How To Be A Fool

In the name of food, insanity, brilliance and love.

I clearly recall the day I first held it in my hands: Finally! I had to feel its weight for a while, thoroughly embrace it before inhaling the smell of freshly printed paper. High quality, indeed. And the weight! 477 grams to be precise. Magnus Nilsson in a huge fur coat, his Iron Maiden t-shirt peeping out. It felt like an invitation to cuddle, to get intimate, pledging juicy details. The four-word oath had already been met and I had yet to turn the cover page.

Back to 477 grams. Did I actually weigh it? Would that be such bizarre thing to do? Fine, I admit, I did in fact weigh it. However, this seemingly meaningless yet noteworthy piece of information is absolutely vital because here I am, a fool – literally.

.   .   .

FOOL was the magazine I so desperately had been longing for. Real stories, real people, real food. All nicely wrapped together with gorgeously provocative photography. No god damn recipes, no cooking tips from half-herated middle aged woman portrayed wearing a perky apron and a wooden basket hanging from her arm with "a ravishing Tuscan landscape" in the background. No bullshit. Only gastronomy served at its purest. 

Self-centeredly I though, these people understand me. They must have come to relieve my frustration regarding contemporary food writing and magazines. The infamous and dreaded foodie food bloggers had ruined my appetite. In fact, they had so thoroughly repulsed me that I feared there was no return. My love affair with food writing was rotting. The only food writing I nibbled on was my own. On the other hand, my own voice had started to make my stomach turn too. I continuously reach out to good old good olds, Brillant-Savarin, M. F. K Fisher & company, to save me from starvation, but the neophiliac in me was raging. I needed something fresh and organic. Along came FOOL. Love at first bite!

"If only one day I'd get so lucky as to work with these people..." I mused sucking each story and photo to the bone. 

Last summer, with Fool #3 in my back pack, I was in search of an oasis to calm my nerves after a 70 hours work week in the kitchen. I found a tremendous secret spot at the harbor in Helsinki. Craving for the good stuff, I ripped open the plastic wrapping. Sean Brock's charismatic face spoke a thousand words. With the fresh sea breeze caressing my skin, I found a piece of heaven in some damn fine food writing. This time reading, I was particularly emotional as I had a week ago sent an email to the founder couple Lotta & Per Anders Jörgensen expressing my eagerness to collaborate. Would I receive an answer? Could this possibly lead to something? Could we be a good match? My mind was bursting with thoughts and questions. I kept on reading. And hoping.

.   .   .

Seven months later, I find myself exactly where I dreamed about being as I humbly accepted chef Nilsson's inviting embrace. This morning from across the room, I see Lotta & PA immersed in the process of making Fool #5 even more exciting and outrageous than the precedent. A pinch. Yes, I am here. I can't help but feel proud of never letting go of my principles and hopes for something better, more real. Let this foolish journey lead to more food, more insanity, more brilliance & more love.

Amen.

On A Saturday Night

My viili with a generous, fucking fat and delicious layer of Geotrictum candidum mould.

At the end of Saturday’s dinner service, after a long week of hard work in a two Michelin star kitchen, the chefs at restaurant noma in Copenhagen are encouraged to present each other with new, creative and though-provoking “projects”: a technique, a flavour combination, an ingredient, or a full-blown dish combining all three. Some chefs work on their respective projects for weeks, some for days; some simply end up pulling it together at the drop of the hat. At around 11.30PM, when the last guests linger to leave the premises, the polished kitchen sees yet another prepping: It’s time for the Saturday Night Projects. 

Since the Nordic Food Lab is docked literally at the entrance of noma and has a common history with the restaurant in question, the crew members at the Lab sometimes end up prepping late Saturday night too. Joining the Projects is a way to cherish the "family bond". Also, as the Lab stands for an open-source of knowledge, the Saturday Night Projects is a great way to showcase the work done at the Lab for some of the world’s most talented chefs. Above all, it’s a great encouragement for the many interns and permanent staff at the Lab to think more like chefs and present concrete, hands-on and delicious results. Presenting a project pushes us to think differently, less scientifically.

