Sorry for not updating during the last week, I havn’t been inspired to neither cook or bake. This spring my company was sold by it’s Swedish owners to a foreign investment company. We were merged with two other companies with the same profile. You can guess what happened among other things: 70 of 290 people at our headquarters in Gothenburg were given notice in August. This Wednesday the negotiations between the company and the union were finished. I’m very sad to say that I’m one of those 70 people. My company prefers to outsource my knowledge and competence to our consultant company that we hire when needed. I was rather prepared that I would be one of the noticed, as I’ve only been working for my company for 2 years and Swedish law says that the last person employed will be the first to go. But I still was hopeful. I wasn’t prepared to hear that they didn’t want my competence which we at the IT department know is needed. At the same time I was told that our consultant company wanted to hire me; of course they want to hire me now when my company still needs the competence, but from the consultant company that doesn’t have anyone with the same knowledge. I think that everything is so stupid. To hire a consultant is so much more expensive, but I shouldn’t care. It’s their decision. At least I’m not alone… My period of employment will last until last December which means that I will get my last salary at the end of January. I’m only going to work for another week, just to finish up some things and then I will just be at home with full salary. I’m glad that I’ll get payed even though I won’t be working. I will bake, cook and think over things. Do I want to continue with SAP R/3 programming and integration? Or what do I do? I won’t be having trouble finding a new job within SAP, but I’m still sad that I have to go. I’m going to miss all my colleagues, we had so much fun together and I had a really great time. I feel exluded. I’m sad. But I’ll get over it, I know.

To comfort myself I went on a small shopping spree which resulted in a small spring form (16 cm) with two bottoms, 3 small jars for jam and a lovely large heat-resistant silicone spatula from Le Creuset.

One more hour to go… Then it’s time for a three week long summer vacation! Hurrah! Three weeks with relaxing, cooking, food blogging and just a great time. When I return to work in August I will still have 3 more vacation weeks to take out later on during the winter or when ever. (In Sweden there’s a 5 week statutory vacation for everyone each year and my company gives me an extra vacation week as I don’t get any overtime pay).

We just moved into the new flat last Saturday and there are still unpacked boxes standing everywhere. But the kitchen is ready to use and fully equipped. I’m still tired and exhausted after the move and during the weekend Fredrik found out that he had to go to Los Angeles for E3, a big game expo and conference. So we had to try to find all his clothes and passport on Sunday when we found out that the tickets were booked. Luckily the passport was here in Gothenburg and not in Stockholm, but we still had to go out and shop some clothes as he has most of his clothes in Stockholm were he has been working since September last year. But in two weeks he will be home for good :-) It will be great to have him here at home everyday and not just during weekends. Wonderful! But this also means that this month is very hectic and stressful for us. We still have to clear and move the things from the attic of the old flat this Sunday and Fredrik won’t be home from LA until late Saturday night, tired and jetlagged…And of course the whole flat needs to be cleaned before we leave the keys to the next tenant.And the weekend after that we need to move home Fredrik’s personal things from the furnished flat in Stockholm that he has been renting. But I don’t want to think about all that, at least not at the moment…

Lakritz Passion

Anyway, I love the new flat. It’s light and fresh looking, and it’s very very central. My brother came yesterday for our weekly dinner and we had a nice time. I made my red lentil soup and to that we had fresh bread that I bought at Saluhallen. On his way home to me, my brother went to Conditori Chocolatier Steinbrenner & Nyberg where they make lovely cakes and pastries. He bought chocolate and also two Lakritz Passion pastries for dessert. The bottom of the pastry consists of sponge cake, then there’s a lovely cream made out of passion fruit that is covered with a liqurice mousse. The whole pastry has a white chocoloate cover and is decorated with some liquorice. I know that it sounds like a weird combination but it was amazing! The liquorice mousse and the passion cream goes really well toghether, it’s a wonderful combo! Mmm, so yummy!

Before my brother went home, I gave him a jar of my contribution for this week’s Sugar High Friday that I made on Wednesday. But that post will not come up until Friday :-)

Tomorrow we’re moving to our new flat just minutes away from Saluhallen (the big indoor food market) and other central shops and places. I’m really excited even though there are boxes all over the place and I still have some packing to do. The cats love all the boxes, they love to climb and sleep on them. Above is a photo taken in the kitchen a few minutes ago…..

As usual time flies and the list of all of my planned posts with photos is just getting longer and longer; my business trip to Milano and all the wonderful food that I ate there, all delicious dishes that Fredrik has made, my birthday buffet, the weekly dinners with my brother, etc. I’ll really try to post at least some of them this week, but I’ll start with this Saturday.

This Saturday Fredrik’s friend Andreas woke us up really early with a phone call. We knew that he was taking Fredrik for a horse polo lesson but we didn’t know which time. And it turned out to be early, really early… We didn’t even have time to eat our usual Saturday breakfast with freshly baked Cinnamon buns (from the store of course, who wants to bake before breakfast on Saturday morning…), other nice things to eat and a fresh newspaper. As I always look forward to the weekend breakfast I wasn’t too happy leaving home, and especially not with an empty stomach. But there was nothing to do about it as Andreas already was waiting for us in his car. On our way to the stable we stopped at a petrol station and bought sandwiches and yoghurt which just made me more sulky as I hardly managed to chew the dry bread.

Somehow I managed to cheer up, especially when we finally came to the stable and saw all beautiful horses. After the long preparation of the horses it was finally time to start the lesson. I don’t know much about horse polo, only that it’s not as posh here as in England and that you also use bigger horses in Sweden.