One Given Sunday

Sundays in a non-religious way mean fun and get-togethers, amongst families and friends. True to the Christian interpretation of the creation of mankind, the seventh day is meant for rest and satisfaction of one's conscience that the previous six days were well-spent in productive ways that helped improve society.

I don't have too many free Sundays and this is the problem (and supreme sacrifice) of caring for helpless and sickly people. Deep inside me, I secretly wish that I would have the same devotion to duty in my very old age. But at the rate the Swedish government is holding back on wages for the healthcare sector, chances are, there'll be more illiterates who cannot differentiate between dementia and diabetes.

But one given Sunday, I finally got hold of my teenage granddaughter - whose weekend calendar is fully booked in advance. So we headed off to her favorite childhood playground, Skansen. It is a microcosm of Swedish tradition, nature, animals and history. It is a good Sunday outing for families and an excellent hospitality gesture for visitors with limited days in Stockholm. So Ariana ( my granddaughter ) found in Skansen an international festival of which the Philippines was also a participant.

Bonding with grandchildren is a challenge these days, especially if the generation gap is wide and deep. But between me and Ariana, it cannot be that big a gap as I have caught up with the internet tech, familiarised myself with the pop culture and lingo, and I shed off my parents' authoritative grip over children. I can joke so that Ariana blushes when I said that, it would utterly impossible to make love to a gypsy without being entangled in her skirt.

Swedish children grow up to be adults, too fast and too soon. Since corporal punishment was outlawed many years ago, children now have become state properties. They can go direct to any state authority and complain about their parents or teachers. They have rights, since the UN ratified the Child Convention. Infact, too much rights, that they don't know how to exercise them in responsible manners. See all those buss stations with broken glass walls? Teenagers! Arson in schools? Gangs robbing elderly people. Youngsters who don't give a damn about giving their bus seats to old people. Drunks in the underground train. Loud and leud conversations. Just a few of the now-generation antics that would have been impossible in my own teenage days in the Philippines.

But Ariana was brought up to be a responsible person and to understand the burden of making one's own decision and taking the consequence. To be able to differentiate between right and wrong at an early age is a moral strength that elders can hand down to our children, and them to theirs. When most politicians (seeking a second term) join the global warming bandwagon and trigger-happy raise taxes on everything, we private persons can hold on to our sense of ethics and morality.

More on chili fruits

The habanero is the hottest compared to the mild Spanish pepper. It has a fruity aroma and may be used with great care with sweet fruits like mango. It is sensitive to strong heat and therefore must be added last in the dish. A relative is the yellow scotch bonnet. The piri piri is small but very strong. It is very common in Portugal and is excellent with fish and prawns' marinade. Piri piri powder is extra strong.

In Mozambique where my family lived from 1983 to 1987, grilled piri piri prawns was a popular delicacy. The jalapeno is the most useful if chili fruits as well as being the most popular around the world. It serves a number of uses, mostly sauce and chutneys. The Spanish pepper is the best known variety. The strength varies from mild to strong. It is decorative as they can be cut to look like flowers.

Did you know that mango and chili fruit is an unbeatable combination? You can make smoothie by mixing 1/2 package of diced mangoes and chopped chili, add 3 dl mild yoghurt natural, 1 dl water, 1 tsp honey and pinch of salt. Chili fruits are rich in vitamin B and carotine which strengthen the immune system and protects the body's cells. They contain substances known to be anti-oxidants.

(Ed. note) Start your read with "Autumn delights". "More on chili fruit" should be the 3rd article.

Know your chili fruits

Chili has its origin in South America. The seafarers in the 1500- century took them to Europe. Piri piri is a chili sort planted by the Portuguese in its African colonies. Piri piri means pepper. The hottest part of the chili fruit is the seeds that one can remove to decrease the taste of fire. Its good to know the different kinds of chili and how to use them for cooking.

You have the chipotele-the red, ripe jalapeno that turns brown when dried. Good for barbecue sauce and marinade. The de arbol are red dried smaller chilis than the Spanish ones. Used to add sting to vinegar and oil, as well as taste provider for sauces, stews and soups. The ancho is the big, dark red chili fruit poblano. The New Mexican is also a big chili fruit that has several names. The taste is herb-like and earthy. Its strength varies from mild to strong. Also used for stews, soups and grill marinade.

