My love affair with Caffe Nero
I'm starting a new series this year called "My love affair with..." It's an attempt to take all those products, services, artists, technologies, etc. that significantly influence my outlook on the way things ought to be done; things that are done so well, they change the world, the community, art, technology, etc. for the better. They set new standards and innovate, they make our lives better, not easier. They are things that, if it were physically possible, I would make deep passionate love to, cuddle with, and even call back in a few days.
So this is the first in the "My love affair with..." series.
Swedes take a ton of pride in their coffee. They like it strong. Long, cold winters might have something to do with it. I'm proud to say, I live just around the corner from the best coffee served in all of Stockholm. In fact, I will venture to say it is the best coffee I've had in my life.
It's Italian coffee, so it's served by forcing hot water through densely-packed ground coffee beans. I will have my coffee one of two ways, Americano or Espresso. More often I will have it as an Americano, typically for breakfast or during a midday fika, served with foamy warm milk on top, and a bit of brown sugar. Sometimes I'll have it as an espresso with a cannoli dessert. No matter how I have it, Nero makes it perfectly. It's made in a way that only your local neighborhood Italian restaurant and cafe can make it. And Nero qualifies itself as something that, when it disappears, or when I disappear, will be completely and utterly irreplaceable in my life.
So sadly I've become strangely addicted to it. Every morning before work, I wake up and I walk just around the corner to Caffe Nero. Everyone knows me there and expects me there. I'm one of the first to arrive in the morning. With my Americano, I have a freshly-baked croissant (cornetto) filled with either apricot preserves, lemon vanilla cream, almond paste, or chocolate. And every morning when I walk in the door, they get it started for me, no matter where in line I am. I'll then sit down and savor the thirty minutes I have with my Americano, my cornetto, and my book. It's my chance to unwind before I begin a day at work, or to appreciate the time I have with myself on a Saturday or Sunday morning. I am typically not a person of routine in any way, but I am probably Nero's most regular and predictable customer ever.
And that's just the coffee. They also happen to serve an amazing Italian lunch and dinner menu which changes seasonally and includes some of the best Italian food I've had. The pan fried and breaded veal stuffed with ruccola and prosciutto is something you'll taste in your mouth for weeks. Their freshly-made pastas are second-to-none. Their service is immaculate.
And with their success comes great opportunity. As of today, they're moving their main restaurant to a far larger space just two doors away, where they will have a bar and more seating room (something they are in desperate need of) and their current space will eventually be turning into their fresh bakery/cafe after some renovations, something Stockholm is desperately missing.
Nero is an assault on the senses with their amazing coffee, their good, fresh Italian food, and their outstanding service and I humbly resign myself to the ridiculous power it has over me. If every place in Stockholm were like Nero, I'd never have any reason to want to leave.
Shantaram (Gregory David Roberts, 2003)
It's rare that I come across a modern true story that I'm blown away by. Often times I find them to be sensationalized and drawn out, often times reeking more of fiction than of fact.
Shantaram exceeded any and all expectations I might have had about these kinds of novels.
This book was the product of a determined man. Gregory David Roberts was in prison when he wrote it and watched as his first two drafts, amounting to 600 pages and six years worth of work, got destroyed by prison officials. Many pages of the original handwritten manuscript are stained with blood, the result of residual physical damage stemming frostbite he'd suffered while fighting in Afghanistan. It's obvious throughout the book that it was written as a testament to the struggle he endured and that its completion meant the closure of a very painful yet enlightening period of his life.
The book is 900+ pages and I read it in just two weeks. It's undoubtedly one of the most powerful books I've ever read and is a breathtaking account of one man struggling to come to terms with himself - his past and his personal quest for freedom.
Shantaram was recommended to me by a number of friends, mostly as a great book to read before I head off on my journey through India in a few weeks. I fully expected to carry it there with me, since a nearly 1000 page book did not seem like a realistic endeavor in just a month. I'd known nothing about the book, and nothing could've prepared me for the adventure I would embark on as I read the story of a convict who escaped from prison and found himself in India.
