Baby animals!!!

So the big excitement around here lately is that a baby bunny is coming to live with us!

I picked her out a few weeks ago but have to wait until she's eight weeks old, and weaned (around the 22nd) to bring her home. It's so so hard to wait! I've always wanted a pet rabbit of my own so I'm really excited to be getting one.

She's a mini lop so her ears will eventually flop over, although I've heard it sometimes happens that one ear flops over and the other doesn't, which would be so unbelievably adorable!

Names currently under consideration: Tailsie, Hoppy, Trixie and Cricket.

Do the Hucklebuckle

Every Wednesday I broadcast my own radio show on our local college radio station. It's great fun, definitely the highlight of my week!

The show is called Vintage Party and I play music from the 40s-60s, my favourite music. There's no limit to the genre but it has to be fun music that I think you can get up and dance to - hence the name. Every week has a theme - last week was jazz guitar, and the week before that I talked about Sun Records.

Yesterday's episode was about fad dances, which is something I've wanted to do for a while. I started by playing some swing jazz from the '40s and talking about the Lindy hop, since it was one of the biggest dance crazes of the decade. For the '50s I played the Stroll and the Madison. But the thing I really wanted to get to was the novelty dances of the '60s! It's so funny to dance the mashed potato, the monkey, the swim and all that.

One dance I'd never heard of was the Hucklebuck but I found this amusing and instructional clip from the Honeymooners:

I think the Hucklebuck is really nothing more than a glorified version of the Twist but of course for comedy's sake they really elaborate on it here!

What about you? Do you like to go out and dance, and do you ever do any fad- or novelty steps?

PS You can listen to Vintage Party every Wednesday at 7pm (GMT +1) at www.studentradion.com. If you're in North America that's some time between 11am and 1pm depending how far West or East you are!

Betty Crocker's Cookbook for Boys and Girls

Golly! I grew up cooking out of this book and I just discovered it was reissued a couple of years ago. Looking through the preview on Amazon I'm finding I remember so many of the recipes and the quotes from the kid recipe testers off by heart, like "If I were a mama I'd cook all day!" Actually I recall that I found that so amusing that I made a cross-stitch sampler magnet out of it as an eight-year-old. Odd kid I was.  It has terrific recipes like "Bunny salad," "Zoo cake" and as I recall the chapter on campfire cooking is positively mouth-watering.

 As a kid I had my dad's old copy (from when he was a kid) but it's in a box in Canada right now. I think I spy an amazon purchase in my near future...

fantasy outfits for autumn

As you might know, I'm a Canadian transplant to Sweden. I've been here for a year now and I love almost everything about it. Almost! The one thing I don't like is that my sewing has suffered since I've been here. I have a great sewing machine, a Husqvarna from the '60s, but I have not figured out the fine art of fabric shopping a la Sweden. Fabric is sooooo much more expensive here! I have a fantasy of going to Canada for two weeks with an empty suitcase and spending the whole time sewing and eating Canadian pizza and doughnuts (another thing I miss).

This whole year I've only sewn one blouse, a dress, and a pair of shorts. To satisfy my sewing itch I spend a loooooooot of time on Etsy looking at patterns and imagining what I want to make. Here's a look at some "perfect outfits" I've put together recently.

 I've been admiring this pattern for ages. Oddly enough I ran into a friend a few weeks ago and she was wearing exactly this outfit! (the blouse and red slacks). This confirmed that it looks equally good in real life.  Find it here if you want to snatch it from my fingers.

Summer is very emphatically over and the only thing that could possibly help me to cope with/enjoy fall is the introduction of a Pendleton into my wardrobe. Failing that I could use this pattern to make my own knock-off. From wearevintagesewing's etsy store.

This versatile shirt pattern would work with my fantasy-Pendleton and I love the sweater trims! Imagine how great they'd be for all those sweaters I always imagine myself knitting! It's here.

Speaking of knitting sweaters...

I adore this fair isle! Knitting sweaters actually seems like a more economical prospect here than in Canada, actually - I'm always finding wool on sale - but my slow knitting skills and total lack of stick-to-itiveness when it comes to big projects means this one will almost certainly remain in the realm of fantasy.

Sigh. A girl can dream...

Have you been sewing much recently? What's your fantasy outfit of the moment?

dresses and dinners

I'm all curled up on the couch this evening, worn out after spending the day in Stockholm at the Vintagemässan. It was great fun! I didn't buy anything, somehow I was satisfied with just looking today. Sometimes when I'm in a place where I want to buy/wear everything I compromise by buying nothing. Sigh. I saw so many lovely lovely dresses and was seriously tempted by, among other delights, a short-sleeved, robin's egg blue cashmere sweater, but it was just too big on me. Great fun anyway! It's on tomorrow, too, so if you're in the area you ought to go!