In the Philippines, we have the "siling labuyo", small but terribly strong chili that Filipino addicts fortify during storms by building walls around the chili plant. Very true in the Bicol region where I come from.

Hot chili for the cold winter

I have a work colleague from Haiti, Yvonne who makes the best chili sauce according to my London-based, chili lover son, Cholo. She buys all the different kinds of chili she can find in Skärholmen market- a suburb in Stockholm where one can buy exotic food ingredients for very reasonable prices. Yvonne has not revealed the secret of her chili sauce. She chops all these different chili fruits, boil them with vinegar, seasoning, sugar, salt, and vegetable oil. Could be some hidden ingredients I don't know.

However, I found two good recipes for making chili paste and marinated chili. For the chili paste, use the Mexican chili fruit that has a herbal and earthy taste. Use around 20g dried chili fruit and let boil for an hour. Mix with couple of spoonful raps oil or better yet, olive oil. Let cool and keep in a jar stored in the fridge. As for the marinated chili, use several kinds. Wash in running water and chop them into small pieces. Put in a pan with one deciliter apple vinegar, 1 dcl.water, one tsp. sugar and 1 tsp salt. Store in a jar with tight lock.

Use the chili paste/sauce for stews and other adventurous food mixes. I meet some people at my son Luis wedding in June, who cannot do without chili sauce. It was very handy that I bought four bottles of Yvonne's still undiscovered chili sauce marvel. One bottle went to Hongklong with Sarni and Toshi and earlier, another went to London with Cholo. And now that autumn is here, I must keep my kitchen warm and cozy with hot stews and chili. As all my friends know, the kitchen is my favorite part of the house.

Autumn delights

Autumn is my favorite Swedish season for many reasons - a spell-binding landscape of riotous red, orange and brown colours; the softness of chilly wind that touches the face; the exciting autumn and winter fashion clothes and most of all, the smell of wonderful stews from the kitchen.

We come across thousands of food recipes from every part of the world and cultures - for different seasons and moods, for casual and formal entertaining. We also have favorite favorite culinary experts whose magic in the kitchen we simply marvel at. Take the case of Jamie Oliver, very young, very rich and very herb-oriented. I borrowed a few of his recipes- like baked salmon with herb, lemon and spinach stuffings, added some other ingredients (lemon grass) and now I call mine. Yes, one can borrow other people's recipes and make them your own by discovering new ingredients that suit best your taste.

Here's a borrowed one that I served recently at a dinner for six people. I started with mango cubes and shrimps marinated in lemon, chili, salt and pepper. The next course was spring rolls with Thai sweet sour sauce. Then came this great Mexican stew- a chili con carne, done with bigger chunks of beef ( instead of ground meat); garlic, red onions, red and gold paprica, little rapsoil and fresh chili fruit; one can of cut tomatoes; meat cube for seasoning, one can of big white beans plus another can of kidney beans. You can use different kind of beans, actually. Serve this hot with french garlic bread and marinated cucumber and tomator salad. For sweets, a piece of blueberry cake with vanilla ice cream. The evening was well-remembered.

Swedish nature treasures

The month of September is a time for mushroom and wild berries in the forests of Sweden. But the weather has been erratic and unpredictable that the fabulous forest gold, the "kantarell" or chanterelle mushrooms-most sought after by pickers, already peaked in August. The combined force of heat and rain induced the growth of forest mushrooms with unprecedented speed.

When we had our summer house in Hargshamn, about two and a-half hours from Stockholm, mushroom and berries picking became an obsession. Fishing in the nearby Baltic waters was also an addiction. Swedish summers' long days allowed for many adventures into the forests and waters. Hargshamn, where we had our summer house, borders on the Baltic sea and the waters have an abundant supply of fishes, especially herring.

