A day at the Lab

There is no normal here at the Lab, every day is different. 

Here is a look at what happened last Wednesday-

Arielle, a former NFL intern has come back to work with us for the next 3 weeks. She arrived today bearing fermented gifts. Arielle is getting her PhD at UC Davis so she brought us a whole collection fermented foods from The Culture Shop in Berkley. We eagerly broke open the jars and tasted them all. Pictured above you see (from top left going clockwise)- a whole apple, [can't remember], spring onion, watermelon rind, [can't remember], burdock root, and garlic all of which have been fermented in miso or kasu.

While we were tasting these fermented treats, Ben was preparing lunch.
When Ben arrived at work today his inbox was empty so he said "fuck it, I'm making lunch and I'm going all out."

He made these beautiful tomatoes- deep fried, then rolled in sugar, and topped with a slice of paper garlic and herbs; they were then put in the dehydrator to dry out. They were unbelievably delicious- like little drops if sweet tomato candy with a spicy kick from the garlic. mmm.

Ben rolled out some homemade pasta which he cooked up with some of herring anchovies which we call "koji chovies." He also made a green bean, red pepper, and onion salad with a delicious saffron sauce, a cabbage salad, and skirt steak which he topped with those delicious tomatoes. Oh, and some fresh bread too.

After cleaning up from lunch and a few more hours of deep concentration and hard work, things got a little playful at the lab. It was after five but Ben, Justine, Sarah and I were still working away. Sarah was bottling a sauce we had made and was sealing the bottles with beeswax. We thought it would be cool to have an NFL seal pressed into the wax tops. So, we found some potatoes and had a little competition to see who could carve the nicest NFL stamp.

Justine won the competition despite the fact that her "N" was backwards. Unfortunately though the potato was not firm enough to make a nice indentation in the wax. Regardless, it was a fun way to spend 45 minutes of the work day.   

Up to my ears in Herring

A shipment of 40 kilos of fresh Herring arrived at the Lab today. 

We spent ALL morning beheading and gutting the fish.
Warning- the following photos are pretty gruesome.

One of four 'cleaning' stations.

We were up to our ears in fish guts; our nice clean whites had turned a bloody shade of red, and the place reeked of fish. To make light of the rather unpleasant situation we amped up the humor. There was lots of joking around and lots of laughter. Probably the funniest thing that happened was when one of Sarah's fish flew off her cutting board and down the stairs, leaving a nasty skid mark.

 

After all the fish were cleaned, I was put in charge of mixing all of the heads and guts with salt and put them in containers to ferment into fish sauce.

Trying so hard not to vomit.

A look of disgust!

 After the work was done, we deep cleaned the entire boat, and then rewarded ourselves with delicious homemade cake!

A Bloody Good Bye

Last Thursday we said goodbye to Elizabeth. She is leaving the Food Lab to finish her masters at SLU in Uppsala! 

For our final hurrah, Elizabeth made a traditional German Black Forest Cake, although she used a not so traditional method. As I have mentioned before, Elizabeth has been working with blood as an egg replacement so she baked 2 cakes- a bloody black forest cake and a blood-free black forest cake.

We did a blind taste test. Well I should say they did a blind taste test. I knew which cake was blood-free and just dined on that one. I ate the blood ice cream Elizabeth made my first day at the Lab and I tastes a blood pancake but I am just not comfortable eating blood for many reasons.

Both cakes were a huge hit!

I am sad to see Elizabeth go, I miss her thick German accent and sense of humor, her kind spirit, and inspiring ambition whether it's to perfect a recipe in the kitchen or her dive off the boat. 

But hey, now I have one more excuse to head back to Uppsala!

A weekend getaway

I spent this weekend exploring the Danish countryside with Justine, Josh, and Sarah. 

On the agenda:

Harvesting seaweed

Foraging

Visiting John

Legoland

Relaxing at the West Wing

Loading up the car- hip waders were essential!

Island crossing- from Zealand to Funen.

 We soon arrived at our first pit stop to do some seaweed harvesting. Justine has been working with seaweeds at the Lab and was informed of this secret spot where she was told she could find some gracilaria. She put on the waders and went in for an initial inspection. 

 

She then grab her net and went back in for the goods. 

 While Justine was harvesting seaweed, Josh, Sarah, and I went foraging in the surrounding area. 

I wandered into the forest (looking for a place to pee) and stumbled up a huge red current bush. Jack pot!!

So ripe a juicy!

 In the short time we were stopped at this beautiful harbor- 

we managed to walk away this all of this! 

Six different species of wild edibles that we found!

