I know that before Tuesday, I've been gone awhile here. Sorry about that. It's been a combination of busyness, server connection problems, busyness, an online Scrabble tournament and busyness. I don't think Blogger likes me very much at the moment. We'll see if this one posts - so much over the last month has just refused to connect to the server. No posting. No commenting here or on other Blogger blogs. Very frustrating.

Recently, I've been discussing whether online friends are any different to offline friends. The general consensus among the people I know is that they are better. That said, and I know that I may be in a minority of one, but, I just don't get this whole social networking thing. I can just about keep up with the few blogs I read - if I had to add full time Twitter, Facebook et al to the mix, I’d never have time to do anything else but sit at the computer.

Maybe my desire to consume 'friends' is about the same online to offline. I have space and place for only a few very carefully chosen examples, to whom I am fiercely loyal and fiercely protective, and most of whom I have known a long time. I have lots of acquaintances, but few true friends. I suspect that most people confuse the two terms and call people 'friends' when I'd call them 'acquaintances'. Plus, it's also fair to say that, without exception, my offline friends are as unconventional as me, in some way or another.

Whimsy social fluff fluff just isn't me and I can't be bothered with people who have hours to spend in pointless discourse. I'm not the sort of person to ever want to sit around in coffee shops for hours and I am constantly amazed by some people's stamina and ability to maintain conversations based on absolutely nothing of substance for hours at a time. But, I'm usually quite a self-sufficient sort of person, and if people start being unexpectedly and undeservedly nice to me, I tend to be very cynical and extremely suspicious of their motives.

I don't have enough time in a day to do all the things I want to do, so why I might have time to sit around tapping out text messages into my phone to inform people I've never met and whom I will probably never meet of what I'm doing, I have no idea. And, really, there are enough distractions around me already without everyone else telling me what they are doing every ten seconds. Perhaps it would be different if I lived in a city or spent lots of time travelling on public transport with nothing else to do.

I was talking someone who got their first laptop last month. She told me that she gets in from work at 1.30am every night, and had to go and see her doctor this week because she was too tired to function because Facebook keeps her up until 6am every day. The doctor gave her sleeping tablets and Prozac. That’s a life?

On the other hand, I DO love blogging. What I put into it directly determines what I get out of it. It's there as a permanent and tangible reminder of things I've done, or seen, or thought at any point in time. But, it's only there when I choose to access it. I hate the idea of other more intrusive or transient forms of social networking. Maybe it's the control freak in me?

I'd say my online networking is pretty much like my offline networking. There has to be a point to it, and I have to think that I'd enjoy spending time with the online people I engage with, face to face, and would share interests, or philosophy on life. Actually, I have met up with a number of online friends and with only a single of exception (which, in hindsight, wasn't really that surprising anyway), I haven't been wrong in my assumptions.

I don't think my online persona is very different to my offline one either. I have no desire to be schizophrenic. What you see is pretty much what you get, and if I don't like you I simply won't engage with you on any level. As someone said to me last year, it's not so much that I don't suffer fools gladly, it's that I choose not to suffer fools at all ;)

But I'm happy to engage with my little feathered friends. I've taken to feeding the local ducks and conning myself into thinking that they might actually like me. This, based solely on the fact that they recognise the food in my hand me as I approach. But before I do that, I have to convince the reluctant dog to come along with me. It's never easy to crowbar her away from the sofa, but eventually she comes out and answers the call of nature.




Once that is over, and a mere 30 seconds after leaving home, she is determined to head back to the comfort of the warm, fluffy blanket on the couch. In an effort to convince her, I show her that it's just a short, straight walk about 300 metres to the pond near the copse of trees at the end of the path.




She eyes it suspiciously, internally computes the distance to be the equivalent of 90 km in tiny, mincing dog steps and decides to vote with her paws and head for home. She tells me her food bowl is calling her name.



But I'm made to sterner stuff - and I'm considerably bigger than she is, so I shortened the leash and half dragged her to the pond. And yes, she complained the whole way. Can you hear her?

"I'm going to report you for dog cruelty"

"My paws are cold. It's all right for YOU. You've got boots"

"Why haven't I got a woolly hat?"

"I need sunglasses, too!"

"I want to go home"

"Carry me!"



Honestly, whoever said that dogs have masters has obviously not met my dog, who is very much in control. She has full time service staff. And like all long suffering servants we have to put up with her cheap, nit-picking, fussy ways.

Eventually we arrive at the pond and as we near, the ducks come pouring out to greet the bag of food me. Yes, I know there are two large bags of goodies there. Don't tell L-G, but I've been buying food especially for the duckies as there are so many of them and they need something to keep them going in this cold weather.



I love listening to them as they gather around, quacking excitedly. At least it drowns out the complaints from the poodle princess, who is straining at her leash and begging to hot foot it homewards. I'm careful and watchful to include everybody who is there. Several of the bolder ones, both males and females, come right up to me and pull at my leggings. But most simply wait and look up with expectation.



These are just the ordinary, very common gräsand or mallard which one can see everywhere. The striking, almost iridescent green ones are the males, with the females being the pretty speckled brown ones. They really are so beautiful and friendly and they allow me to get very close to them, so I feel like part of the flock. Some of them even eat out of my hand. You have to watch them all and share the food evenly or it could all quickly degenerate into a rugby scrum.



Ducks are rather companionable in the winter. Sure, they want the food I toss to them, but maybe they just like my company too. In the summer they don’t waddle up to me, quacking hello, and lifting their faces to take a good look at me.

