Coping with Copenhagen

Classic - but kind of smaller than you prepare for

when visual imagery is not enough

So last weekend my husband and I did something we haven't done in five years.  We took an overseas trip without our children.  We haven't done this since the girls were about 5 months in utero.  Even back then, as foetuses, they were already messing shit up for me.  Making me chunder in a toilet in Thailand that you really wouldn't have wanted to have to stick your head it.  Causing me to have to sit down every five minutes due to an unfortunate case of the headspins - it took an hour and a half to walk 10 minutes to the post office.  Messing with my hormones which resulted in me getting all emotional and hiding from my husband in a spare room in the hotel when he thought I'd left in a huff for the airport and tried to taxi there to rescue me.......I blame the little cretins.  It's all their fault.  None is mine.  None.  Never is.  Never will be.

Anyway, as you can possibly guess from the title, we were headed for Copenhagen for a weekend extravaganza...... of....... furniture and........pickled herring?  I never previously rated Danish cuisine to be honest.  Considering Denmark has had the number one restaurant in the world for quite some time now - they must be doing something right though.  Would have loved to visit it - it's called Noma.  By the way never google search "Noma" and press "images".  You will never eat again.  Unless you enjoy looking at pictures of African children  with teeth coming out holes in their heads.  Seriously, I don't think I will sleep tonight.  What the fuck???  Who names their restaurant after a disfiguring children's disease????

Anyway, despite this unfortunate coincidence, Noma is so ridiculously booked out, that the next available table was not available until January 8th.....for lunch.  God knows how you'd get into that place for dinner.  You'd have to book two years in advance, or possibly develop a relationship with the maître d' based on sexual favours for tables....and then again, who knows if you'd succeed. I'd have to brush up on my blow-job techniques - start reading Cleo again.   Should it be like that?  Am I willing to prostitute myself for odd food?  Should a restaurant actually be that popular?  Besides, how many ways can you prepare herring, open sandwiches and licorice?  I was never going to find out.  Well not this trip anyway.  Which was a shame as it was my husband's birthday on the Sunday.  I usually like to organise something memorable.  Possibly blow jobs with strangers was not the answer however.....

The making of carrot caviar

The whole Nordic cuisine is huge right now.  It's kind of a backlash against the molecular tapas style cuisine that fadded out from Spain a few years back.  In my opinion that was nice too - but it was a little tricky to tell what you were eating on occasion.  Carrot caviar?  Sure, why not?  Dry ice cooked egg?  I'll give it a go.  Fillet steak cooked without heat - but instead cooked under high pressure and sprinkled with pop rocks for the sizzling effect?  I'll chew it.  And I did.  I chowed down on all of that crap and more.

This Nordic-style approach is a return to more seasonal and local ingredients combined with highly refined cooking and food preparation techniques.  This style favours an emphasis on foraging for food - a.k.a. scrounging around for unwanted crap.  Australia's top restaurant - Attica - prides itself on exactly that.  Listen, I'm all for a seasonal ingredient, but, it's the scrounging itself that I'm just not convinced about.  The chef at Attica in Melbourne has some pictures of himself on their website scraping moss off a city alleyway.  Let's just hope he was participating in  "Keep Our City Streets Clean" campaign, rather than making a jus for his veal cutlets. Let's put it this way, when we partook in a dinner there I was certainly searching the menu for accompaniments of city fungi.   By the way, is that stuff called lichen rather than moss?  I'm never sure.  I tried to paste in the "foraging for moss" picture from Attica's website, but it wouldn't work.  Anyone who wants to see their dinner being gathered from some clumps of weeds, feel free to have a gander here - http://www.attica.com.au/#!m=gallery/album&id=4&imageID=12

Talking of lichen, I had a friend at Sandy Bay Infant School called Lichen Kemp.  For some unknown reason my parents had embraced the name themselves a few years before that, and decided to call their growing foetus Lichen once it arrived.  It's hard to believe Lichen was doing the rounds as a popular name in the 70s.....Luckily Davie rocked up and Lichen Saunders just didn't cut it for a boy.  By the time Louise appeared they'd stopped smoking dope.  Thus they were saved from making a rather large hippy-based mistake they would obviously regret once they re-discovered capitalism.  Poor old Li-Li Kemp wasn't so fortunate herself.  Take that as a warning current day pot smokers - If you choof weed you could end up naming your kid after one.

This is taken from the  "Noma" website - told you so......moss

Anyway, there was to be no visit to the number one restaurant in the world this trip.  But as I since found out, it has been knocked off it's perch by the Spanish again - pop rocks is back on the menu, moss is out.  So......who wants to visit number 2 anyway?  L a m e.