The story starts off with Roberts landing in Bombay just a short time after he'd escaped a maximum security prison in Australia where he was serving a 20 year sentence for armed robbery. Though seemingly cliché, it's not the story of an uneducated man who had nothing to lose by robbing at gunpoint, but rather a story of a highly-educated individual who'd lost everything he'd known and loved and further descended into a world of drugs and desperation before being arrested.
But that's not what the book is about. As Roberts lands in Bombay, we experience what we can call his rebirth. Landing with nothing more than his false passport and enough money to last him some time in India, he almost immediately befriends a small Indian man who would be his guide in Bombay. Prabaker would teach him the simplicity of being a good man and would show him the heart and love that would help to begin his ascent from the bottom.
From here we watch as Roberts immerses himself in the spirituality of Indian culture and customs, learns Hindi and Marathi, is forced to live in the Bombay slums after he loses everything he has, rises from the ashes to create a makeshift health clinic in those slums, befriends Indian mafia dons who take him in as a son, fights among his brothers in Afghanistan, receives the unrequited love of the Indian people, and wholeheartedly gives it in return. In that love he redeems himself a million times over and finds his own path to enlightenment.
Shantaram is a book magnificent in its scale, achieving a level of spirituality through amazing prose and powerful introspection. It never once feels pretentious or disingenuous, but rather feels so painfully and emotionally real that you empathize with his struggle as a reemerging spirit and as a flesh-and-blood human being. His writing is beautiful and the simplicity of his views and the views of others on life and death, joy and pain, enlightenment and struggle are so eloquently portrayed, you never want to put the book down.
Needless to say, its helped me to further anticipate my trip to India, not only as an adventure, but as a very personal, spiritual journey where perhaps I can learn just a little bit more about myself. Furthermore, the way he describes India in all its beauty, its energy, and the love-filled livelihood of its one billion plus inhabitants is enough to get me all anxious and ready to go.
I urge you to read this book. I can promise you, even as the cynic that I can often be, that you will not be disappointed.
PS - Once you're finished (or if you need further convincing) check out the videos of his talks on YouTube. Truly fascinating.
Growth of the Soil (Knut Hamsun, 1917)
For me, reading is an unhealthy obsession. I've read close to 20 books so far this year and I may finish with close to 30. I'm so addicted, that I even began setting literary goals for myself, thus categorizing me as a huge nerd.
For example, one of my missions is to read every single thing John Steinbeck has ever written (I'm close to ten so far, I think).
One of my other nerdy goals is to read one work by every literature Nobel Prize winner ever. I'm doing pretty well, having read books by about 15 different winners and being disappointed only once. These Swedes really know their great literature.
It can be a great thrill to find a fantastic book by an author who has fallen somewhat into obscurity throughout the world. Ask any Norwegian or Swede who Knut Hamsun is, and without a doubt they'll know. But I can't say I have many friends outside of Scandinavia, if any, who would know who he is. Knut Hamsun (you do pronounce the 'k') won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1920.
I was lucky enough to have my Norwegian friend Aleks recommend Hamsun's Growth of the Soil to me. Wanting to achieve my literature goal and at the same time get more into Scandinavian writing, Hamsun appeared to me to be perfect choice.
But the fact is, Norwegian sentiment towards Hamsun is confused. Hamsun was an outspoken Nazi sympathizer. Actually, he was a "vehement advocate" of Nazi Germany, having mailed his Nobel medal to Joseph Goebbels in 1943 and later having visited Hitler, and furthermore having eulogized him after his death as "a warrior, a warrior for mankind, and a prophet of the gospel of justice for all nations." (Source: Wikipedia)
So whereas Norwegians are very proud of Hamsun's accomplishments as an author, they have a much tougher time coming to terms with his very radical political ideology during one of Europe's darkest periods.
