Birthday Week

I turned 40 last week (cue: "oh my gawd, you don't look a year older than 39!"). 

As I have thankfully already ticked "major life crisis leading to drastic lifestyle change" off my to do list, I figured I have cause for celebration. For at least a few weeks. If not for the rest of my 41st year. Or the next decade or so? Let's not be stingy here. And all I want for my birthday decade is to welcome as many of my friends as possible to our new place. 

London lovelies Liz & Laurence hopped on a plane to start off the celebrations in Copenhagen. 

Pre-dinner welfie: please note the very paleo pork scratching in the front

I am lucky to have extremely thoughtful friends, who went out of their way to book the meatiest restaurant around (Nose2Tail), with OFFAL on the menu. Except they called it innards. Cute. 

We rolled out of there. And went straight to bed, funnily enough. That is what middle age does to you.  

Lamb leg to the left, lamb liver to the right

The rest of the weekend was spent at PaulssonPaleo HQ, working off all that Danish meat (organic, mind you!). L & L were really excited to pitch in, so we went straight to work:

L & L finishing off the sixth vegetable bed at lightning speed

A spot of barefoot stream clearing to keep your core strong

Our new rustic side table for the bbq spot!

We fed our guests a bit too, promise

I just hope we didn't break them... We may have to work on the "reigning in" of ambitious city folks. 

Eating With Danes

I always thought that I'd end up in Denmark if I moved back to Scandiland, but life throws you a few surprises along the way, ey? The good thing about South Sweden is that Copenhagen is pretty much around the corner, so when my London-based girlfriend Mette happened to be around, I got myself on a train and a bus and a train (those strikes are a bugger) to see her and and another London girl, Marie.

Copenhagen is a bit of a hipster food Mecca, so I was expecting great things. I wasn't disappointed! Our first food stop (yes, I ate myself through CPH) was the aptly named Palæo (forgive the Danes their spelling, they just need to feel a bit special, in a small brother kind of way). A grain-free meat fest was promised and pretty much delivered on, including bullet proof coffee (coffee with butter, oh yeah). The only caveat was the service that was, well, hapless in a prehistoric kind of way. Given the cuteness overload of the staff, however, they were promptly forgiven. 

Next up was 42Raw, a raw veganite heaven and funnily enough right next door to a second Palæo café. Nothing is heated above 42 degrees and hence retains many of the enzymes and nutrients that would otherwise be lost in the cooking process. Because we were already full, we headed straight for the cakes... 

Although a fairly sweet affair (assuming mostly from dried fruit and bananas), the cake didn't do too much to my blood sugar. Aces!

I needed the energy for the little house party at Marie's house later. The usual kitchen utensils were brought out after a few glasses of wine (organic, bien sûr, one doesn't do hangovers anymore) and the singing started. Is it just my Danish posse that has this particular fetish for air guitars and pretend microphones?!

This morning we walked into town and stopped at Bodega for breakfast. Given the grain-heavy brunch options, I went straight for the herring. It cracked me up how most of the lunch menu was so traditionally Danish... funny how cool gets redefined. Anyway, the herring was love at first bite. :-)