It's funny how after just a month you become acclimatised to the place in which you live.  You don't even notice how you've been affected until you have something to compare it to.  Israel had already invaded my psyche.  We flew out on Pegasus Air. The Winged Horse - sounds majestic?  Think again. Absolutely shit airline.  Really, so bad.  My cousin spent a few months as a tutor/manny for the Turkish owners of Pegasus.  They are unbelievably loaded - I saw pictures of their mansion.  It is obvious why.  The fucker has not spent a red dime on his fleet of jets.

Oh majestic Pegasus, your once glorious name is now mud

My seat was working overtime to hold in my body - and I promise I have not been eating that much hummus.  There shouldn't be a problem with mass.  My knees were practically up around my shoulders once the dude in front tipped his chair back - and that thing tilted a maximum of an inch.  It was squashier on there than it would be on a squash court completely filled with butternut pumpkins.  Not good.  And I was tired.  Extremely tired, considering we had to leave the house at 3am to make our 6am flight out of Tel Aviv.  And with the moving apartments, it had not been a relaxing week.  They have one redeeming feature on Pegasus Air alone, and that is that they have a cute safety video with Turkish kids acting out all the safety stuff.  I actually looked forward to watching it again after we changed planes in Istanbul.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oQK2X4WOwh8

It's hard to say "Just get me a fucking water" to this little poppit

But apart from that, the rest sux.  There's only so far a few precocious brats wearing life jackets can get you.  You have to order everything in advance - everything.  You can't even get a glass of water if you haven't pre-booked it.  As I'd been drinking wine the night before, this was no good.  No good at all.  We booked squat.  You always think it's worth the ten buck saving at the time of reservation.  So my recommendation to you is - Fuck Pegasus.  Who cares if it's the cheapest?  It's only the cheapest by 50 bucks or so.  Pay the extra - even ride to your destination on an actual horse with paper wings strapped to it's back.  It would be more pleasant.  You could also stop for a drink at your leisure.

So organised

I was right next to the window, and it was an unbelievably clear day across Denmark.  The plane flew low.  We came over the water, and after hitting the stunning coastline, soared across the land.  It was completely flat.  Not a hill, not a mountain, not a slope in sight.  And it was sublime down there.  Perfect patchworks of gorgeous looking fields of various shades of green and brown with a little farmhouse situated perfectly in the middle.  Quaint little towns that looked like they were made from Lego.  All the houses matched and were in perfect lines. It was like toy town.  You could tell it was clean too, and that everyone would pick up their dog shit and wouldn't yell at you all the time.  And scatered throughout the landscape below, those huge white windmills were slowly turning.  As you approach Copenhagen those windmills are even in the sea.  It's quite a sight.

Blow my pretties blow

It looks like a futuristic world with historical buildings propped up as a backdrop.  You get off the plane and the place is immaculate.  Immaculate and quiet.  The wooden parquetry on the airport floor is beautifully laid and clean.  There are no garish pictures all over the airport walls.  The toilets are delightful - the sinks have no broken soap dispensers spilling pink gunk all over them, there's no toilet paper on the floor.  It's glorious.  All the Danes are stylishly attired, friendly and polite.  Not a single 60 year old rocking the slut-look in sight.  I have decided I now want to be Danish.  That Danish style - so uncomplicated, so simple, so refined, so classic.

It was why we were there in the first place.

Ooooh yeah

Danish designed furniture has always been in vogue - but lately it has made somewhat of a resurgence. That classic 50ish, 60ish  style. Curved lines, functional simplicity.  The trouble is, that outside Denmark it is bloody expensive to deck your joint out with such a look.  But in Denmark, not so much - which makes sense really.  So, we've been to Denmark on a couple of occasions, and one of our favourite things to do outside making ourselves physically ill from over indulgence in licorice, is to go to Illums Boligus - a four story department store full of wares and furniture, and masturbate over the entire contents of the shop.  I think I mentioned this rather seedy habit in December when I wrote a blog about my pathetic desperation to bond with "Our Mary" - H.R.H The Crown Princess of Denmark on my previous visit to Copenhagen.  I've given up on that now....it became obvious my friendship was being rebuffed.

Hello Lover!  (The shop, not old baldy in the foreground)

Anyway, the fact that we had an almost bare apartment to stock and tax free shopping out of Denmark and into Israel.  This meant that things were looking rosy as far as buying Danish furniture was concerned.  We had one whole day to achieve our dreams.  It was time to get active and organised, and spend spend spend.  The first two I'm not so good with, but the spending???......bring it bitch.  We spend 7 hours in that place.  Carefully surveying the wares, including photographing.  Then we took a brief lunch break, discussed the options, made some decisions, went back to the shop, ordered the big items, bought smaller goods to stuff our empty suitcases with, claimed our tax and went back to the hotel to collapse.  It was satisfying.  Really unbelievably satisfying.