Kantarell grows in mossy forests, usually in the same areas every year. Many pickers have secret "ställe" or places they will reveal to no one, and every year they revisit the same kantarell places. In the month of October comes another most-sought -after mushroom, the "trattkantarell". They are either brownish or orangish in color and they grow thick in particular areas. There are also black ones but rather rare. One can walk the forest for hours without discovering any, but once you spot one, then you have discovered the whole regiment.

They are secret places held close to the heart of pickers. Such secrets remain closely kept until death and are passed on to the heirs of the estate. It goes like this: " Äskling" (darling) here are the secret chanterelle places, but don't by all means include them in my asset inventory, otherwise the tax authority will come and tax you." Sweden is an overtaxed country such that simple joys we get from nature's treasures, including clean air, we must keep to ourselves only, least the tax eager politicians get the wrong ideas.

Other worthy mushroom competitors are the "Karl Johan" and wild champignons. Hundreds of wild mushrooms populate the Swedish forests although more than half are unedible if not deadly poisonous. Some newspapers accounts told of foreigners taken ill for eating poisonous mushrooms. The worst kind is the "flugsvamp" which comes in spotted white or red. So beautiful yet so deadly evil.

What did I do with baskets of mushroom harvests I take back to Stockholm? The kantarells, including the tratt can be dried. Use some newspaper under that absorbs the moisture. Or, permitting space in the fridge, fry them in their own moisture with some salt. No butter and pepper, as they could change the taste of the mushroom when you saute' them as side dish for your roasts. Pack them according to consumption portions. If you want to eat them fresh, then fry them with little butter, salt and pepper and put them on toast bread. A real delicacy, I promise. But before consumption, clean them with a soft brush because they have some bits of soil and dead leaves from being in the forest.

As for the treasures of the water, fishing herrings called "strömming" is a real summer sport. Its the only time one is allowed seven hooks to a line. The "strömming" which comes and goes in schools are caught not necessarily through the mouth but other parts of the body the hooks happen to hit. In June I used to go out around nine in the morning with my fishing gear and a pail. Since the days were really long, I'd stay fishing until ten, eleven in the evenings or until my husband came looking for me.

Cleaning "strömming" is not my favorite part of the sport. Too many scales, too slimy, and just too many in the pail. That part I normally left to my patient hubby. And the fishing goes on until there's no more space in the freezer. When that happened, I took the whole lot back to Stockholm, including the other catch that our neighbour supplied us. Back in Stockholm, I knocked on my friends' doors and asked: " Hi, want some "gädda"?

And so I spread the joys of picking and catching to non-pickers and non-catchers.

Experiencing Africa

Being in Africa begun in July 1983, long before Angelina Jolie adopted her Etiopian child and later gave birth to her own in Namibia; or Madonna who followed suit and got her highly-publicised Malawi son. It was also years before America's super media mogul Oprah Winter focused her benevolence and wealth on South Africa, to build a leadership school for girls. Nelson Mandela - whom I admire to be the true father of democracy in the world, was still in prison in Robin Island, and apartheid's reign of terror held the heart of Southern Africa.

We, my family - consisting of two teenage boys and my Swedish diplomat-husband - arrived in Nairobi, Kenya for a week's holiday prior to settling down in Maputo, Mozambique - the new diplomatic assignment. Our first encounter with Africa's wildlife begun in Ambosele Park, - around six hours drive from Nairobi - passing through a vastness of open fields without vegetation except for huge umbrella-shaped trees that punctuated a mirage of sea. On the top branches were hanging bird nests shaped like pouches. There were famous Marabo birds - huge like horses that could run with similar speed, if pursued. One huge egg is equivalent to twelve chicken eggs if scrambled. In Nairobi's park, we saw a snake pit with the world's most dangerous species like the mamba. It was an exciting introduction into the Africa we would embrace for the next five years.

Mozambique's capital is Maputo - known during the Portuguese era, as Lorenzo Marques. After some 400 years of Portuguese colonisation, Mozambique finally got its independence. When we arrived, the Marxist Frelimo liberation army had taken the reigns of government. It had huge problems, an economy in ruins, agriculture was minimal and limited, food was in shortage as everything else, and the government lacked the infrastructure to govern. In short, the Frelimo was learning the big difference between struggling as a liberation army and struggling as a legitimate government. Samora Machel, the charismatic Frelimo leader was the president. His wife was Graca Machel, education minister who later married Nelson Mandela.

