What can you grill on your barbecue?

The barbecue season is upon us, so the shops are full of barbecue-food.
Among them:

- The spare ribs, marinated in maple (another sign of the americanization of Denmark)

- Corn

- Barbecue bread. I have to admit the final result didn't look anything like the picture on the packaging. But let's also confess that I am absolutely not a BBQ-pro!

Bon appétit !
PS : in my home, there is also sometimes a few French delicacies on the grill... for example andouillettes... We may live in Denmark, we still need our dose of French gastronomy!

Green sausage

As everybody know, Danes are really fans of green. Now they can even buy a "green" hot-dog in the street! This hot-dog stand is now installed close to the Rundetårn since November 2009 and is only selling green products!

Please note that this really modest place has won the "best restaurant 2010" Ibyen award. Amongst the contestants were 4 others reals restaurants, including the famous Fiskebaren (Bib Gourmand Michelin).

They are big, hairy and a bit red-faced ...

Well, guess again, I am not talking about the Danes (or am I? .... Just kidding).
This is one of the summer fruit in Denmark, the stikkelsbær (gooseberry?)
It has a taste reminding me a little kiwis.
It's very good snack and I suppose you can also do some tasty desserts. If you have any recipes, feel free to give me suggestion....

Summer fruits

The classic Danish summer fruit: strawberries and ... peas!

I rapidly pass over the general astonishment that we can grow strawberries in Denmark. Yes! Greenhouses are miracles!
The most amazing is that here the pea is a fruit. This means that people sit quietly and start eating their peas in the afternoon, at work, in the train or even in the street. I tasted and I confirm that ... is a small pea. So it's actually a bit bland, but then to consider it a fruit, I usually request a little sweetness ...

No kidding, this is the "fruit basket" at work.

Otherwise, you can also buy it sometimes in the street as here in Christianshavn.

Learning Danish is easy....

... ;-) hummm at least it is most of the times pretty cheap!

Learning Danish is highly recommended when you settle here permanently, it is even mandatory for non european citizens who want residency permits. So as a foreigner, you usually discover pretty quickly after your arrival the joys of a Dansk Sprogskole (danish language school). The largest municipalities have their own language school for adults, more or less rich and equiped depending on the municipality budget.

The Nordsjælland school where I have done my study is apparently in the "rich" category. Education 100% free (well I wasn't asked to pay anything yet), e-learning classes, small groups courses on evenings or on Saturdays, teacher available by mail to correct your exercises in between classes, language lab in a computer room, books provided, CD-ROMs, dictionaries ... is luxury!

Add to this that they give you notebooks the first day of school, and that you can request the loan of laptops and printers to take home, I finally understood why we pay so many taxes!

Summer time= party time!

June marks the starts of the "crazy period" in Denmark. As early as 8pm you can hear noises in the streets (horns, songs, ...) It is finally Graduation day!! Students in third grade (at least I think) have received the papers authorizing them to enroll for college. Usually there is an official morning ceremony.




From 11 am, another kind of music took over, when students get straight out from the ceremony at their school. Highly decorated chariots are waiting to attack the city. This festival is really very organized, each class having its own vehicule (which apparently they book sometimes one year in advance just to be sure to have one on the big day).

Then they visit with each student's parents one after the other, the tradition being that each one offer to drink (and eat) to the students. You may imagine that they do not wait the stops to drink a little beer ...! The vehicules are indeed fully loaded!
During a dozen hours they tour the city and sing, hopefully the driver is a responsible and sober pro. Each student wears a traditional cap, each color representing their discipline and have also an insignia corresponding to their religion (at least that's what we have heard).

Of course let's not forget the beers to keep going between stops!

Sankt Hans

Hide witches!

Here we celebrate tonight St. John (Sankt Hans), and we can say that the tradition is respected pretty seriously in Denmark. Each town, village or district of Copenhagen has its own Sankt Hans fire.
Example here in Hillerød last year: despite some rain during the day and especially the crazy wind, the festival was in full swing. Music, beer, sausages and of course the wood pile, installed on the castle lake. We even got to see some (small) fireworks.

For centuries, summer has been celebrated this way in Denmark and it is believed that this day of the year is really rich in "natural energy". I pass on the details of the early pagan rituals 8-)

For around a hundred years, they just burn a doll witch on the fire. Today the newspapers were full of stories of nowadays witches (a hobby like any other) who welcome the magical aspect of the evening while protesting that they should stop burn this kind of doll.