Now that I'm home and all tuckered out I'm taking advantage of the time by planning this week's meals. What are your favourite vintage cookbooks and/or meal planning tips? Have you seen that Amy Vanderbilt's cookbook is available on archive.org? It's got lots of nice recipes and I especially like the menu ideas, though I have to vegetarian-ize most of it. I shouldn't really call myself a vegetarian but I avoid meat almost all the time. In the summertime I indulge a bit more. After all, a grilled hamburger with chips and a coke is my favourite meal of all time, I think.

Gee I'm going to stop writing now. Apologies for this oddly stilted-sounding post. I haven't blogged since July and it would appear I've gotten rusty.

a promise to my oft-neglected blog

Oh my dear little blog. I really to want to be a good blogger, really I do. It's just that, well as you can no doubt see - sometimes weeks go by in which I want to do anything but blog! I'm going to try again though. Good blogs are so fun to read, and bloggers seem to meet so many wonderful people and get great opportunities via their blogs - and I want that too! So I'll try a bit harder and see how it goes.

Saturday at the beach

Finally, finally, finally the sun shone and it was swimming weather! We drove south to a tiny town in Halland called Frillesås, to the beach at Vallervik. The water was warm and beach was all sand and no seaweed. It was perfect!

I have seriously been waiting all year for this.

After swimming we went to another, slightly less tiny town, Åsa, and picked up some bread at a bakery. We drove out of town to a church with a beautiful lawn and gardens and a view of the ocean for lunch. This picnic basket is getting some serious use lately!

Ahhhh. I was tempted to begin a career in the church so that I can live here with this view.

And then it was back to Gothenburg. But the sun has continued and tomorrow we plan to go to the ocean again!

Majorna

The sun was finally shining today! We've been in Gothenburg almost three weeks and this is only the second or third time I've seen the sun.

It was also Friday. Hurray! Fridays are the best, even when you're on vacation.

We walked around in the Majorna neighbourhood, a nice area, pretty quiet, with cool second-hand shops and neighbourhood bars. Majorna is what I think cities must have been like in the 70s.

 With neat small shops like this greengrocers. The sign says, Eggs, Potatoes, Vegetables. What more can you need! They also sell pickled herring. So Swedish.

One of the best record shops I've ever been in is in Majorna, it's called Majorna Skivhallen. They had sooooo many albums I was dying over, including an original pressing of Wanda Jackson's first record! I was swooning over this James Bond record. For one thing, I love any "music to do something by" album, and for another I love James Bond and the music from the movies is actually great, unlike a lot of those Music for whatever albums. I didn't buy it though, I only had 20 crowns on me today. Bummer. I need to start moonlighting and earmark all the extra cash for record shopping.

 In Majorna you can also find tiny hot dog stands (famous ones, this one was in a Julkalender (Christmas tv program) with Robert Gustafsson) and camera stores that have been around forever, to judge by the signage.

Tire pumping station. That shade of blue is really the colour of Gothenburg. It's on all the streetcars, among other things.

 These were in the window of a closed antique shop (it was after five pm). Cool, eh?

 We bought a deck of cards from a bookshop and  played gin rummy on a patio while drinking beer. I love fresh cards! Real dockside feeling to this place, with the awnings and cane chairs.

 "Order sandwich cake here." I love smörgåstårta!!!

And that's Majorna! I just have my fingers crossed that the sun will shine tomorrow too so I can finally take my new bikini into the water!

lemon balm

I wrote this last summer and never posted it! Now I don't have any lemon balm in my garden this summer, but after reading this I'm going to plant some! It's so tasty and it smells wonderful.

I brought home a lemon balm plant a few weeks ago, because I wanted to bake some cookies from a recipe that called for it.  When I bought it it was a tiny, tiny little plant, so small that I was almost afraid to pick from it.  The nursery tag said it would thrive best in shady, moist places, and apparently that was true because it grew lightning-fast into a big, healthy bush.

Lemon balm is not an herb I have used a lot before, so I've been trying to think up new uses for it. Should you find yourself with a similar glut, here are some tips!

1. The lemon balm lemonade I wrote about here.  Also good in iced tea.

2. In fruit salads or green salads.

3. Pasta with lemon, parmesan and lemon balm.

4. Vanilla ice cream with fruit, fresh or frozen, and lemon balm is heavenly! 

5. As a hot tea - pour boiled water over lightly bruised leaves and allow to steep.

Or just enjoy it in the garden. Brush your hands over the plant as you walk by for an incredible, summery lemon scent.

Lemon balm works almost anywhere you'd use lemon or mint. In my experience it can be a bit hard to find at the grocery store, but if you've got a shady spot, a pot from the garden centre will grow like a weed!

finished cordial

Last week I posted about making cordial. After letting it draw for several days, it was finally ready to strain and tap into bottles. Here's the result! It's so summery and tasty!

Gunnebo Slott

Time for another day trip! I could get used to this vacation business, I tell you. Today's destination was Gunnebo Slott in Mölndal just 8 or 10km south of Gothenburg. The manor house was build in the 1800s by a British merchant family, so it has that English country manor vibe and extensive gardens. I'll spare you my many photographs of the incredible kitchen gardens (seriously they grow every herb I've ever heard of, and there's huge beds of asparagus, gooseberry bushes, enormous currants ... I was in heaven!), but here's a quick look around:

Those gardens!

