many miles

Recipes. A half dozen of them. I can’t believe it. My father actually sat down to write a few recipes for me! Hm .. goulash .. potato dumplings .. meatballs. Simple. Hearty. Good. It feels a bit strange to look at these hand-written pages. His handwriting. His words. Swedish and German. Sometimes mixing languages within a single sentence.

These are the notes from a professional chef. There are hardly any measurements. Only suggestions to add a little of this or that. I remember watching him cook a few times almost 30 years ago. He never followed any recipes — everything was in his head. Sitting here in my apartment, thousands of miles away from him, I’m trying to picture him writing these recipes, perhaps sitting at his kitchen table in his apartment in Stockholm. I wonder what he was thinking? He must have thought that this was a rather strange request.

A while back I had asked my sister to ask my father to write down a few recipes for me. I’m not really sure why I asked. After all, I don’t have any direct contact with him and the last time I saw and spoke with him was in the late 90′s. My sister keeps me up-to-date as to his general well-being. He has been sober for a few months now, which is quite an achievement for a lifetime alcoholic. And while I’m angry that he drank his life away, I have to admit: I’m a little proud that he’s been able give it up. Hopefully this is it.

I will try to make all of these dishes and I will post the results here. I’m not quite sure what the outcome will be .. whether from a culinary or emotional perspective. Will it broaden my cooking skills? Most certainly. Will it bring us closer? Not so sure. But either way, it’ll be a fun little project. And who knows, I may ask him to write a few more recipes for me.

That’s it for now!

UPDATE

• copied from my old website
• minor language/grammar tweaks