For me, it was an incredible, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to have noma’s sous-chefs, chefs de partie, the stagiers and of course René Redzepi himself scrutinize a flavour and texture I had spend so much time and energy on. On top of that it made me look at a very common, rather banal and traditional ingredient in whole a new light.

Since I started my internship at the Lab I had been playing around with this yoghurt-like product very close to my heart called viili. Josh, the project manager and researcher at the Lab became the number one viili-fan and encouraged me to participate at the Projects. The modest and shy Finn in me wasn't convinced – it's noma for god's sake. Josh remain affirmative. It was set. And I was shitting my pants. I got lucky to have started brainstorming on my project right in time when the latest arrival to the Lab Roberto – a talented chef with great gusto from Sardinia – arrived. After the formal hellos he promptly told me he wanted to help.

Together with Roberto, we wanted to tell the story of viili, the mesophilic, mould-fermented ropey and slimy milk product from Finland.

(To read the story in my report on the Nordic Food Lab research blog, click here.)

The elements we wanted to be present in the final dish were sauna and spring. We also wanted to embrace our two very different food cultures. We needed our dish to be delicate and subtle, yet expressive and effusive. After a few days of twisting and turning, tasting and savouring, we ended up choosing elements and techniques that would pay homage to both Roberto’s Sardinian heritage and my Finnish roots.

We are on to something! Happy team, Roberto and I. Photo by Alicynn Fink.

We chose to keep the protagonist – viili – as such. Viili is Finnish: simple, modest and pure by definition. Sometimes an ingredient just won’t get any better by applying advance cooking techniques to it. We chose to accompany it with a personal favourite, the parsnip. Roberto had a brilliant idea to cook the charismatic root vegs in ash – an old technique much used in Sardinian, “an old school sous-vide” as he calls it. We would only use the peel though, dehydrate it into a crispy, sweet chip. The juicy inside would be incorporated elsewhere.

Turned out, the parsnip skin looked exactly like tree bark. Ashes and bark. Sauna. Bingo! Baby nasturtium leaves rising from icy nasturtium granite would speak for rebirth and spring. Another genius idea by chef Roberto. The dish just wouldn’t be complete without some salmiakki – Finnish salty liquorice – that marries incredibly well with parsnips. We wanted the liquid salmiakki to look like the thickest, deepest traditional balsamic vinegar. Done! A few shiny drops of it on the parsnip bark made it resemble sap, yet another sauna allusion.

How to plate? Photo by Alicynn Flink

After selecting the right plate for our masterpiece, we needed to make it look as beautiful as it tasted. Trials and errors. Splashing, drizzling, dripping, painting, gently placing tiny leaves with a millimeter focus. Intense all right. For Roberto this is his job, he does it for living and has nerves of steel. For me, each step along the way was almost like a miracle and yes, extremely nerve-wracking. It made me relentlessly emotional. Roberto made fun of me, but in the most loving way. He understood, he’s Sardinian after all.

On D-day, the 10 minutes before we were to enter the culinary dragons’ den, I felt confident. We were ready, we had been working hard. Still, I needed a good luck charm. Fast, Edith, think. A week earlier I had been curious and ordered a viili seed all the way from the States. It came with an adoption certificate in dehydrated for. That would work perfectly. I placed the tiny plastic bag with dehydrated viili in my pocket: “Showtime buddy” I whispered to my dried Finnish-American friend. With the support of all the crew members, we stepped on land and entered noma.

The final dish. Photo by Alicynn Flink.

“Who would fucking love this a dessert, raise your hand!” said Chef René Redzepi himself looking around at his platoon.

                                                                               At the dragons' den. Photo by Alicynn Flink.

Grazie Roberto, I couldn't have done it without you.

Publication in Est Elle Magazine March -13

Read about my adventures as an research intern at the Nordic Food Lab November 2013 to March 2014. In Swedish, unfortunately.

Hanky-panky Coffee

I’m barely awake, barely sleeping. The air in the room is moist and cold. I should get up. He’s almost up, I should be too. He’s up. Damn. Should I follow? Nah. What’s two more minutes? He has to shower first any way. I pull the duvet over my matted bed head.

