of the next food adventure to try next time...

why worry?

i wonder how many people are sitting around wondering "what?! why?! who is he?! and why didnt she say anything?!". based on my facebook page, i guess it is quite a few. but as a good friend says, why should i let what anyone else thinks bother me? it isn't their wedding. it's yours.

and you know what? shes right. you always hear those cheesy stories of people meeting each other and just knowing that the other person was the one. i used to roll my eyes and think, get real. until i met him. when you have a connection with someone that is so strong that you miss them terribly when they are away, always have something to talk about, never argue over a thing, encourage each other to be better and healthier people, then you cant deny that this isnt the person you were meant to spend the rest of your life with. i found a person that makes every day better just by being there. someone that motivates me, supports me, and loves me just as much as i love him (even though he claims he loves me more ;)). i feel like i dont need to offer any explanation for why we got married, why we didnt tell many people, and why there were no invites. the only people that needed to be there were the two of us.

i know that everyone is dying to see pictures from the wedding. mortens good friend took some amazing photos that i will have to sit down and sort through to put onto facebook, with mortens help of course. but, just to give you a teaser...

and that's before the ceremony :)

after the wedding we headed on a surprise trip (well, a surprise for me at least) to berlin. morten had planned it a long time before we knew what date the wedding would be, so it was sweet that it was like a mini-honeymoon. it was such a nice weekend. berlin is a great city, the sun was shining constantly, the food was great, and we really got to relax and unwind.

here are the highlights:

delicious brunch! oh i could eat this now!

very cool concept gourmet store. all ingredients are packaged into servings, with the recipes, and accompanying wine.

bench break in the sun on under der linden

speaks for itself

delicious elvis burger: peanut butter, banana, pineapple, jack daniels marinated beef. GOOD.

getting in touch with our inner 7th graders

where in the world is carmen san diego?

wow. where did march go?? one minute i was on study tour with a group of students, the next i am running a workshop for dis that i didn't even plan, and then the next thing i know i am on a honeymoon in berlin! there is just so much to write and catch up on, that it is almost overwhelming. i will do my best and then leave you to some highlights of my past 2 weeks.

anyway, my last post left you in stockholm on woman's day. the next day, i actually headed out on an overnight ferry to tallinn, estonia. you might be asking yourself "who goes to estonia?". well, the answer is "this girl". seriously, i have been 3 times in the span of a year. and while tallinn is very small, i have to admit that it is very charming and now that i feel very familiar with it, it is becoming one of my favorite places to go. probably because i am starting to really nail down the restaurant scene ;)

stockholm is hands down one of my favorite places in the world. it's so beautiful, under-rated, and extremely charming. while it is pretty pricey, you can still find really good deals on cafes, as long as you forget about wine, beer, & alcohol. our entire time in stockholm was sunny and clear skies. the academics on tour were great and left me really wanting to learn more about the specific organizations. one of the visits was to lakare i varlden, which is the swedish "doctors of the world" and they mainly work with undocumented foreigners in stockholm. scandinavia is not known for its open borders and liberal views on immigration, so here is a sweet drawing that a very smart 8 year old drew with their own opinions of the immigration laws:

we rounded up our time in sweden with a trip to uppsala, where the university campus is located, and one of the oldest towns in sweden. here are some highlights of the town:

uppsala cathedral -- dates back to the 1200s

statue of mary inside the cathedral, which i thought was completely real and tried to nudge her out of the way...

old viking burial mounds in gamla uppsala

the original church before they built the one seen above

main walking street in sigtuna, sweden's oldest town

now back to the ferry... it. was. horrible. it left most of the students either sick or sleep-deprived due to all the snow on the baltic sea. i have to agree with them and say it was the worst night of my life, but thank god for disney channel in my cabin. between that and the standard cnn circulation of news, i at least had some sort of entertainment through the night.

my time in tallinn was fab as always -- funny guide on the walking tour, medieval feast for dinner, and lunch at a russian restaurant. nom nom nom. here are some highlights of that part of the week:

tallinn claims to be the home of marzipan, but they will have to go to war with lubeck, germany on that one...

russian orthodox church in old town; a reminder of their past

looking down onto old town

winner of the best translated dessert menu. i'll take the fat cakes, please.

no russian restaurant is the same without a stuffed bear playing the accordion

and that brings me back to copenhagen, back at dis, back to reality. i think i will have to save the rest for another time. now it's time to go for a jog around the lakes with morten so that i can remove the fat cakes from my hips. i didn't even eat them, but looking at them just made me gain 5 pounds... or maybe that was just the cherry pie with custard sauce...

