Not skiing in Åre and 'old' friends

This pretty mountain train terminus is one of my favourite buildings in Åre village.

I've just come back from a skiing holiday to Sweden, where we'd planned to spend most of the time on the beautiful pistes of Åre. In the event I got only a few days on the mountains, because unseasonably warm weather brought rain, strong winds and melting snow.

It looked hopeful at night when we had a fresh covering of snow...

But in the morning the snow had turned into rain.

Each day more of the snow was disappearing off the mountain and down streams towards the Åre lake in the valley.

But the point of the holiday really wasn't the skiing alone. My ten day stay in Åre ended with a long weekend with my 'old' girlfriends.

I consider myself very lucky in that I have loyal group of friends from school who over the years have made the effort for us all to keep in touch. In the first years when I lived in England I was very bad at this, and things got even worse when my children were born. But my friends are a determined bunch (particularly one - you know who you are!) and didn't give up on me.

I love this home ware and clothing store.

There are five of us and in the last few years we've managed to meet at least once per year. We've had lunches in Helsinki, weekends in London, Paris, Rome, Athens and Åre in Northern Sweden, but to name few of our 'girly trip' destinations. It's rare that all five can make a 'meet', but this year, first time in four years, we were all re-united for a skiing holiday with no skiing...

Instead of spending the days on the pistes, we laughed much, watched some silly DVD's (Bridesmaids), and shopped together in the chic shops in the little village of Åre. We swam in the nearby hotel pool, bathed in my friend's genuine Finnish sauna (something not always available in Sweden) and lolled in her hot tub afterwards - giggling like the girls we were when we met at sixteen - while enjoying a glass (or two) of champagne and ignoring the cold drizzle falling on us. We talked about everything and anything. At times I had to remind myself that we were no longer teenagers and at school; that we were serious grown-ups with some of us having grown-up children ourselves.

And last weekend as I came home to the summery London weather from a wet non-skiing holiday, I felt incredibly refreshed, but not in a way one usually does, with aching legs and the feeling that you've really done some serious excercise. No, this time it was my mind and soul that had had the holiday.

Thank you dear, dear friends. I cannot wait for our next outing.

Fäviken Magasinet, near Åre ski resort, Sweden, revisited

The atmospheric Fäviken Magasinet is housed in an old grain barn.

I was a little apprehensive about my third visit to Fäviken Magasinet, the acclaimed restaurant run by young Swedish Chef of the moment, Magnus Nilsson, since often when you revisit a place, which you've been raving about, you are disappointed.

But I shouldn't have worried, because this time the food was - if possible - even more exquisite. 

Magnus approach to cooking is twofold: firstly, apart from salt and vinegar, he will only use locally grown and sourced foodstuffs; secondly, he puts his imagination and great talent as a chef towards utilising as much of the fauna and flora at his disposal in the grounds of the restaurant and the surrounding forests, waters and farms, as possible. 

The result is the purest and cleanest tasting food you can ever imagine you could eat. Magnus calls it Rektun Food (Rektun means real in the local Jämtland dialect).

Saturday before last, when we visited the Fäviken Magasinet, the evening started with little amuse-bouche including wild trout roe served on top of a biscuit made of dried pigs blood, something which sounds strange but was incredibly tasty. We also had thin slivers of cured bacon which just melted in the mouth.

Then it was time to go upstairs to the restaurant proper, which is housed in an old grain store with low ceilings. Dried herbs, hams and fish adorn the walls. This is where the theatre that is the Rektun meal begins in earnest. 

Each course is brought to the table by Magnus and his staff and the chef himself explains what we are about to have and how we should consume it to best enjoy the dish. There are eight small dishes, served to a maximum of twelve guests, with each dish wilder than the previous one, followed by four puddings.

Magnus preparing a dish for us.

The atmospheric surroundings greatly add to the magical Fäviken experience.

The carefully selected wines by Magnus together with his talented Somelier, Johan Agrell, are French, apart from the mead made by the restaurant, which is served with the first course of flame 'cooked' scallop in its shell. The scallop which is more of less rare, was the best I have ever tasted. My friend and I speculated whether we could ever eat scallops anywhere else again, as they would always be a disappointment after the one served at Fäviken.

The scallops, served in their shell, on a bed of smoked hay and sprigs of juniper.

The juice inside the scallop was divine.

Another four fish dishes followed....

Langoustine rolled in dried malted vinegar.  

One dish which stood out for me more than others was the trout, marinated in mushroom vinegar, served with a sauce made from roasted oats. Magnus told us the marinated fish had only been slightly 'cooked' by placing the piece on the hot serving plates. The sauce made from oats had a sweet taste, of almost butterscotch, which together with the mild acidity of the fish was a completely new taste sensation to me.

Trout, served with sauce of roasted oats and grated carrot.

This dish of pickled vegetables was so pretty you hardly wanted to touch it to spoil the effect. 

Cow's heart with marrow (which was cut in half in front of the diners) and  grated root vegetables.

Toasted sourdough bread served with herb salt.  