Rose petals, angelica, sweet clover, gracilaria, and unknown specimen, rosehips, and red currants.

 From there we continued on to John's place. While Justine was stagiaire at Falsled Kro, an extremely beautiful restaurant, she lived with John. John is an English professor for those who want to become English teachers. He is an amazing and brilliant man, and he lives in a beautiful old farmhouse. He is the kind of man you want to have as a god father or uncle- smart, kind, and full of wisdom, while still being extremely interested in what you have to say and they way you think.

John's home.

 Take a look inside!

 Justine, Josh, and John went out to dinner at Falsled Kro while Sarah and I hung out at John's place. We cooked ourselves a lovely dinner and then ventured down to the harbor where the annual harbor festival was going on. The whole village heads down to the waterfront for 3 evenings of drinking, live music, dancing, and extremely cheesy stand-up comedy skits. It was quite bizarre, unlike anything I have every seen. The people were all seriously interested and genuinely laughing at this goofy skits. Danish humor- I guess I just don't quite get it....

 After hanging out with the drunk danes for a while, Sarah and I decided to go on a walk.

 We suddenly realized we were in the middle of a horse pasture when 6-8 huge horses came galloping over to great us. A little known fact about me- I am terrified of horses.

 The horses came running over and it seemed like the faster I ran away the faster they came near.

ahhh here they come!!

 Sarah decided to try and place nice rather than running away in fear. The horses seemed to really like her; I guess they could not sense the fear emanating from her body!

ps. these photos crack me up!

This one is probably the best!

 The horses didn't just stop to say hello, they soon when stampeding by. It was terrifying.

Stampeeeede!

 After that little adventure we continued on our walk and tried to stay clear of all horses and other large animal.

Flowers and small and harmless.

 We had a huge adventure planned for Saturday- Legoland! Since Justine, Josh, and John didn't return from dinner until around half past 12, we decided to just spend the night at John's rather than driving another hour to the west wing.

We woke up Saturday morning rip roaring ready to go! Legoland here we come! 

We were the only group of adults unaccompanied by small children and not one bit ashamed!

Look at the excitement on his face!

 We had 6 hours to kill before the park closed. We began by wandered through miniatureland where they hard recreated famous cities out of legos.

Nyhaven in Copenhagen!

Lego men about to get into a fight!

 We then continued through the rest of the park and went on nearly all of the rides. Let me remind you that this is a park geared towards small children. Both Justine and Josh are over 6 feet tall so fitting all of us onto some of the rides was quite hilarious. 

NFL bonding at legoland!

This pirate ride was awesome! It was and all-out water war between the boats and those on shore waiting in line.

 After 5 or 6 hours of fun and games and terrible amusement park food we were all exhausted and ready to retreat into the wilderness.

 Off the the west wing!

The West Wing, as we call it, is a summer home from the 1700's located on a huge ocean front estate which belongs to a man named Thomas Harttung. Thomas owns a company called Aarstiderne, which "delivers weekly boxes of fruit, vegetables, meat, fish, and bread to the doors of 45,000 families in Denmark and 5,000 in Sweden. About 70 percent of the food comes from within Denmark; half of that was grown on Harttung’s own farm, Barritskov, outside of Copenhagen." He has become a friend of the Nordic Food Lab and invites us to stay, play, and forage on his estate on Jutland (the western most island- hense the name west wing)

Welcome in.

The Kitchen

The dining room.

The living room.

One of three sleeping nooks.

Shortly after arriving we set out on a forage to find some things to eat for dinner.

We foraged in a the berry bushes.

 

Gooseberries, raspberries (red and yellow), black currants and red currants. 

 We foraged in the woods.

 And we foraged by the sea.

We didn't catch any of these but there were so many beautiful jellyfish!

 Such a beautiful place to unwind, especially after an exhausting day at legoland.

After our forage we went inside to prepare our food by candle light. 

The west wing has no electricity but there is running water. 

We built a fire...

 ...and cooked some dinner.

Dinner included pickled beet stems, koji chovies, and quinoa with celery oil, miso garlic, black garlic and the beach mustard we foraged.

Nothing beets a candle light dinner that's cooked over and open flame containing ingredients foraged from the wild.

 The following morning I woke up, picked some berries for breakfast, and read quietly while everyone else continued to sleep.

We all longed around for a bit before having a delicious brunch/lunch of berries and bee larvae granola followd by boiled potatoes with miso gralic and the rest of the quinoa. We then cleaned up, packed up, and piled into the car for the 3 hour drive home.

It was wonderful weekend exploring Denmark both rural and commercial.