Needless to say, this would never stop me from reading a great book.
Following WWI, the West was going through a period of rapid industrialization and economic development. The middle class was seeing their hard work get swallowed up by a speculative and increasingly credit-laden, power-hungry upper class further empowered by laissez-faire economics. The gap between the rich and poor was widening and the mass was getting restless and desperate. Sounds familiar.
Growth of the Soil was simple in words and profound in scope. It was both foretelling and a scathing commentary on the state of the world at the time. It starts off telling the story of a simple man Isak walking through the Norwegian wilderness near the Swedish border looking for a place to settle and begin a life for himself. He picks a spot and begins to survive off the fruit of his labor. His hard work is dignified (and his only means of survival), his intentions are pure, and his simple modesty is his greatest trait. And thus is his success imminent.
However, as to be expected, the chaos of the self-righteous man intrudes, always seeking the easy way out, and looking to capitalize off the hard work of others. The book follows Isak and his family as they persist in the wild, fending off the educated industrialist, favoring hard work and personal dignity over easily sought out wealth (and more often as Hamsun explains, debt). It never proves easy, and not all of Isak's family is able to stay true to his ways, falling victim to the lure of high society, education, and industrialization. How does it end? Well I'll let you read it.
Hamsun is not all together off base with his belief that man is constantly trying to seek the quickest means to wealth. Rather, he preaches that man's greatest source of persistent wealth and personal sustainability is in his hard work and clarity of purpose.
This book blew me away. It's beautifully written and very direct in its message. His ideals at times seem very early-American/pro-libertarian and his complete loathing for bureaucratic, self-righteous, mooching, fast-tracking capitalists resonates with me. Don't get me wrong, Growth of the Soil is not anti-capitalist, but rather speaks out against those who seek to 'capitalize' purely off the hard work of others.
Really a fantastic read for anyone looking to pick up a good book by a good, though controversial writer.
PS - as a newly inducted Amazon affiliate, I get a cut if you buy it through the above link. 
I'm a capitalist pig, I know.
Blog Plugs: Swedish Notions and Stockholmies
If you're an expat living in Sweden, here are a couple blogs that are insightful, intelligent, and enjoyable to read.
The first, written by an expat here in Sweden and relatively new on the scene is called Swedish Notions. As an expat, it can be very refreshing to find blogs which resonate with the kinds of things you're interested in, simply because your backgrounds are similar and you're strangers in a distant land looking for enlightening experiences specific to that culture. From food, to music, to politics, Swedish Notions nails it. Those of you in Sweden interested in expanding your cultural horizons and opening your minds ought to check it out.
Another such blog is one I've been a fan of for a long time, and whose writer(s) I've had the pleasure of knowing personally over beers, bowling, and a strip club (that we never actually went to). Stockholmies is a thoroughly entertaining blog which focuses more around the idiosyncrasies of being an expat Stockholmare. What makes Stockholmies unique, is that it contains an epic media component with photos of all the crazy crap you're bound to see on a typical day in Stockholm. Check out some of these hilarious posts:
http://www.stockholmies.com/2009/04/more-creative-graffiti.html
http://www.stockholmies.com/2009/06/signlations-mood-food.html
http://www.stockholmies.com/2009/06/spotlight-capes-coming-back-into-fashion.html
http://www.stockholmies.com/2009/07/signlations-stockholmies-take-on-st-p-russia.html
And their funniest post (thanks Chris Van B):
http://www.stockholmies.com/2009/09/our-prisoners-dilemma.html
Check these guys out.
Film Review: Tropic Thunder
This film made me want drive the wrong way down a crowded one-way road in a car doused in gasoline.
Qype: Café Sirap in Stockholm
I've had Swedish food once since I moved to Stockholm. For the most part, my diet has been monopolized by Thai, Italian, Japanese, coffee, pasta salad.
So you could imagine my excitement when I was going to eat pancakes!!! Oh wait. They're American. American food. Never had it. Wonder if it's good.