international women's day

this blog comes to you live from stockholm, sweden! i am currently "on business" for work (read: leading a study tour for the students), and today is international women's day. havent heard of it? well, it is probably because it started as a socialist political event, and the us is pretty much terrified of the word. international women's day was established in copenhagen in 1910, at the first international women's conference, which was held at the old ungdomshuset (jagtvej 69) in the borough of nørrebro, and the building no longer exists (thanks kids!).

anyway, sweden takes it pretty seriously, as one of the doctors we met with yesterday was zipping off to an official women's day kick-off with the prime minister & royal family. nbd. and to my pleasant surprise, after a very long day of walking and leading my ducklings around stockholm, i returned to my fabulous hotel room at the globe to find this little treat :)

love this day!

so, thanks to my mad danish skillz, i can read a little svenska. and the hotel has not only left me a sweet flower in my room, but they also are offering me a free glass of bubbles or wine in the bar downstairs. now if only i had read the card prior to putting on my pj's and taking out my contacts... oh well, it is nice to know that i am appreciated :) as they say, it's the thought that counts!

london calling

so after a long hiatus, it is time for an update. on a bit more than a whim, i decided to jetset to london last weekend for a laonnoise reunion/girly weekend with mack and ions, two lovely ladies i spent the better part of a year with in france.

i got in pretty late on friday night, or at least late for london. pubs close by midnight, so we had to beg for a beer after last call. after a beer, it was back to mack's for a laidback night with several cupcakes, a bag of candy, and some chips. could you tell i didn't really eat dinner? talk about destroying my diet. haha. as my blog editor says, if it's in another country, it doesn't count ;)

saturday started off with a hilarious attempt at shake and pour pancakes (why did i NOT get a photo of this??) anyway, i think more pancake batter wound up on mack's apron than in the pan. needless to say, brunch was delicious, despite the weird shape of our pancakes :)

then it was off to a pub for some pints and rugby (italy v. wales). no pub visit is the same without fried food so we got a round of fries and onion rings to accompany our beers.

ladies who "scoop"

after rugby, it was time to freshen up for a night out on the town. so with some good music, some wine, and some more cupcakes, we dolled ourselves up and headed to dinner at yo! sushi. running sushi is obviously the hot trend these days, and it only reminds me of this hole in the wall place in chapel hill that i used to go to in college. i guess the trend really caught on. anyway, dinner was great, like sushi always is, and then we headed to a club at 21.30. definitely an early start, which i think is strange, but i guess londoners really like to start early. we were supposed to meet up with one of mack's friends, but he was clearly a jerk, and we headed off to a pub, which was definitely more our scene. the choice was brilliant though, because it led to an epic night that otherwise wouldn't have happened.

you can find us in the pub...

i will save you the blurry details of the night, the bottom line is that it was a blast and had all of my favorite elements: good company, random strangers, dancing, falafels, and cab rides.

sunday was a late start and we finally ate around 15.00 at this cute little place in covent garden called bill's produce. i really should have taken a photo of it, or at least have bought one of their net bags. anyway, it was delish -- fish finger sandwich and fries w/ mayo. yum. the rest of the day was pretty chill as we were all still struggling from the night before.

on a side note, check out this pretty view out mack's window. it's may be the only sun i have seen in weeks...

monday we headed off to get our feet done... by fish! another new trend out there is these fish that eat the dead skin off your feet, leaving them soft and smooth. think of it as an alternative pedicure... it was a bit creepy and weird in the beginning, but after some channeling of my thoughts and trying to compare the feeling to jacuzzi jets, i had gotten over the weird sensation. and it's true. my feet are softer. thank you groupon!

nom nom nom...

so after fish pedicures, we had a nice french lunch and headed back to mack's to pick up my stuff and head to victoria station to catch the train to the airport. a nice little surprise inside the station was a krispy kreme doughnut stand! go figure! based on all the jamie oliver specials i watch in denmark, it really isn't very shocking to find this here. anyway, the choices were different from home, and i really couldn't choose so i got two. (yeah, yeah, back on the diet train i go again). i chose a regular glazed cruller (delish!) and a special brit doughnut... the GLAM blackcurrant doughnut, shown here...

um yeah... that is glitter on my doughnut...

weird, huh? well, that is exactly what it was. pretty strange. i mean, it really felt like putting my estee lauder colored lip gloss on top of my doughnut. the texture and consistency was the same, but it definitely tasted like blackcurrant. i really don't know how i feel about eating glitter... but damn that cruller was good!