Day 1420: Beans, beans the musical fruit.

This weekend I was on salad duty at a BBQ so I made a bean salad as I often do. There's only one ingredient that is tricky to find and I usually just leave it out, but since I'm on my summer hols I actually had time for once to try and find them. Presenting;

HUNT FOR RED OCTOBER RUNNER BEANS

Runner beans are readily available in England but finding them here is trickier. Translator programs can't translate "runner bean" into Swedish because they give "löpande bönor" (running beans) which is probably helpful in an extremely specific situation. Wikipedia suggested rosenbönor as the Swedish translation, so I asked a few Swedish people if they've eaten rosenbönor and suspiciously they had not. I showed them pictures of runner beans, they had never seen them and couldn't give me a name. Brytbönor was one suggestion, but those are large green beans and not the flat runner bean. The confusion stems from the fact that all of these similar beans (green, runner, haricots, kidney, flageolet) come from the family Phaseolus vulgaris and Wikipedia lumps them all together unless you know what to search for and give a specific term.

I basically gave up after that.

But as the picture above can attest, runner beans do, in fact, exist here. They are called skärbönor (cut beans) presumably because you have to cut them into bits before eating. But they're bloody expensive and hard to find, so this supports the theory that Swedish people don't know what they are and don't cook with them. Just one of many foods that vary from place to place!

Day 1413: Balcony Wars

My sister in England has a balcony, sometimes she goes out there for a smoke, the rest of the time it has some malnourished plants on it. Another person I know has a balcony and it serves as a bike rack. One couple have a little strip of a balcony, not quite big enough for furniture, and they use the balcony to take pictures showing everyone how amazing their flat is but then they go inside to share the pictures.

Meanwhile, in Sweden... I returned from holiday only to discover that I have unwittingly entered into a balcony war of one-upmanship with my neighbours, because balconies are SERIOUS BUSINESS over here. And people actually use them.

Actual photo of my balcony

Despite the fact that outdoor areas are basically uninhabitable for half the year, Swedes go to great lengths to decorate their outdoor areas. As summer begins, around about May/June, all the magazines, shopfronts, websites, department stores, newspaper adverts, huge billboards and everything else imaginable go full force with DECORATE YOUR OUTDOOR AREAS. They haven't quite added the OR ELSE yet, but it's implied. And in true keeping with the rest of the typical Swedish house, the balcony gets filled with this season's latest trend consisting in the form of whatever the shop Hemtex has as its latest cloth pattern, and whatever the magazine Sköna Hem churned out from its hulking great impracticality generator.

Like this.

OOh..Aaah so beautiful! So mysigt! (cosy).
Yeh. 'Till it rains like fuck as it always does in the Swedish summer. Apparently summer is either used for going to a cabin somewhere in the woods OR running backwards and forwards putting out and taking in a bunch of fucking pillows and rugs.

What about this:

Wow, such cosmopolitan, very city.
Too bad Stockholm IN NO WAY resembles New York where that picture was clearly taken. Also, are they sure that's not just a cafe they've stolen a picture of? I often wish my balcony was a cafe for 50 people.

Alright, this:

This one's bordering on practical, it's just some metal furniture from IKEA and a plant box. And then 5 strings of PAPER LANTERNS that you have to fucking RUN OUT AND COLLECT IN A MESSY BUNCH when your romantic date moves inside but you look out and its PREDICTABLY RAINING. Also, eating Al Fresco in Sweden, let me tell you about that. You optimistically put all that shit outside, forks and plates and crap, then you sit there with your food and you're either SWEATING LIKE A BITCH within 5 minutes if you get sun on your balcony, or you need 5 layers of clothing before giving up and going inside if you're in the shade.

Fine, this one then:

Oh I hate to be a killjoy (who am I kidding I love being a killjoy) but NO BBQ OPEN FLAME ALLOWED ON THE BALCONY. Also just FYI nobody really likes rattan, it's fugly, hard to clean, rots and you're kidding yourself when you say its rustic and charming. Also, this brings me conveniently to another big point, carpets. Always with the carpets. Never IN the house, only OUTSIDE. Oh Sweden, you silly.

Anyway, how have I entered into a war with my neighbours? By planting some vegetables. The balcony here was a bit neglected (hey, I am English) we even forgot to take down the furniture in the winter so it sat in the elements getting covered in snow and having its lifetime merrily reduced. But then the spring came and my boyfriend killed my indoor tomato plant so I bought lots of those boxes that hang on the balcony and planted peas, parsley, rocket...well, lots of things. And what do you know? Plants look quite nice!

Cue nearest neighbour, whose balcony up to this point boasted an orange plastic chair requisitioned from inside and an old fanta bottle filled with cigarette butts, suddenly investing in what I am reliably informed is called a "café set" aka a couple of chairs and a small table. Then 6 window boxes of herbs. And a plant pot on the floor that looked vaguely similar to my own. Also candles...and a ceramic frog.

Next thing I know, the balcony opposite is no longer half obscured with a moulding bamboo mat, no. Now it has...wait, are those...herbs and edible plants? In a variety of window boxes? Plus they've put a HEMTEX©®™ tablecloth over their Café Set©®™. And some fairy lights, aww. WELL LOOK WHAT I JUST BOUGHT MOTHERFUCKERS. 

Fairy lights, aww.