Just kidding. I AM AMERICAN!!! AND I LOVE PANCAKES!!! AAAAAAHHHHHH SO HAPPY! NOM NOM NOM!
So a co-worker suggested we all go out for Amerikan Pancakes Breakfast (she's Dutch and that's how she talks). A group of about 12 of us went and we indulged in the experience that is Swedish pancakes in Stockholm.
Ready for this? They were BETTER than American ones!!! They were richer, more buttery pancakes. They were smaller in size, so you didn't feel like it was a massive American portion that sent you spiraling into a food coma. They were more cooked than American pancakes so they had that nice greasy crust around the edges that I love when I make my own pancakes.
They served their pancakes with a plethora of toppings that you could choose from, from apples, to blueberries, to BACON!!! They also cooked some ingredients right into the pancakes.
If you don't like pancakes they have a wide range of other American breakfast food.
A great breakfast place to go to and packed on weekends. Even with a reservation, the hostess overbooked and we were forced to wait about a half-hour. So just be prepared.
Check out my review of Café Sirap - I am dunedonkey - on Qype
Qype: Salong Andreas in Stockholm
The relationship that a man develops with his barber is not in vain. The relationship is intimate. As a kid, you grow up with the same guy cutting your hair for 15 years. As an adult, your barber becomes your eyes and ears to the world, sharing his knowledge of current affairs, politics, women, the local neighborhood's gossip (yes...men can gossip sometimes). Your barber is far more than the guy who cuts your hair. He's your friend. Your confidante.
These barbers know how to cut your hair, they've seen it change. They've seen it grow curlier, more abundant, grayer, less abundant. They adapt to changes in style and fashion, but they never cease to give you a bad haircut.
Changing barbers is a tough choice for a number of reasons. When you do it out of choice, you feel disloyal. When you do it out of obligation, you feel anxious and afraid.
I haven't lived in the same city for more than 5 years in the last 15. So I forgot what it's like to have a good barber anymore. One that I can trust.
So I hadn't gotten my hair cut in over a month which, if you know me, is an extremely long time. My hair grows extremely fast and it fros out. Which is NOT in anymore. Especially when your hair looks like mine.
Talked to some coworkers. No one had any firm suggestions. They pointed me to a street and told me to find one there. Instantly knowing Stockholm, its fashion and its prices, I feared the worst. I knew I was going to get a shit haircut and pay $100 for it.
Then I spotted Salong Andreas. It was not a salon, but a barber. I walked in ten minutes before it closed. A gentleman came out from behind a curtain. Good-looking guy and well-kempt (knows good fashion), darker skin, thicker hair, probably Middle-Eastern (knows my hair), and the sign read 210Skr ($35). Couldn't believe it. It almost seemed too good to be true. But he didn't cut my hair yet.
So he talks to me about my hair. Asks me how I want it. As I start talking, he nods. Then he proceeded to complete my sentences exactly as I would've. He knew exactly what I want. And unlike my barbers from the last 15 years, didn't give me that completely clueless, stumped look that I've come to expect. I was putting my life in this guys hands, and I didn't doubt it for a second.
Ephram (as I would come to know) gave me the best haircut I've had in two decades. He did it with style and finesse. He was a master of his trade. He used scissors like my childhood barber from Italy did. He was fast and he made it look effortless. He asked me how it was as he was going through, and he was one of the best conversationalists I've known. We talked about our heritage, Sweden, the US, Arabs, 9/11, Christians (he's a Lebanese-Christian and I'm an Egyptian-Christian), Swedish women, cost of living, etc. etc. etc. I could actually see going out and grabbing beers with this guy as totally normal and fun.
When it came time to pay, I realized I didn't have enough. He told me not to sweat it, pointed me to the nearest ATM, I ran down, grabbed my cash, came back, paid, and told him that he was my new barber and that he could expect to see me every three to four weeks. Thanks Ephram! You rock!
