Old Man's Town

I’m not blessed with the fastest hands when it comes to getting things done around my home. However today I finally managed to get my one and only painting up on the wall.

Yes, it's a macabre painting, but it means a damn lot to me.

I bought the painting from a acquaintance, an artist called Troels Carlsen a few years after 1999. In ’99 Troels and I had been together with a group of guys on a trip to Berlin to a concert by none other than Mr. Tom Waits.

Back then we discovered a city with a dark beauty which we all fell in love with. When we got back to Copenhagen Troels decided to repaint the entire background of the piece with the impressions he got from the broken parts of the city. Those images hit a resonnance with me and when my grandfather gave me a nice handful of money as a present I decided to get my hands on the painting.

It’s dark, macabre and death inspiring. And I love it to hell!

Next stop on the rollercoaster ride that is the supermarkets in my neighbourhood is Føtex. Now what the hell is that wierd letter, you may ask. Well check out how to prounce it and let’s move on.

The exciting Føtex-logo. I took this picture in the dark the background is really a severely dull blue.

I find Føtex about as thrilling as their logo. It’s clean, but otherwise fairly dull and unexciting. You get a lot of the same basic goods as in Netto, but end up paying a bit more for most wares. And their green produce section has nice vegetables and all, but they really suck in the organic department. So it’s not my preferred choice when it comes to buying actual food.

Where Føtex does excel though is in their broad selection of kitchen utensils, electrical household devices and hell, I even bought a clothes rack there the other day.

So all in all Føtes is for hard goods, not food.

In my neighbourhood I’m blessed with three supermarkets all which offer different options for me, when I get around to wanting to cook.

I’ll write up three mini reviews of each of them. The first one – since I went there today – will be for my local Netto.

Is it a bird, is it a basket case?

Basically Netto is cheaper than cheap and while there are many fine Nettos around Denmark the one down the street from me – is for lack of a better word – a dump.

However I can get basic goods there – when they’re not sold out – and their organic selection is ok, however the place looks like a train ran through it and also quite often stuff is either sold out or unavailable. But for the basics like flour, yeast, milk and a few ragtag vegetables it’s quite ok.

So basically it’s where I go to save money – and save gastronomical inspiration.

This weekend Eskild and I dropped by the National History Museum, which is just around the corner from my appartment. He was really happy that it we could walk there, I guess the long drives every other weekend do get to him – and no wonder really.

It’s a wierd sort of place since really what they exibit is mostly a large chunk of a taxidermist’s wet dream and most of the exhibits really don’t change that often.

This time around though we spend most of the time having a look at bones in all shapes and sizes.

Too bad we couldn't get to feel the bones of the dino.

As we couldn’t touch the bones of the dinosaurs in the entranceway we moved on to the hands on part of the exhibition where there was a heap of skulls ripe for getting a closer look at.

Check out the shape of this wonderful gorilla skull.

Eskild really had a blast opening and closing especially the big skulls – damn hippopotamus teeth are big and sharp, no wonder they’re so dangerous in the wild. “River horses” my bare… those things look lethal beyond belief.

Personally I really dug the different replicas of human skulls showing the evolution of mankind. I never really thought about how small our forefather’s acutally were. Sure I’ve seen conceptdrawings, but that doesn’t quite measure up as when you see them all lying on a table where you can grab them and have a closer look.

The evolution of man represented by skulls.

Oh and in case you were wondering about the title of this post, it’s from an old Delta Rythm Boys song:

The last spurs of dizzyness seem to have passed and I’ve finally been able to be in my lovely workspace today. It feels great not to have the world spin before my eyes every time I move.

My eyes see the world as a fairly stable place now!

I’ve just got to get my behind to my parents’ place where my bike is parked, but rumour has it a snowstorm will be hitting these parts in an hour or so, and hence the procrastinator in me can easily wait a few days to get that done.

Besides riding a bike in the snows of Copenhagen is just, well, yeech.

Update: It seems my bike is snowed in right now. My dad just sent me this picture of it.

Since I’ve been struggling with the dizziness I’m stuck indoors quite a bit. I did go out for a little bit yesterday and when I walk it feels like I’m drunk without having been drinking. Yeech.

Also I’m not too inspired when it comes to cooking these days, but do manage to make some good buns every other day. So I thought I’d share the recipe. Oh the best part is that it doesn’t make a mess at all.

