Isbiten

Dear readers, sorry for my absence, my rl projects have been prioritized lately.

One of my passions and projects is photography, it is so exciting when you are looking at your pictures and you see THE picture, I still remember my first, it was when visiting Bornholm. The object was a church and it was back in the old days when digital cameras didn't exist. So when I got back the developed (not sure if that is the right word :) ) and saw this photo with the perfect blue sky... well a picture says more than 1000 words ;)

Today I got this mail from Smartson - a swedish website that is specialized in testing everything from beauty products to coffee machines, btw just bought my first nespresso machine but more on that later :) Anyway Smartson in cooperation with Canon are searching for test teams to test Canons new camera EOS 550D. Found out that this camera got a TIPA award - "Best advanced" in the category DSLR camera 2010 and it got "top class" grade in Cyberphoto and also I have been looking for a camera for some time now, so of course I signed up for this test.

The purpose of this blog was to give you feedback on my thoughts of products, games, food, books, yes the things that gives life that little extra. Maybe it could help you in any way, I don't know, but I'm always looking for opinions and tests when I am going to buy something, as I did with my coffee machine. Well the test teams are going to test the camera for one month and giving you feedback on their thoughts about this camera. I really hope that I am given the possibility to test it, it would be so fantastic to try it and give you the thoughts that I have.

If you want to sign up for this yourself go to Smartson EOS 550D .

Wish you best of luck.

Last friday my family and I visited Copenhagen. We try to at least once per year. Copenhagen is just so wonderful and when the weather is as great as it was last Friday it is just a perfect day to visit this city.

This visit I wanted to try the Ice Cream that Copenhagen offers. I have heard that a lot of ice cream shops have opened with italian like ice cream. I visited two places - cannot eat ice cream the whole stay ;).

Paradis-is and Siciliansk Is.

Siciliansk Is

A small store on a cross street to the famous Istedgade in Copenhagen. The ice cream was served just as in Italy in cups and not with scoopes - (the round balls of ice cream that you usually pay per). I tried the white chocolate made by amedei chocolate, chocolate and the pistachio - my favorite. The ice cream was wonderful aspecially the white chocolate. The pistachio was ok but it was better on Paradis-is. I will recommend this place, it is not as Valentino in Rome but who can compete with them :)

Siciliansk Is website

Paradis-is

Paradis-is have stores all over Copenhagen and we visited the one at Vandkunsten, which was a great place for an ice cream. I tried elderberryflower sorbet, white chocolate and pistachio of course :). The elderberryflower sorbet was very nice and fresh, great for a hot day - very re-freshing. The white chocolate was so creamy - maybe a bit too creamy - liked the one at Siciliansk Is better. And last but not least - pistachio, loved it, very close to Italian.

Paradis-is website

I will visit both again, and I definitely recommend a visit to them both. 

I have added a new page which contains a selection of fabric stores that I have found. Let me know if you want to add a store to this list.

Sometimes we swedes are mixing swedish and english and the sentences turns out to be quite funny or could be interpreted as rude even though you do not mean it to be.

Like this one:

"It is not the fart that kills, it is the smell." that should be "It is not the speed that kills, it is the crash."

Fart in swedish is speed in english and smell but spelled smäll - crash.

Or when a police officer is stopping a car:

"Your hands on the rat" it should be "Your hands on the steering wheel"

Rat spelled ratt in swedis but is pronounced as rat in english. Ratt=steering wheel

So if I write anything in swenglish - I am so sorry :)

We are painting our staircase at home, it used to be dark brown ala 70ties - it ate all the light we had in our small hallway and now it is going to be white.

We started according to all the advises we got from a local store. Cleaned it and painted it in a paint which purpose was to provide a good foundation. An then we painted it in a water-based-paint?!? Should have known that this wasn't a good idea - the paint drew the old stains, paint to the surface and it turned out to be a yellow staircase with brown spots, could be fancy if we wanted it as such, but this wasn't what we have pictured the final result to be. Today I went to another local paint shop and the painter there said that you could paint it 1000 times (oh I exaggerate just a bit ;)) and it still would look like that. So I bought a oil-based white paint from him and we painted all day. My fingers got all sticky of all the paint on them and when I took a short break and was trying to get some coffee it was fingerprinting my whole kitchen. :)

But all in all the staircase is going to be gorgeous  :)

"Smörgåsbord" is one of the few words that is used in both german and english. It became internationaly known at the 1939 New York World's Fair when the Swedish Pavilion offered Smörgåsbord at the Swedish Pavilion’s "Three Crowns Restaurant". 

A "Smörgåsbord" [ˌsmœrɡɔsˈbuːɖ] is a traditional swedish buffet which consist of both hot and cold dishes. The dishes are placed on a table and the guests get what they fancy. Examples of dishes are pickled herring, lox, ham, bread, butter and much more. "Julbord" is a variation of "smörgåsbord" which is served before and during christmas. It is very common that companies invite their employees to julbord.

Read more at Wikipedia

But tomorrow is a day off. :) Today it is "Skärtorsdag" as we call it in Swedish. It is the Thursday before the easter holiday. This day, according to folklore, was the day when all witches flew to Blåkulla to hang out with the devil and his gang. They took any suitable tool e.g brooms, spades they could find to use as a vehicle to fly on. People had to prevent their tools to be stolen by the witches so they locked the doors to the sheds or hid them. To protect their animals they painted a cross on the door to the barn, a cow could be milked or even rode on to Blåkulla by the witches.

In sweden kids dress up as a witch during the easter holiday and they make small cards that they present to people. In exchange they are given candy.

Have you seen IKEAs new new PS collection 2009 [about PS] [the PS collection]?  It has been in the stores in Stockholm and Älmhult since 1 st February and other stores since 1st April.

I love this lamp, it is called MASKROS (dandelion), and would like to find a place in my home where I can have it. I believe that I have found a place :)

When I and my family were visiting Koh Chang in Thailand we lived close to a newly opened restaurant in White Sand Beach - Padamas. They served this tea called Oolong. Even though I drink a lot of tea and mostly green tea I've never tasted Oolong tea before. It has a sweet and lovely taste. The difference between green, oolong and black tea is that for oolong the oxidation is somewhere between the both others. First I got told to let the leaves stay in the pot but I found the tea to be better if you let them stay in the pot for 2 - 4 minutes and then you take them out. You can reused them multiple times. I'v heard that the chinese say the third time is the best, I don't know but it is probably true. :)

[Wiki tea] 

[Wiki oolong tea - swedish] 

[Wiki oolong tea - english]

A few weeks ago I was on a chocolate test where I had the opportunity to test chocolate made of different cocoa beans. My favorite was Valrhona made of the criollo bean. Did you know one of the most expensive chocolates is Amedei Porcelana, it is told to be made of the genetically pure and very rare "Porcelana" criollo bean. Porcelana because the translucent white colour of the bean. To try Amedei Porcelana is definitely going to be added to my wish list.

My favorite chocolate shop is located in Helsingborg, Sweden - Sofies Butik. She sells pralines made by Stefan Johnson-Petersén. I have tried a lot of different pralines but they are often combinations of different tastes and on the way they loose the wonderful chocolate taste. To be honest I think they are to complicated. These pralines are also found in NK, Stockholm.