I was wondering today, when you’re cooking for vegans, should you wear gloves? Otherwise, there’s going to be skin cells in the food. Okay, they’re minute, but they are there all the same. Mind you, there are random skin cells floating around in the air as well so I guess not.
I was wondering this because I was working in the kitchen at Lagnö Bo along with Annika and Magnus, and there are a couple of vegans living there. Obviously, they need to be catered for differently. Though, to be entirely fair, most of the meal was basically vegan anyway. Well, apart from the dessert. Magnus made them a banana and raspberry smooshy thing which tasted very good.
Unlike some vegans, these wouldn’t be getting anything processed. All the food was prepared fresh and, mostly, from the garden outside.
I was in charge of the roast pumpkin, and I also made the salad. I’ve never worked in a kitchen with others before. It was a lot of fun. Mind you, I felt a bit mean given they had to speak English for my sake. Though they did keep slipping into Swedish every now and then.
Regardless of the language, we were a good team, I thought.
After a short planning session, we each started prepping various bits. And I don’t know about the others, but I thought it was a bit of a luxury not having to explain things to people. Magnus runs a restaurant and Annika, like me, cooks at home, so we all knew what we were doing. More or less.
Obviously, the proof is in the eating and everyone declared the meal deliciously successful. In particular, Annika’s fabulous dessert, sprinkled liberally with Magnus’ sugared almonds. The parfait was flavoured with fläder from the garden and was made, simply with egg yolk, sugar and cream. Annika asked me a number of times what the English equivalent of fläder was, and each time I said it was elderflower. That’s not because I know the word in Swedish. It was following a taste test.
Before the meal, though, we were entertained by two of the Lagnö Bo residents. One played the piano while the other sang a lullaby in, first, Icelandic then in Swedish. She then read a poem to piano accompaniment. It was very atmospheric, with candlelight creating a fredagsmys type mood.
It was a lovely evening where, as usual, we were separated, with Mirinda and Denise at one table and me at another. I was once more sat with, among others, Morten and Nicoline. There was also Rosemari, Anita and, new member, Pernilla who has moved into our flat. Okay, not so much ‘our flat’ as the flat we stayed in before we moved into the Red House.
Our table spent a lot of time discussing train travel around Europe (and beyond). At one stage, Morten took out his phone and told everyone about The Man in Seat 61. Meanwhile, Anita told me about her upcoming (she leaves on Sunday) one way trip to Lisbon. ‘One way’ in that she doesn’t know when she’ll be back yet. Then Pernilla chimed in with her planned train trip to Croatia via Berlin.
It was another excellent night at Lagnö Bo. Long may they continue.