Delicious buns – Ingredients

You’ll need:

• Half a litre of luke warm water
• About 600g of one or two types of wheat flour (regular and Italian durum are a good combo
• Half a packet of yeast (about 25-30 g)
• Two to three pinches of salt
• Two to four pinches of sugar (it’s not for sweetening, it’s for feeding the yeast)
• About two table spoons of olive oil

You’ll also need a fairly large bowl and something to cover the bowl with – this can be either plastic wrap or a large plate that can cover the bowl.

Now I make them in two ways: classic and turbo. The ingredients are almost the same, but for the turbo boost you’ll need more yeast (a whole package rather than a half).

Delicious Buns – Step-by-Step

When you’ve picked up your ingredients you’re all set.

1. Pour the water into your large bowl
2. Crumble the yeast into the water (or pour it in if you’re using dry yeast)
3. Add salt
4. Stir the water, yeast and salt with a large spoon – preferably a metal one it’s easier to clean – until there are no lumpy bits of yeast left.
5. Add sugar and olive oil and stir a bit more
6. Add the flour and stir it all with the spoon until the dough becomes a large mass that’s not too fluidy, but not too hard either.
7. Put the bowl in your fridge and let it rest. Over night if you’re doing the classic recipe. An hour or so if you’re doing the turbo.
8. Preheat your oven to 225°C – make sure there are no trays in there
9. When the oven is nearly there put some baking paper on a tray.
10. Get a large spoon and put lumps of dough on your tray (check the image below). I usually get around 7-9 large buns from this recipe.
11. Put the tray in the middle of the oven and let the buns bake for around 20 mins.
12. Take out the buns and put them on a grill outside the oven and let them rest before you eat them. Yummy!

You can easily clean the bowl by just using some hot water. And the baking paper can be reused if you just flip it over for your next round of buns.

Before you put the buns in the oven they usually look like this:

The buns before going into the oven. Notice that they're oddly shaped. That's cool.

After they’re baked they come out nice and crispy on the outside and fluffy on the inside:

Buns all done. Remember to take them off the tray and put them on a grill to let them cool off a bit.

That’s it. Bon appetit!

I don’t get outdoors much these days with the dizzyness plagueing me. However I did manage to crawl down the stairs and across the street to post a few letters.

The snow is still quite shallow here, but it's falling heavily.

Honestly I’m not a big fan of snow in the city. It tends to turn grey really quickly and it makes riding a bike – or even driving – a big old mess. However just as it falls it lays itself like a blanket all over town, and furthermore a peaceful silence descends as people drive slowly or just stay indoors. Even the sound of footsteps on the pavement is eerily muffled.

So I’ll just enjoy the peacefulness while I can.

This morning got me thinking about the name of the street I live in, Ragnagade.

Check it out on Google Maps, if you feel like exploring the neighbourhood.

So what does Ragna actually mean? I knew that it’s a female name and that it’s an old Nordic one too. But to go a little deeper I checked out Behind the name which gave the following etymology:

RAGNA: […] Short form of Old Norse names beginning with the element regin “advice, counsel”.

So basically any name with the word Ragn in it has its roots in the councillors and advisors of old. Other examples that pop to the top of my mind are Ragnar and Ragnhild (which both apparently mean battle councellors), but there are probably others forgotten in the annals of time.

Also close by are a heap of other street with old Norse names. I’ll take you on a tour sometime soon.

My head is spinning today and it practically feels like I’m constantly motion sick. Seems like I’ve caught a virus on my balance nerve – again.

I suffered something similar last year and it’s an outright pain, since it can take a few weeks to go away. I really, really – did I say really? – hope that it passes quickly this time around.

Had a very enjoayble day of moving crates and putting beds together with my lovely assistants.

Assistant number 1 - Enjoying an icecream after the move

When we painted the walls a few days ago I didn’t really feel like the place was quite my home yet.

Assistant number 2 - Amused by the antics of assistant number 1

Since then the words a house is not a home have been ringing in my head. Not quite the creamy Luthor Vandross rendition, but still.

That got me thinking, what really makes something my home? As for now it’s gettting a bit of new furniture, mixing it up with some of the old. Having Eskild tell his grandma that he really likes the new place. Also sleeping there, talking to my girlfriend on Skype, getting my own smells stuck in the walls.

Guess there’s more too it and the place is getting there but isn’t quite mine yet.