The castle/manor house. We didn't go inside.

Varieties of basil in a cold frame.

Seriously, these gardens!

After touring the grounds (and playing in the kids' playground) we had a little picnic on the lawn. Here's a few menu ideas and a recipe for your next picnic!

Sandwich Fillings:

- Baguettes with sliced tomatoes, sliced hard boiled eggs and brie are one of my favourites. Douse the bread in vinaigrette first and season liberally with salt, pepper and thyme. Wrap well in waxed paper and the bread will be tender and moist by the time you eat.
-Creamed fillings with chopped pickles, egg, relish etc are tasty and long-lasting.

Make sure to take a big bottle of water or some other cold drink along with your themos of coffee! 

Currant Cake for a picnic

Recipe adapted from Bonniers Cookbook, 1960

3 egg whites

3 egg yolks

4 dl flour

2 dl sugar

200 g butter

150 g currants

Preheat oven to 195C. 

Cream the butter and sugar so it is light and porous. Blend or cream in the egg yolks one at a time. Mix the currents with a little of the flour and blend them in, then add the rest of the flour. Beat the egg whites to a froth and carefully fold them into the batter. Pour/scrape the batter into a buttered and bread-crumbed baking pan and bake for about 1 hour at 195 degrees. 

Yum!

Beautiful retro Nossebro!

Today we took a day trip with our friend Anders to Nossebro, about an hour (8 Swedish miles) northeast of Gothenburg.

It's a really small village that has saved a lot of shops, cafes and other stuff from the 50s and 60s unchanged, and it's really cool! I love small towns, the more vintage the better! There were tons of signs pointing to flea markets (loppis in Swedish) on the way there, but since it was raining and I'm tending towards broke these days we didn't stop anywhere. Rats!

The highlight of the trip was definitely the apartment, "Andra våningen," a three room and kitchen apartment which two women have decorated like it was the 60s. It's so amazing! Every cupboard and drawer is full of vintage surprises, from a handkerchief still in the packet to a soft-core porno mag in the telephone table drawer (not sure what kind of husband would stash that in there!). The apartment has a kitchen with a walk-in pantry, main bathroom, guest bathroom, kids' bedroom and teenager's bedroom, and a living room-dining room with a sewing corner. The living room couch pulls out into a bed for the parents to sleep in, which was apparently quite common.

 

I took soooo many pictures but I was so excited to try and get a pic of EVERYTHING (decorating ideas, you know!) that I don't think they turned out very well. Not a lot of thought went into composition on my end! Anyway here are a few:

 

 

 The teenager's painfully cool room.

 Kids' bunk beds.

Bathroom

 Beside the hall telephone, a little box for you to put coins in and pay for long distance. It says something like, "talking is so easy to do, saving is the right thing!"






String shelves and a well-stocked pantry. 

 Pretty much exactly how every kitchen sink in Sweden still looks.

That little dish thing on the side table is actually a recessed fake-pond thing. The 60s were a creative time...

 
Love this! Small bread boards with bread knives for each place - great idea! 

 Afterwards we walked around town. The rain held up so we were able to look around. Nossebro also boasts the world's largest pair of functioning scissors! There are a lot of cute cafes and restaurants in town, but we got off to a late start this morning, and most places close at 1pm on Saturday, so after we finished at the apartment they had all closed. Instead we went to a cute little hot dog kiosk where I had a most delicious burger and fries. I've been craving one! This place was so nice, just one table and counter inside and picnic tables outside. Not sure how old it's been there but it felt vintage.

Before it closed, we popped into the store "Gamla ting" (Old Things), a second-hand furniture and knick-knacks type store. I bought a really small little Scouts almanac from 1931 for 5 crowns. Normally I don't go for '30s things, but this is in perfect condition and has the most beautiful handwriting inside - I want to try to copy it! Plus I like Scouting things. There are other second-hand stores in town and it would have been cool to have more time to look around, but I have a feeling they charge a little extra since Nossebro is known as the "retro town."

There's also an old theatre (built 1919) that's been beautifully restored. It shows a picture every night at 19:30 and on weekends they sometimes air the Met's opera broadcasts. I could really get along alright living in Nossebro! Another cool place is an old paint store that still has the same kind of assortment they had in the '60s, that closed before we had a chance to go in, unfortunately. One thing I think Nossebro is missing is an old "retro" bookstore! Maybe I should move out there and start one? The first Saturday in June they have a big classic car rally and every Wednesday there's a market in the town square.

A mile or so outside town we pulled over for a roadside fika (coffee and pastry break). So 50s! I had baked a currant cake for Joakim's name day yesterday so we had that plus hot coffee from the thermos in these cute little cups, standing around outside the car with the radio cranked up. The sun even came out for our little picnic!

Midsummer pole outside the church where we stopped.

All in all a great day in Nossebro, if you're in the area check it out!