Pumpkin Curry

That is my daughter Sofia in the photo, she loves seeing herself in print.

This is my Aunt Agnes’ popular curry; it’s almost legendary within the close-knit family in Australia. The last time I was in Sydney I was lucky enough to watch her cook it. She is an inspirational cook and she chops and stirs with amazing speed. In next to no-time we were happily eating her curry with roti, an Indian flatbread. The secret she whispers is the coconut, fresh is best otherwise unsweetened desiccated coconut will do the job.


Considering my heritage, my father is Indian, there will be a few posts dedicated to food from the subcontinent. Nothing beats a home cooked curry, I have been disappointed on too many occasions when eating out that I prefer to cook this at home. Growing up in Sydney, curry nights were always on a Friday; this was when the relatives met up at each other’s house to share a bowl of kava, a concoction that is not entirely pleasant heralding from Fiji. They would drink for hours, relaxing after the weeks work before enjoying their curry either with rice or roti.

A Scandinavian Summer

I’m no Photographer but I could not resist my hand at trying to capture those majestic buildings, I call them Parisian buildings. No offence intended Stockholm! Motiv Stockholm does a better job in their fabulous black and white photos of this beautiful city. Something that struck me on this fourth visit to the capital is the faint underlying spell of Frenchness to the city from the ubiquitous hot dog stands touting “French style hotdogs” to the cafes with their checkered rattan chairs out on the pavement discreetly placed in prime people watching position. And I was enlightened by my husband (a Swede no less and of Wallonian heritage) that King Gustaf the IV Adolf was deposed by the Swedish Aristocracy for whatever reasons and in 1818 they appointed the French General Jean Baptiste Bernadotte to the throne, he was renamed Karl Johan. As further evidence, the residence of the Royal Family, Drottingholm Castle, constructed during the same time as the Versailles and in the same French Baroque style.

Summer is definitely not wasted on the Swedes, and those 18 hours or so of daylight is fully occupied! And so it is the same in the garden, I loved how commonplace it was to have fruit trees in the front or backyard. I captured some of nature’s bounty in Kungsör, the town where my husband grew up. The cherries and apples are sometime away from being eatable but (sigh) wouldn’t that be nice to only have to walk out your back or front door for fresh fruit.

As I sit here writing about our holiday and fruit I’m remembering the Swedish strawberries, the best I have tasted, all the goodness of summer rolled into this single berry. Sweden is blessed with an abundance of berries; strawberries, blueberries, cloudberries, smultron, lingon, raspberries, blackberries, you name it whatever the species you’re sure to find it somewhere in the landscape. I was introduced to smultron this summer and it’s a very small strawberry like berry that tastes incredibly sweet. This wild berry is difficult to come across and the Swedes have fondly adopted this into an expression “smultronställe” to mean someplace special.