That night was the birthday night feast.  We had gone to a really nice restaurant the night before as recommended by our hotel, so I was hoping my choice would live up to it.  I can't remember what exactly we had at the first place, but I do remember that there was some kind of steaming tea poured in a kind of moat that was incorporated around my desert plate.  This was meant to emulate the mist in the valleys on the Danish island from which all the food was sourced.  Alright then......and I thought teppanyaki grills were a bit show-pony.  I took me a while to warm up on arrival.  We had made the mistake of taking a bicycle taxi because the waiter in the previous bar had recommended such a move as an essential Danish experience.  What he should have possibly added was "Take a bicycle taxi with someone who is actually familiar with Copenhagen.  When a 5 minute ride around the corner turns into a 30 minute ride out to the highway and it's 3 degrees - well, things aren't great.  Even less great when you discover you've left your handbag at the bar you just had a cocktail in.  Fuck.

I'm telling you, it was bloody scary by night

Anyway.  Come birthday night I did well.  Bloody well. I found a brand new restaurant  started by the ex sous chef from Noma, who obviously split and by the looks of it, took many of the staff with him. It was called Amass. I managed to book a 9pm table by the skin of my nads 3 weeks before.  So I was feeling pretty smug.  I had a slight rush of panic when the taxi, upon exiting the city limits, drove into deserted shipyards on the outskirts of town.  I just finished watching the 3rd series of The Killing (Danish version of course) - that's some twisted shit......love it......Thus it was a bit understandable to imagine that we were going to skinned alive and hung from metal chains in a deserted warehouse while the taxi driver sent taunting pictures of our bloody carcases to the Danish police.  Even though Sarah Lund would sort that bastard out, I was still concerned for my safety.  I like my skin.....However the so called restaurant was not looking promising - I actually made the taxi driver get out of the cab and investigate the entrance.  As I mentioned, I've got experience in knowing how Danish serial killers get their victims in the empty factory in the first place.  I was taking no chances.

The shit bro

But we were waved in by some hipster looking chef with a headband on, and thus it was on - dinner at Amass.  You entered from upstairs.  The entire place was set up down below in an open industrial looking space with street art all over the back wall.  Typically Danish.  Annoying cool, while successfully pretending that no effort was made at all.  We went the 5 course taster with matching wines.
I'm too lazy to describe all the dishes, so I will just copy and paste the menu as is with a little extra commentary.


Cod Head Rillette (basically some old fish head found on the jetty after the fishermen went home)

Arctic Char, Buckwheat, Nasturtium (no idea what these things are)

Monkfish, Bitter Radish, Söl, Beef Fat ( unwanted bitter radishes and fat trimmings - picked out of the garbage - Söl is seaweed - basically beach garbage)

Wild Duck, Red Beet, Black Garlic, Giganteus Oil (free ducks, old garlic - plus I googled giganteus and a picture of a half spider/half scorpion came up - wish I'd done that before dinner)

Apple, Black Pepper Ice Cream, Vinegar Caramel, Oregano (Jesus.  Are they trying to poison us with the leftover crap on the chopping board?)

Take it from me - it was quite the experience.  Those dudes sure know what to do with piles of unwanted rubbish.  And there was no moss.  No lichen, possibly no weeds of any kind - but I'm still investigating there.  Not that I would have known regardless, I was blind by dessert.  A pre-dinner champagne and 5 matching wines (with top ups) can do that to the best of us.  I also had some kind of after dinner throat sizzling petrol presented as some sort of gourmet liquor.  I was not a pretty sight the next morning.  But then again, it is rare for me to be a pretty sight in the mornings these days.  So probably the staggering and the hair all over my face teemed with the pasty complexion was not much different from every other day.  More moaning though, definitely more moaning.

Beautiful

But, we had a plane to catch, and a trip back to Israel on our agendas.  We now had heavy suitcases and felt ill from spending so much cash....and eating seaweed and discarded fish and drinking petrol.  It was raining in Copenhagen.  And it was bloody freezing.  As I looked around at all the people, the grey streets, although beautiful, seemed pretty grim in the wet gloom.  I knew that everyone was shaping up for 3-4 months of winter hell.  No wonder they all looked a bit depressed.  I was in Copenhagen last December and it wasn't exactly a welcoming climate.  I began to look forward to returning back to the pumping excitement of Tel Aviv.  One thing you can't go past, no matter what you think of the place, is the weather.  And weather really does matter to overall experience.  Just ask any Tasmanian during "Summer".  At this time of year, it is superior in Israel - 25 degrees daily;15 overnight.  Sunny, not windy.  Bloody glorious.  And of course there's the people, who really characterise a country.  The Danes may be friendly, polite, cool and stylish, but they lack that warmth that Israelis possess once you get beneath the prickly outer surface.  Native Israelis call themselves sabras - which means prickly pears.  A popular seasonal fruit - sweet inside, but covered with tiny spikes on the outside.  I never really liked the taste myself, but some people love them.  Plus, it's a very apt description.

Flying back into Tel Aviv felt like coming home.  And it made me happy that it did.  And besides, prickly pears really grow on you if you give them a chance.

Anyone.....anyone????