Burnt butter sponge cake

We were listening to Sweden in Focus yesterday when a piece about cricket in Sweden came on. I have to admit, it made me a bit excited. On further investigation, it seems that cricket has actually been played in Sweden since 1883. I assume they started playing real cricket but, these days, they play T20, and so cricket stopped being played in Sweden. My excitement quickly abated.

Obviously, I don’t expect a novice cricket nation to leap straight into the skills and beauty of test cricket, but it would be preferable if they played proper limited over games. Rather than playing T20, they may as well play baseball instead.

Anyway, that aside, there was no cricket here, in Trosa today. At least not that I saw. The morning would have been okay, though the build up of clouds may have put a bit of swing in the ball. Of course, by the afternoon it was raining and play would have been interrupted then called off.

Almost better than an unexpected game of cricket, I left the house with Mirinda and the girls for lunch in town. My gout has almost, completely gone. I’m just left with a swollen foot, the pain has melted away like dissolved crystals of uric acid.

The lunch venue was my choice, so I picked Två Små Svin, somewhere I haven’t been for ages.

Obviously I had the steak tartare because they make one of the best I’ve ever had. Mind you, one of the things that makes theirs extra special is the vast quantity of horseradish, which effectively clears out the sinuses. But not today. Maybe there’s a horseradish shortage at the moment. I hope so, though it’s more likely there were complaints and the chef adjusted it.

Obviously, I was tempting the gods to give me another bout of Joan’s Revenge, so named by Lorna following the digestive assault on three Weasels back in 2017, after eating plates of raw beef. It is still discussed when Weasels convene.

Mirinda, on the other hand, had her personal favourite, liver. I shiver just to write the word. Okay, liver might be good for you, but it makes my tongue curl remembering the taste. And that was a while ago; decades ago in fact. I don’t have many food dislikes but this is pretty high on the list.

In fact, my aversion is so great that when she offered me a taste of her fried capers, something I’m sure I would have liked, I rejected it because it shared the same plate as the dreaded liver.

Anyway, liver aside, our lunch was made complete by a small slice of burnt butter sponge with a raspberry coulis and white chocolate sauce. I don’t normally have dessert at lunch, but anything with burnt butter simply begs to be sampled. And it was delicious.

And, of course, the girls drew a bit of admiring attention. How anyone could object to well-behaved dogs in restaurants is beyond me, and one more reason for living in Trosa.

Oh, speaking of dogs, I meant to share this photo of Freya in her, somewhat oversized life jacket, preparing for her first trip in the new boat, possibly when the sun returns.

She actually did a little catwalk turn around the dining room before trying to get it off.

And, seriously, how could I possibly ignore this gem?

What Stupid Thing Did Donald Trump Say Today?

“One of the things we are going to be redoing is your parks. I know more about grass than any human being anywhere in the world. We are going to be regrassing your parks, new sprinklers systems. It will look like Trump national golf club.  Grass has a life. You know that? Grass has a life. We have a life, and grass as a life. The grass here died about 40 years ago“

Are Americans happy that their president knows so much about grass, yet virtually nothing about how tariffs work? Or what diplomacy is? Or how much Saddam Hussein shared his design choices? I guess not.

Actually, if I really think about it, if he is the world’s most knowledgeable authority on grass, perhaps that’s what he should be doing instead of turning the US into a dictatorship. I mean, why rob the world of this great grass authority?

Mind you, I can’t see his name on a Wikipedia list of famous agrostologists. So I added him but I bet the entry doesn’t last long.

MSN has the full story here.