Squirrel

It has been such a long week. The morning after my "staff meeting" I headed to Järna, a very anthroposophical/ waldorfy town southwest of Stockholm to participate in a workshop for Fermenting and Preserving Foods, part of the Summer of Soil Program. Järna has such a peaceful and special energy. It's hard to describe, just that I feel spiritually open and content there. Maybe it's that everything is aesthetically pleasing, the people are in tune with spirals and biodynamic preparations, with music, colors and peaceful collaboration. It was an amazing experience.

When I arrived, I was shown to my room in Tallevana, a house for people participating in the Youth Initiative Program, which is an internship that takes place in Järna. I shared the room with a really cool woman from Germany, across the hall were two Waldorf teachers from Finland, and upstairs was a Norwegian/ Uruguayan Waldorf-teacher-in-training. I decided to go for a swim in the Järna fjärden, which leads into the Baltic Sea and walked past the natural-sewage-treatment-pond (a series of ponds with various algae to clean the water, as well a system of flow-forms and water purifying structures...) and strolled down to the dock. There I saw a sign for no-diving, and asked a man sitting by the rocks whether this was a place to swim. He just kind of looked at me and said inquisitively, "yes?" His response was more of a question than an answer, so I felt compelled to ask more. We got to talking and it turned out that he was from Germany, and becoming a Eurythmy teacher. He was experiencing some problems with acquiring a Swedish social security number (something I'm also attempting to do) so we started a nice conversation. I found him a bit odd, but not threatening in any way. He asked if I wanted to go for a walk/ hike, so I accepted the offer, because why not? There were still 4 hours of daylight left and I had nothing else planned.

 Bizarrely, I followed this man into the woods, up and over the boulders and back down to the fjärden. First we stopped in the middle of where the trees were and watched the sun slowly making its descent. I spotted a cloud with a rainbow on it, and we were both overjoyed at this marvel. SUCH waldorks. We continued down to the fjärden and watched the glorious display of the setting sun. The sun takes its sweet time to depart in the summertime, especially at this latitude. We watched a family of swans approaching the shore—they made it just as the sun slipped away behind the trees. I decided to leave the company of this teacher-to-be and ran up and out of the woods back to reality. It was a trippy experience, because he awkwardly admitted to having Asperger's and being mildly autistic, and then started petting my hand and asked if he could kiss me. This was the 30+ eurythmy teacher. I politely declined, wished him well and ran out of the woods like I'd seen a ghost. I'm surprised that I found my way back, because there wasn't really a trail, just a lot of boulders to traverse.

I slept like a baby, still under the influence of my jet-lag and woke at 6:45 the next morning, to join my roommate and many of the interns and other course participants in a round of morning yoga. It was really intense yoga, not exactly my style (the instructor had us make the rock-on symbol while in Warrior Position, which kind of didn't fulfill my wish for a peaceful wake-up but to each his own.)

We were 16 participants and 2 instructors and met at the Kulturcentrum where the main exhibition for Summer of Soil was taking place. The first portion of the workshop was foraging for wild, edible food. We started walking by some fields and near a stream where we harvested bullrushes which we later sauteed and groblad (greater plantain or plantago major) shoots, which were mildly bitter and reminiscent of some asparagus-like flavor. We proceeded into the forest and picked blueberries, raspberries, wild sour-clover (the one we think of when we think of clover),  "real"clover blossoms, raspberry, oak and hazelnut leaves for our fermentations and more. We stopped at a little chicken coop along the way and stole about 30 fresh eggs, headed back into the woods to a little straw hut where we built a fire and made amazing omelets for lunch.

Afterwards we learned all about pickling vegetables using fermentation with salt brine, not vinegar. We pickled tomatoes, cucumbers, and beans, and cooked tomato marmalade from yellow and red tomatoes. We made raspberry and blueberry fruit leather by pureeing the raw berries through a fine sieve, spreading out the mass and then laying sheets of it into the dehydrator. We started a sourdough which we baked into loaves the next day.

The following day was very busy. We made cheese; halloumi, a cheese that squeaks with every bite, and ricotta. We made raspberry, blueberry and rose-petal wine. We baked amazing sourdough baguettes and loaves. We made mayonnaise and also a delicious lunch. There was more but I can't remember it at the moment.

I headed back to Stockholm that evening and started work the next morning. It's just been myself and the chef in the kitchen at Rosenhill and it is SO busy and chaotic. I lost count of how many meals I had to prepare. After work the first day I strolled to the lake and went for a leisurely and well-deserved skinny-dip. Ahhh, what more could I ask for?

*****Took a two day break from writing before posting this post...apologies for any confusion*****

The second day at work was possibly more chaotic, but in a way easier because I had already gained a better overview of the unsystematically organized kitchen system. Yeah, there isn't really a system, which is nice, because it allows me quite a bit of freedom when preparing food. I can decide how to cut the cucumbers or whether to dice or slice the onions. At Peace Cafe in Honolulu, everything was organized to the dot. I supposed that's what you get when you work at a zen restaurant. Rosenhill is definitely more liberal and perhaps more fun. I can't say it's boring to work there!


Life is happening and it's great. I'm still freaked out that I have no plans for work during the winter, and I'm starting to feel like a squirrel, obsessed with the idea that I have to prepare for this dreadfully dark and cold season. We'll see how I manage. I will. Millions of Swedes, Norwegians and Finns manage every year. For now I'm sitting at Stockholm's Arlanda airport waiting for my flight to Frankfurt and onward to Munich, so visit my family for a week, pick up my winter clothes and attend the "Volksfest," where I have to wear one of those German dresses and drink a lot of beer with crude Bavarians. Oh dear...