Check out my review of Salong Andreas - I am dunedonkey - on Qype
Qype: Falafelkungen in Stockholm
Living right down the street from this, I passed it in the hopes that this would become my new street food establishment. You know...the place that's perfect when you're too lazy to cook and too hungover to care how fat you're getting.
In general, street food/fast food should abide by the following rules:
- tastes awesomely disgusting
- contains a million calories per bite
- kills you if you eat it twice in one day
- doubles as a weapon of mass destruction
- will keep you bound to your toilet for 3 days
- forces you to beg for God's forgiveness for all the bad things you've ever done to your sibling when your parent wasn't looking.
I had the Falafelmeny (no I didn't spell it wrong). I found it to be pretty bland...flavorless in fact. The sandwich didn't have enough grease, salt, flavor. The fries also didn't have enough salt or flavor. I hope they're not trying to be healthy, because a street food place like this should never try to be anything other than attempting to murder its patrons with fatty, cholesterolly, heart attacky food.
I'll probably go back to try some other items on the menu, but it did underwhelm the first time around.
Check out my review of Falafelkungen - I am dunedonkey - on Qype
Qype: Bar Nada in Stockholm
I've gotten very lucky since I moved here. I know just enough people who know the city well enough and know me well enough to know the kinds of places I like.
Bar Nada is totally my kind of bar. Södermalm is a popular district for going out in with a bit of a scene, so when I heard we were going, I kept a cautious eye. But the bar came highly recommended from my friend's friend and she insisted we try it out. So I met up with her and her friends. Although it's in Södermalm it's just far enough away from the action to be awesome. It's tucked away on a quiet street and just on the border of the commercial area and the residential part. So few are likely to know about it. In fact, when I was trying to find it, I asked some bouncers and locals where it was an no one had a clue. So that's a pretty good sign.
When I arrived, the sign outside simply said 'BAR'. Inside it was like cozy and quaint. Really high ceilings, so you didn't feel claustrophobic, but small nonetheless so you felt like you were at your neighborhood bar. The decor was great, minimalist, artsy, hip. I had a couple vodka tonics which were stiff and the bar staff was very friendly despite how crowded it got at points. The music was great, ranging from pop to lounge. The crowd was hip but unpretentious. It's the kind of place you go with friends to stand around and shoot the shit, but it's also the kind of place where I feel it would be conducive to meeting others later in the night in a casual laid back atmosphere. Could also see it as a place I'd start off the night.
Really loved this place and definitely see myself going back.
Check out my review of Bar Nada - I am dunedonkey - on Qype
Qype: Glenn Miller Cafe in Stockholm
I moved to Stockholm last Saturday. By Wednesday night, I'd already found the best jazz venue in Stockholm.
This place blew my socks off.
Totally hidden in a very central part of Stockholm, the Glenn Miller Cafe is a total gem of a jazz establishment. I felt like I walked into an eastern European, jazz bar circa 1930. The venue is small and is a restaurant/bar. The ceilings are high, the decor is inspired, the owners are wonderful. I'm convinced it's the best venue in which to see a local jazz trio. And a great one at that.
When I came on Wednesday, a local scando-jazz quartet completely inspired me with some amazing jazz. Very outside, extreme jazz. Mindblowing jazz. I was totally surprised by the level of music that was being played. Reminiscent of Ornette Coleman at the Golden Circle here in Stockholm 40 years ago...
It was crowded. We managed a table off to the side. So if you don't like small crowded places, reconsider. However, the crowd makes the place and adds to the energy. The beer and wine was flowing. The crowd was a local, loyal group of jazz enthusiasts of all ages. Everyone was into the music. The energy was awesome.
Oh...and no cover. Someone comes around with a donation basket and you're free to give as much as you want. Unreal.
I will definitely be a regular here.
Check out my review of Glenn Miller Cafe - I am dunedonkey - on Qype
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