Rosendals Tradgard in September

The Swedes love their gardens--a little wild, thank you--and these pictures from Rosendals in Stockholm show that a gorgeous harvest time, before the first frost. Stockholm can have snow in October!

Here in Northern California the days start out cool then get warm. The sky is cloudless, the afternoon shadows long and light that tints everything honey color.

an apple, water, flour

Those are the ingredients in the French country bread I made. It took a week from the time I chopped up the apple and added water (which after a few days began to ferment) and eventually, when flour was added, produced the yeasty basis for the bread.
I am still amazed at this process and the successful result I had! I heap credit on William Alexander's book 52 Loaves which inspired me with his year-long quest to reproduce a peasant bread he had tasted years earlier and couldn't get out of his mind. It's a wonderful, often funny journey that takes him to France and on visits to food scientists and flour producers as he develops his recipe.

The bottom photo shows the container of "levain" or starter which stays in the refrigerator, ready for making the next loaf.

end of summer at Rosendals

I know I've shown pictures from Rosendal's in Stockholm...here is what the garden is looking like now in waning summer.

getting rid of the rug

Good riddance to the old living room rug. You see what a mess lay underneath, the backing decomposed so it looked like cornmeal all over the floor. Lots of vacuuming and lemon oil and elbow grease later and you see it is looking lots better and cleaner. We need to go over it another time with the lemon oil but the condition of the 1930s floor is very nice and I'm happy to keep it bare. We went through a few xacto blades to cut the rug into strips that fit in the garbage can--one rolled up strip goes into the can each week.

inspired by Copenhagen

As I mentioned before, many Danish homes have pretty lanterns at their front door but I couldn't find any at home that I liked. Until now! Here is one I bought at a cute boutique in San Anselmo called Delectables. I love it with the ceramics from Lotus Bleu the terrific design boutique in San Francisco where my daughter works.

rescued from a dumpster

Dumpsters attract my attention when I'm out walking but usually they're filled with debris. How about this iron planter?? I went right out to buy moss and plants and in no time I've got happy flowers perched on my deck railing.

Illums Bolighus

There are other department stores in Copenhagen but the house/home store of Illums Bolighus is fantastic. We were told we would likely find a particular souffle dish there--we needed to replace one we'd broken in our exchange apartment. If that dish hadn't crashed to the floor, we wouldn't have discovered this gorgeous store, filled with all the top Nordic and European brands of homewares, marimekko, iittala, Design House Stockholm to name a few. The displays were stunning--check out the rainbow of colors of Peugeot pepper mills, the glorious KitchenAid mixers and racks of pretty Marimekko paper napkins. In the big glass tubs are cool looking clothespins (the Danes like to dry clothes outside in summer, these pins would make the job more fun).

You see the lanterns? Many houses in our neighborhood in Copenhagen had lanterns such as these at the front door; I've been looking here at home for cute ones like these, without any luck so far.