All throughout the meal the staff at Fäviken serve slices of sourdough bread made on site from a root originating from an old wooden bread basin. It's wonderfully soft in the middle and crisp on the outside, and it takes all your self-control not to pig out on it, especially as the bread is served with home-made butter. But luckily for us, my friend is such a regular at Fäviken that when she leaves the restaurant, a loaf of warm bread, wrapped in a brown paper bag, is placed in her hand. I felt honoured that, on this, my third visit, a loaf was given to me too.

Steak from 'an old pensioned-off milking cow' was the most delicious piece of meat I've ever tasted.

To move from the savoury to the sweet we were served wild raspberry sorbet, water lingonberry with thick cream and sugar. 

Cake made from pine bark with frozen buttermilk.

Milk ice-cream, whipped duck egg and raspberry jam.

The sweets were divine too. The milk ice-cream made in the old-fashioned churn, was served with home-made raspberry jam and a whipped duck egg. It was just sweet enough to be the pinnacle of the pudding menu.

When the meal came to an end we were invited to return to the downstairs bar/reception area for coffee and home-made liqueurs. Even though I was thoroughly satisfied, I'd enjoyed such wonderful tastes I didn't really want to leave the restaurant. Especially as I knew it'll be a long time before I can make a return visit.

The inevitable me-with-the-chef picture. (I just had to...)

But, there's good news: for those of us who aren't able to make regular trips up to Northern Sweden to sample Magnus Nilsson's fantastic cooking, his methods can soon be enjoyed by all. He has a cookery book in the making, which should be out in October this year. He'll also be making a book tour in London to co-incide with the publication of the book, so watch this space for dates and venues.

Fäviken Magasinet
Fäviken 216
830 05 Järpen
Tel: +46 (0)647 40177, Fax: +46 (0)647 40147
E-mail: info@favikenmagasinet.se

Sweden: Fäviken restaurant in Åre

During my extended skiing trip last month I was lucky enough to visit a most fantastic - and unusual - restaurant near the Åre ski resort in Northern Sweden. The chef, Magnus Nilsson, of the remote Fäviken Magasin has become a bit a celebrity. He has been selected as one of the top ten young chefs by Wall Street Journal and is - alongside Albert Adrian from El Bulli - one of the chefs chosen for the Cook It Raw society.

Here Magnus explains his philosophy on cooking.

The Fäviken Magasin restaurant is set in a 17th century farm and serves food in one sitting, to a menu decided by the chef. All the ingredients are either grown or reared at the farm, or in the waters nearby (we had langustines from Norway). The only ingredients they buy from further afield are salt and pepper, and the dishes they serve strictly follow the seasons (A Cook It Raw principle). This is no mean feat in a place where snow covers the landscape for half of the year and the growing season is three or four months at its best. On the other hand you have the most fantastic wild ingredients: lingonberries, various mushrooms, game. Traditional and newly invented methods are used in preserving the berries, herbs, root vegetables and meat and fish. The chef also likes to use of all an animal - in a very similar way to St John's Bread & Wine (I wrote about that restaurant here).

When we arrived, it was snowing and the farmhouse looked welcoming against the dark blue night.

The path to the front door was lit by fires.

In the restaurant which sits only 12 people, there are no menus. Instead the staff tell you what you are about to eat just after they've served it. There are eight courses (not counting a few amuse de bouche's), and the identity of the wine is concealed for the customers to guess the grape and region, etc. I absolutely hate it when the host at a dinner party decides to play this game. It's usually done just to massage his or her middle-class ego, 'I know so much more about wine than you'. I've never before come across the same done in a commercially run restaurant. But, hey, while in Sweden, you must do what the Swedes do.

The guessing game aside, the food and the incognito wine at Fäviken is indescribably delicious. The tastes are so pure that I found myself thinking about the dishes I ate there for days - even weeks - afterwards.

Plus the staff at Fäviken Magasin could not be friendlier. They take such pride in the unusual dishes that the service can sometimes come across as pure theatre. But then isn't that what a really good dining experience is supposed to be - a very well executed performance?

These were some of the dishes we enjoyed.

Dried moss - yes! And it was delicious.

Dried pork from the farm - I've never tasted meat like it.

Baked trout  with muesli, preserved root vegetables, almost burnt cream and aged cheese.

Cod glazed with honey and fried in a dry pan, swede covered in grains of rye and fried in home made butter, served with cream of cod roe, eggs, vinegar and green juniper berries. 

Langoustine dry roasted with wild cumin served on a bed of dried hay. The scent was divine; I can still remember exactly how this dish tasted.

The chefs cut open the leg of beef to extract the marrow.

Raw heart with marrow and preserved root vegetables.

The home made sour dough bread was out of this world with the uncooked cow's heart. Yes, I know...

Wild raspberry sorbet, thick cream with sugared lingonberries.

Dill being dried in the old hay barn which is now used as the restaurant. 

The dried meat joints hanging from the rafters.

At the end of the evening we were offered tea, coffee and liqueurs.

We all felt very privileged to have been able to enjoy this fantastic restaurant. Although it is not cheap by any means, if you ever find yourself in the Swedish ski resort, you must try the place. Your taste buds will never again accept over-fussy, over-seasoned, or out of season food.

