There is nothing quite like winter in the north of Sweden. Dark nights and crisp, cold air. A sun that rises and sets almost at the same time. The northern lights we see from our windows.
Really, I wish you could’ve been here with Brian, Joann, and me as we spent the day baking in the old baking cottage in Tjärn, just a stone’s throw from Skellefteå, where I’ve now been living for almost 10 years. The cottage, which has been used for generations to bake traditional flatbreads and buns in its stone oven, has the most beautiful wooden work bench and small windows overlooking snow-covered fields dotted with frosted birches and pine trees.
To begin the day, we headed to Svedjan Ost, a dairy farm run by my friends Pär and Johanna Hellström. We collected the milk, buttermilk, and butter for our recipes, as well as sampled their artisanal cheeses, which make the perfect accompaniment to my buttermilk and rye soda bread.
On the way back to the cottage, we stopped to visit Jón Óskar Arnason at ÓGIN Distillery in Boviken, where he showed us how he encapsulates the essence of the Swedish landscape into his gins, distilling the aromas of the subarctic flora. I love to add his cloudberry gin to my cloudberry and orange marmalade. (Cloudberries are a small fruit that’s native to arctic and subartic alpine areas; they look similar to raspberries and ripen to a bright yellow-gold color.)
As the daylight began to fade, we returned to the cozy cottage, where the room came alive to the warmth of the fire. In the kitchen, we embraced sunny ingredients like saffron, citrus, and cloudberries that appeal to me during the dark and
