Luxurys antonym is necessity...

Last week, Melissa and yours truly had planned to lavishly celebrate our seven years together at a french restaurant here in Stockholm (www.paname.se). Unfortunately, she was recovering from a cold and we decided it wasn't the best idea... Instead, I promised her I'd bring the restaurant to her. This was the result:

First Entree:
-Fois Gras with fresh, sliced ciabatta.

Second Entree:
-Chicory lettuce with wine vinegar dressing, red onion, bacon and croutons.

Main Course:
-Roast duck breast with apple puree and fried parsley potatoes.

First Dessert:
-Goat cheese with med pecan nuts and honey coulis.

Second Dessert:
-Gratinated strawberries with an Elder flower (fläder), egg and cream sauce with vanilla ice cream.

Wines:
-Château La Borne moelleux, Bordeaux Blanc 2005.
-Beaujolais-Villages, Château du Souzy 2006.


...of course, I write this to brag about the accomplishment, but it also brings up the issue of something being luxurious or not. The common perception of something fancy or, as i mentioned, luxurious, is the idea of something being expensive.




Even though they are opposites, can a necessity still be, or feel like, a luxury and vice-versa? Last weekend, we went on a picnic in the woods. We sat in the sun on the top of a cliff with a small fire, roasting low-budget (tasteless) hot dogs over fire. It felt luxurious, although dirty, cheap and incredibly low-tech. Not what most people would call princely, but I loved it!



Is it a good thing to think of romance in the same way? And is that a luxury? I see all these shows on TV about the perfect (always rich) -boyfriend, -father etc... Does that give people false, not to mention close to impossible goals? Is the perfect father really the one who buys his kids anything, anytime? And if you take your partner in a helicopter ride, is it automatically romantic? People aren't stupid, far from it, I think (or at least choose to think) most people watching these shows realise that the things they see there aren't the perfect thing, and that that helicopter ride could be the most boring experience ever under the wrong circumstances. But do these shows plant a seed in peoples head? Do you need to go expensive to show love, or friendship? Again, people aren't stupid, but you DO get flattered when receiving expensive gifts. Does it have anything to do with the fact that someone has worked several hours to earn that money? Maybe, sometimes. But it's still my firm belief that we should remind ourselves more often of how peoples small efforts mean so much more a few years later than stuff bought at an expensive cost just to save time. Just like those little things we keep somewhere in the attic, tucked away and forgotten. When we find them again, they bring back a flood of memories. I guess, tragically enough, I'm saying the MasterCard commercial is right, some things are priceless.

When i brought home and unboxed my new laptop a few weeks ago, there was a scratch on it, while I was getting worked up my friend told me it didn' t matter, that it was only a tool and not a precious jewel. He was right, and i slowly realised that. He helped me remember we should all consider how we see money, a way to achieve goals, or the goal itself....? We should all get friends like that, like MasterCard would say: "Priceless".

Isn't there something beautiful about that?

At home, we occasionally (notice I'm using an obvious understatement) enjoy a nice bottle of wine. Usually, we leave empty bottles of really good fuddle behind, kindly imported from France by my father. But since the amount of wonderful liquid fitting in a car (previously a truck) is quite limited, we still need to buy some in Sweden. As my budget is restrained, but mostly because I hate paying 15€ more than I usually do for the exact same bottle just because it's got a description in Swedish on it and a new levy, I tend to go for the cheaper bottles.



To the point: the other day, my lovely partner brought home a bottle of Australian Merlot, more specifically Lindemans Bin 40. Let me start out by getting my rant about the bottle etiquette out of the way... First of all, It's about as classy as baked beans on toast, and does that pregnant sign mean that all other wines are ok for women with child to drink? Anyway, at first it didn't taste, ahem..., especially well. It had more of a gasoline quality to it, but once we tried with food (grated- apple, beetroot and horseradish) it actually got good!


The change was so dramatic it led me to think about one of my favourite books: "Le Parfum" (Perfume), and how smells, and in this case taste, amazingly can be combined to form the most unexpected results. I once discovered that a fresh strawberry completely kills the taste of Gorgonzola and vice versa.... I try to cook with that experimental state of mind whenever I can, which is pretty much every time. You ever noticed how you can wing a great recipe, but never get it right again? Same thing goes for most things in life, you can never refabricate a party, a weekend, a vacation, a job interview or even a friendship, it can be good again, better even, but the same? No. Loss or gain, I won't force you to decide, but isn't there something beautiful about that?

You're welcome to click the pictures too see the full size ones, especially the horrible "McDonalds" etiquette from the Merlot.

He who laughs last, laughs best?

I've been laughing at bloggers for quite a while now, well...., that's not really fair as i actually read a good bunch of them myself (although mostly large ones filled with sizzling video game news). What i find funny are all these thousands upon thousands of small bloggs meant for people to express their ideas, feelings and other random stuff only their closest friends would stop to read. These friends probably already know, or should threw actual social interaction (if anyone comments on a blogg being some kind of social interaction, I'll hunt down your IP and hand it to the MPA). Does blogging have the same mesmerising "facebook-effect" as so many other things on the Internet? Fun at first but with time more and more sporadic posts and finally blogg-death? What do you do then, host some kind of funeral or just let it slip away in the constant flow of the Internet? When i was about five bowling balls tall, i used to bury tin boxes with stuff for future archeologist's to discover, could a long gone blogg be rediscovered in a distant future? Probably not, and if it actually is during our lifetime, would that give the author a great moment of melancholy or the shame of a 9 year old boy who couldn't find his tin box again?

Still, i can' t help myself from feeling that i want such an outlet anyway.... So here it goes. May the force be with me...

I'm gonna ask questions, loads of question. And I'll probably provide the world with so few answers that even my closest friends will take me for a complete moron.

But as King Leonidas would say:
"THIS IS VICTOR MARCEL MANGEMATIN!!!!"