I'm just off to the Heath to forage for some wild leaves....or perhaps not.

My Nordic Adventure - Skiing the Åre way

The sky was brilliant blue against white snow when we arrived in the Swedish ski resort and mounted the Jämtland flag. I was staying in a ski lodge close to the centre - and to the lifts - with my oldest friends, 'girls' I've known since school and who, as the years pile on, I realise know me rather too well...

For instance when that same afternoon of our arrival I was with one of my friends in the Tott Hotel ski hire shop, I disappeared round the corner to look at a sales rack (once a shopaholic...). Wondering where I'd got to she (naturally!) went to look for me in the adjacent bar where a noisy after-ski party had just started.

These pictures were actually taken in the bar the following afternoon after we'd been up on the mountain.

Oh well...guess I'd rather be known as the party girl than the party pooper, but all the same, I've always maintained that apres-ski can only be enjoyed if you've actually done some skiing.

Which we did indeed do over the next two days. Not that we were fanatical about it;  since most runs in Åre end up or go past a 'kaffehus' - cafe/bar/restaurant - we took advantage of the amenities and had lots of lovely breaks for resting those rarely used thigh muscles need for skiing (ok, I know they're used for other very important activities too but not for hours on end...?), chatting and generally admiring the scenery and people watching. You can tell I'm not a very energetic slalom skier, something the Englishman has never quite understood, but for me being on the Swedish or Finnish Alps means more than just the actual activity of skiing or the wonderfully fresh mountain air. I'm also at home, with friends or family, as well as getting the all-important snow fix that I so crave here in London.

Here are some pictures of Åre this time around.

View from my bedroom window - not bad?

A view from our balcony - the pale yellow building is Tott Hotel

Another balcony view. 

A view later on in the evening as the sun set over Lake Åre.

Loungers on the balcony covered with local, organic lamb skins.

One of the pistes in Åre - not exactly crowded...

Early in the morning when we feared a snow storm would stop play. It didn't - the weather cleared up later.

There was even sun in the afternoon on the pistes.

Oh, how I wish I was still there!

Just one more post about skiing in Åre

You may have noticed that I'm fairly partial to skiing. Most people think I've been doing it since I was a toddler, learning to ski between the legs of my father or mother like those cute little things you see on the slopes nowadays. But no, I didn't learn to do downhill until I was in my twenties. And then it was the Englishman who introduced me to it. Quite fitting as it was the English who started this slalom lark in the first place. (OK my Swedish, Finnish and Norwegian friends, I know you've been doing it for centuries too but commercially speaking I do think it was the British who thought of it first...no hate mail please...)

But of course I've been skiing - that is cross country - since I was four. In Tampere where I grew up it was almost the same as learning to walk, you did it as soon as you were able. I had my first own skis for my fifth birthday, which is in late April. The fact that all but a few specs of snow had melted on the field outside our house didn't stop me from wanting to try out my new lovely bright red skis (my very favourite colour when I was little). My father agreed but my mother worried I'd ruin them on the mud. Of course there was no stopping me then.

At seven I was so good at skiing I won competitions at school, unless I waited for my friends to catch up with me, which I often did. I was really uncompetitive. Or plain stupid. (I'm blonde). I've been working hard on developing a competitive streak since, but that's another story and involves another favourite sport: golf.

But back to Åre and downhill. We've been coming here for over ten years, ever since we were introduced to the place by our very good friends. The children learned to ski here. The place has grown a lot during this time, new lifts have been added, new transport routes developed between the different areas and many more cafes and restaurants built. The 2007 World Cup was hosted in Åre and for that the centre was almost entirely revamped.

Because of its latitude, the best skiing here is in March when the pistes are open later. In December the skiing time is short and in order to catch the best conditions you need to be up for the first lift at 9.30. By three o'clock in the afternoon the light starts to fade. It's therefore vital to plan your return journey to avoid skiing in the dark (dangerous and not so much fun) or end up taking an expensive taxi to the (ski-in) chalet. If you're skiing with some-one it's quite a good idea to communicate your plan to the other party before you set off.

Of course I knew all this.

But planning ahead and communication with a partner has always been a tricky thing for me. Especially when you're feeling a little fractious from a late night, missed the best of the snow due to a very late start and enjoyed your wine a little too much during lunch....

I have to take my hat off to the Englishman who actually complained very little when I missed our planned rendezvous at the ski bus stop and carried onto another lift further down, which meant we had to then cross a few pistes, find a uphill gap between another two pistes, walk with our boots and skis down a road and uphill to the ski chalet. Not only did he not complain (much), he also carried my skis most of the last bit. All I'll say in my defence is that I thought we'd decided to ski all the way back in spite of the fading light and lift closures, and that there was a person with the same colour ski jacket as the Englishman, who started down the wrong piste, only to disappear when I got to the lift.

Thank goodness for mobiles, how did we ski (or communicate) before they were invented (by Finns - only joking)?

I leave you with some more pictures, the last one of the Englishman (I think).