Monday, April 17, 2006

Instant korma's gonna get you

After six weeks in the Swedish wilderness I'm beginning to miss the range of restaurants and takeaway food surrounding my West End flat. Two months ago, inconvenience was having to make the 10 minute walk to Thai Dream to pick up dinner because the closer Thai restaurant was closed on a Monday night. Now the choice between Indian, Italian, Mexican or Thai food looks more like this...



Still, it really opens your eyes when you try to make these things at home, you know? I mean, who knew that sugar was the second most important ingredient in so many different cultures?

The mushrooms here are very tasty and the zucchinis are enormous, but otherwise the range of fruit and veg is more restricted than at home. For the most part I wander around the supermarket grabbing what interests me, without bothering to convert the cost into a currency that means anything to me. But a couple of weeks ago, what seemed to be a particularly large number was attached to a cauliflower that I thought I'd buy for a stir-fry. I mentally converted the price. More than $8. For a caulifower the size of my clenched fist. (By then I had a clenched fist right there to compare it with.)

Anyway, some of my meals have improved on my first attempt. As well as great mushrooms and zucchinis, Swedish supermarkets have excellent dairy sections. I've given the Greek restaurants at home a salute by assembling microwaved 5-day-old bread, zucchini slices and haloumi cheese fried in organic extra virgin olive oil, and topped them with freshly ground black pepper and lemon juice:

I suppose you can take a girl out of West End, but you can't take the West End deli-fetish out of the girl.