Was it two minutes, or was it a week, I can’t tell. I come back to life to the sound of coffee beans bursting in the grinder followed by that luring scent: one of the few things that make me get out of bed before 9 am. Or could it be that I’m longing for his warm body against mine? Probably both, in no particular order. In fact I’d like them together, at the same time. Pretty please. Here goes hoping. One more minute.

Telepathy? He's back. The bounce of the bed as he sits next to me invites me to sit up too. Puffy face, morning breath. He kisses me regardless. A smile. Okay I’m up.

He hands me a steaming cup with a broken handle. Freshly brewed coffee: Berry-like, fruity, slightly acidic and light; long lasting flavours and aromas. And then this tune.

Could I stay here, forever? Would that be a dreadful crime against humanity? The rest is history and some damn fine hanky-panky coffee.

The Larva-man

A longer, more in depth version of this text was published on the Nordic Food Lab research blog February 4th 2014. Click here to read it.

When a fellow researcher at the Nordic Food Lab asks me whether I’d like to give him a hand doing field work, meaning feeding random Copenhageners bee larva soup, I say “Ja tak!” Could there possibly be a better way to spend an afternoon?

Meet Jonas, the Larva-man – a 27 year old, very tall and very charming Dane passionate about sensory experiences and gastronomy. Jonas is a wanted man these days, requested to address various more or less tendentious food related topics on Danish national TV and radio. Ever since November, I’ve been sitting across from him at the Lab watching him meticulously busting his brain for his master thesis on how people perceive and accept novel foods, bee larvae to be more precise.  When he’s not busy doing public appearances that is, Jonas is an almost graduated Master in Food Science and Technology at Copenhagen University and is keen on discovering how neophobic or neophilic Danes are in their foodways. The Lab – as for us all – is both his playground and safe-zone for experimentation. (He also makes delicious and beautiful artisanal bread that I can’t have, but that’s another story.)

“If we manage to feed soup to 70 people today, that would be great”, he says with his signature simper as we started prepping the vegetable and bee larva soup this morning. “Let’s make one with visible larvae, one with invisible larvae and one with no larvae at all”. By now, almost two months in on my internship at the Lab, I’ve learned to recognize the very distinctive smell and flavour of the fatty little creatures: nutty, buttery, much like liver, quite delicate after all. I’ve only had them deep frozen in Jonas’s soup, but Josh, the Project Manager/Researcher at the Lab, describes fresh and alive bee larvae as something close to fish roe in texture, very delicate and “fucking delicious” in flavour. Listening to Josh’s description I got the oddest urge to pop one of those alive babies in my mouth. Deranged? Totally, yet far from it. Who would’ve thought I’d one day find myself on a houseboat in Copenhagen, surrounded by the damn most intriguing and talented people in the field of Nordic gastronomic research, talking about how bee larvae burst against ones palate… I can but smile, stir the soup and see how the little tasty suckers float around in creamy stock together with carrots, celeriac, leek and onions. The whole place smells of sautéed bee larvae. Yup, very distinctively bee larvae indeed.

Of course I’m here, where else would I be!

The Larva-man has chosen to do his semi-guerrilla soup tasting at a suburban mall in Valby, a 15minute bike ride away from the centre of Copenhagen, “That’s where we’ll find normal people”, he explains. “Normal people” are a rare breed here at the Lab where the next person stepping on board this mad houseboat is probably somehow loonier than the previous one. We often forget about “those other types of people” who might not attack a container filled with what essentially is the mashed and rotten edibles with immense appetite and lust for umami. Jonas and I head to the mall with the car loaded with our three steaming soup pots right after lunchtime. I wonder how many Danes will choose a side of larva over a kanelsnurrer with their afternoon coffee? Remains to be seen. As my Danish is not quite there yet, I told Jonas I’d do the people hunting and lour them in for him to feed them larva soup. Game on.

How hard could it be?