The Mocambicans are a gentle people. Very few have education and employment was scarce such that, the diplomatic homes were staffed mostly by men, not women. The majority of the menfolk were contract workers in South African mines, leaving their homes and families to the women. Womenfolk carrying babies on their backs, trekked tens of kilometers to their farms. Mozambique was to become later the third largest Swedish develoment aid recipient, a large part of which went into subsidising its budgetary deficit.

Aside from its charms as a country of many tourism potentials, it lies just beside the Indian ocean, its source of fish and seafoods. But whatever harvests it gets like tiger shrimps, only go to its main ally, then USSR to barter with oil. Even other exportable goods like semi-precious stones go to its Eastern European friends. As a Marxist state, its diplomatic relation was strong with the former communist states, whose representatives in Maputo often liked to show who was " more equal than the others".

Before the Swedish government built its new grandious embassy in Maputo, the old embassy - where my husband held office as ambassador, was housed on the second floor of a fish-smelling apartment. The embassies and residences of big powers like the US, USSR and Great Britain were grander by comparison. Sweden was a butt of diplomatic jokes because it did not know how use its development aid muscle to get a better building. It felt even at this time, that no matter how much aid came to Mozambique, it would continue like Tanzania to be an international aid mendicant.

We went to neighboring Swaziland quite often because my husband was also accredited to the "Queen Elephant Mother" - as the tribal head of state who was mother of the Crown Prince was known. The old king of Swaziland had around 120 wives by the time he died. His heir, the English- educated Crown Prince was crowned king in an extravagant ceremony attended by diplomatic representatives of most countries. First came the tribal coronation, then the Westernised one, complete with open field shows and games. The streets of Swaziland glimmered in black Mercedes Benzes, all flown in to service the foreign guests. The extravaganza could have answered a year's budget without foreign borrowings. Many years after we left, this young king had surpassed his father's number of wives.

Experiencing Africa then, was seeing not only the extreme ends of poverty and disease but encountering victims of the on-going civil war between the Frelimo and its armed opposition, known locally as the "bandidos". Fightings raged in many parts of the country which made travelling by road extremely dangerous. What used to be a leisurely 3-hour drive to Swaziland for our monthly food shopping became impossible because the "bandidos" shot at cars and burned them. Pictures of buses burned with its passengers still inside and others hacked by machete came out in the "Noticias", the only local paper. One afternoon, Maputo was rocked by explosions from bombs that exploded nearby. All embassies went into crisis meetings to carry out a mass evacuation plan. But it was contained and evacuation did not take place. But bombings in small scale took place in many houses believed to be harbouring anti-apartheid guerillas, the African National Congress or ANC. The Pretoria regime had a fantastic intelligence system that was able to locate precisely ANC safehouses.

In the later years in Mozambique, we experienced not only constant fear from the on-going fightings but worst of all, the tragedy of a presidential plane crash carrying Samora Machel, some of his advisers and ministers and the ambassadors of Zambia and Congo. The presidential plane was Russian-made, the pilot was Russian-trained and on its way from a peace summit, it ran into a night storm, lost its direction and crashed. Maputo mourned its beloved leader, and funeral parades were also held for the ambassadors who lost lives. The death of Samora Machel was investigated, and to this date, no one believes a hundred percent that it was not the working of his enemy, apartheid South Africa.

This was my piece of Africa that lives on. We have visited other countries in Southern Africa especially South Africa, Botswana, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Lesotho, Swaziland and Malawi. There are many differences between these nations not only in languages they spoke, but to a great extent, they mirror the influences of the colonising powers that shaped their nationhoods. Today, the Marxist states have succumbed to the lures of the market economy, opened their boundaries to tourism and foreign investments. But, their economies have not taken off. And if one looks at Zimbabwe today, it is in worst condition as when it was a newly-liberated state. In Mozambique, Foreign Minister Chissano became the new president. He remains so up to today, 20 years later. To the gentle Mocambicans I say: " A luta continua!"