“No thanks, I’ve got a chewing gum in my mouth”, “I just ate”, “I’m vegan”, “Why would I eat bugs”, “Are you crazy”, “ I have no time for such nonsense”, “No thanks, I’ve got a girlfriend” were some of the reactions I got approaching the potential targets. Women especially didn’t like the idea of doing a bee larva soup dégustation on this crisp winter afternoon in Valby. Rather interesting. I wonder why? When I as a woman challenged young and middle-aged men to have some of Jonas’s soup asking them if they’re man enough, they obviously couldn’t say no. It proved to be a good strategy. Nevertheless, my utmost respect goes out to a mother of two boys, I’m guessing 4 and 7 year olds, who didn’t hesitate having a fun and educational pit-stop at Jonas’s soup shack. What a cool mum! And the boys loved it too.

Close to forty people accepted the challenge, keen on the trying “the future source of protein”. Unfortunately, at least the same amount, if not more, declined.

Jonas decided to call it a day when he felt like people weren’t thinking of anything else except for getting home for dinner a.s.a.p. Not even the best of simpers made a difference. We stood there for a while, warming our hands on the hot pots of larva soup… “I’ll get the car, we did good”, Jonas uttered. Before packing the larva-mobile to head back to the Lab I served myself a bowl of soup. “I’m eating juvenile insects in Copenhagen”, I thought to myself. Completely normal.

Next time: next week – new location. Way to go Larva-man!

Third Publication in Est Elle Magazine + Cover

(November 2013)

The Result of Determination

There was one thing I promised to myself I'd do before the end of my very productive and inspirational internship at restaurant Chef & Sommelier. It felt like I had a mission, it was something I simply had to succeed with. Usually, if I seriously set my mind on doing something, I'll go through ice to reach my goal. As you might have read from my last post, I've been doing a lot of baking with sourdough during my internship. It's somewhat ironic that the task was handed to me since I'm the only one who can't eat the bread I bake. Gluten is my worst enemy. Regardless of this minor issue, I've thoroughly enjoyed baking and learning the very basics of how sourdough works.

It didn't take me long to ask my chef the crucial question "And what about gluten-free sourdough?". I assumed he'd tired it since his wife is also gluten intolerant. I started doing some research on it and found myself in a cyberspace maze of tips and hints, each trickier than the other. Frustration hit me. It all seemed too complicated and I thought, how fucking hard can it be!? So I did what I always do – I try everything, at least once.

My first trial didn't take me far or bare any significant results. Or so I thought at first. But actually it's the mistakes and the unsuccessful trials that take you furthest. That's how it works for me at least. I tried to make a starter with buckwheat and hemp flour and I asked my coworkers which one of them had the dirtiest hands. My chef had just been harvesting 45 kilos of celeriac, his hands would be perfect. Turned out buckwheat and hemp don't marry well. My chef had his doubts and expressed to me openly, but I had to try it for myself.

My second trial worked better. I used a mix synthetic gluten-free flour (potato starch, rice flour and what have you) and corn flour. The starter started bubbling slightly, but the water and the flour separated after five days. This time though, as the smell was correct (acidic notes of soured yoghurt and bananas) I didn't discard it. I added water, flour and heaps of determination. I also made another batch using buckwheat. I still had faith in it. I understood though that buckwheat is very dense and "heavy" so I only used 1/3 of it and 2/3 of synthetic gluten-free flour. I also added some organic honey this time.

A week later both starter were semi active, but I kept having trouble with some of the flour lumping on the bottom of the starter jar. My chef kept telling me that I need to be patient and give it time, but I was worried and wanted to boost the process. I added a bit of honey to both starter and did what I often do – forget things half way through the process because I see no results. This time though, it was exactly what the starters needed.

Last week, I think it was on Thursday, a Swedish lady Jessica Frej known for gluten-free baking came to the restaurant. I couldn't help but feel a bit disappointed. It would've been so cool to show her my bubbly and active sourdough and feed her some freshly baked gluten-free sourdough bread. Half an hour before service I decided to take a look at the starters. Maybe, just maybe a miracle had happened.

There is a sourdough God after all! A miracle had happened. Both starters were extremely active and smelled perfect. No time to bake, but after getting permission from the sommelier, I showed Jessica my starters. She was as thrilled as I was.

After service at 2.00 AM I prepared the dough and let it rest over night. The next morning I came to work to a very nicely grown dough. I folded it into three cute little buns and heated up the oven. What followed is best left unwritten since words can't describe the joy I felt. I'll let this video speak for itself.

One word: Determination.