They’re far too busy in summer. And to be honest, we’re also too busy to sit down and chat. In winter, however, the pace of life slows, and I can concentrate on the little things, like ducks. In that mood of companionship, I turn to the ducks after I've shaken out the last of the food, admire their cute, smiling faces in the winter sunshine and say "Ska vi kramas?" ("Shall we hug?")



And they immediately take off and fly away. Leaving me bereft, L-G killing himself laughing and the poodle still carrying on with her whining monologue.

Maybe next time....

And speaking of hugging, the big news here in Sweden is that the Crown Princess (Victoria, not Princess Lambi this time) announced her engagement this week to her long time boyfriend (and commoner) Daniel Westling.



No doubt, the Swedish equivalent of New Idea will be salivating with joy. The wedding is set for the summer of 2010, so they have 18 months of speculation about the wedding dress to fill their frothy, silly magazine. My mother-in-law would have been thrilled. She just loved the aristocracy and I know she would have regaled us with the latest gossip on the preparations.

While looking for an article about the engagement to link to, I came across this one, which contains an unintentionally hilarious mis-spelling of Victoria's fiancé's name. Wrestling??? What a hoot. While I knew that the king was not too happy about his daughter's choice for a partner, I hadn't realised it had come to this :-)

When we think of Easter and food in Australia, it immediately conjures up images of freshly baked, spicy hot cross buns. The debate about hot cross buns is both heated and intense, with differing opinions about whether there ought to be peel-or-no-peel in the hot cross buns, sultanas or fruitless or alternatively whether people expressing an affection for chocolate hot cross buns ought be crucified.

Here in Sweden, similar arguments rage over the traditional pre-Lenten delight of semlor or fastlagsbullar. These delicious buns, traditionally eaten today (fettisdag or Fat Tuesday) are fairly simple to make and far too easy to eat. After spending nine winters in Sweden, I can assure you I have had ample opportunity for a fairly detailed examination of the buns.

The basic concept is: Cardamom, cream, almond paste, all in a sweet bread. They're an institution across Sweden, with annual competitions to find the best baker, and discussions about who has good ones for how much. There's no talk about varieties or flavours as with hot cross buns, because the only common variations on this traditional item are what to do with the almond paste, whether to add extra almonds and how to eat them. I have, however, seen recent mention of chocolate semlor and ones filled with raspberry jam. My Swede, who is something of a semlor fundamentalist says "Sacrilege! Crucifixion!"



Now, before I continue, it's only fair to warn you that these buns have killed once and they'll no doubt kill again. What could be more thrilling than tempting fate by eating a delicious cream filled bun that was thought to have been the cause of the Swedish King Adolf Fredrik's death in 1771. Of course it might have also been the enormous meal he consumed before scarfing down 14 of the buns served in bowls of warm milk. While these buns are heavenly, I don't know that eating more than one or two in one sitting is recommended.

The history of the traditional Fat Tuesday treat is rather interesting. I was raised a Catholic, so I'd never really encountered these before having one in Sweden and I was curious. The modern semla (plural - semlor) is descended from the German and Danish kumminkringlor, a pretzel-shaped bread with cumin, which came to southern Sweden during the 1600's when that area belonged to Denmark. The first mention of semlor being eaten in Stockholm dates back to 1689.

The name semla comes from the Latin word simila, meaning wheat flour which was a luxury reserved only for the very wealthy classes. The buns were originally filled with hot cream, butter and cinnamon. The almond paste filling didn't arrive until the 1800s when Swiss bakers came to Sweden bringing their knowledge of almonds with them and the whipped cream filling and cap on top didn't become common until much later in the 1930s.

The oldest name for the buns, hetvägg, indicated that it was served in hot milk. Although most English recipes for the buns instruct the cook to serve in a bowl of hot milk, the tradition seems to be rarely observed anymore. Besides making the bun rather difficult and messy to eat, a bowl of hot milk doesn't really add flavour or better texture to the bun. If made without the whipped cream, the hot milk would be somewhat more appealing.

So now to how to make them!

Semlor / Lenten buns

Makes: 16 buns
Time: about 90 minutes

* 25g fresh compressed yeast
* 250ml whole milk
* 3oz or 85g superfine granulated sugar
* 1 tsp salt
* 1 heaped tablespoon ground cardamom
* 2 eggs, room temperature
* 1lbs 5oz or 600g plain flour
* 7 tablespoons or 100g melted butter
* 1 egg white and a dash of milk (for egg wash)

Melt butter and set aside to cool. Weigh and measure out all of the ingredients and arrange them near your workspace. Warm the milk to around 40C/105F. Crumble yeast into the warm milk and stir until it has fully dissolved. Stir in the sugar, salt, cardamom, eggs and a few tablespoons of flour. Stir until the mixture is smooth and the flour completely incorporated. Set aside for a couple minutes until it begins to bubble.

Pour the yeast mixture into a larger bowl and begin adding flour a few tablespoons at a time. Stir with a whisk or dough whisk until it begins to thicken. From this point on, knead the dough with your hands. Continue adding flour a few tablespoons at a time until the dough is soft but still slightly sticky. You may have a bit of flour remaining, but resist the temptation to add it all if the dough has the right feel. The amount of flour you need to use to reach the point of soft, yet slightly sticky, dough will vary depending on the type of flour, the age and moisture content of the flour and the humidity in the air.

Knead in the butter (it is important that the butter does not come in contact with the yeast before the yeast has had a chance to start expanding) until it is fully incorporated. Again, resist the urge to add more flour in lieu of kneading the dough until the butter has been absorbed. Sprinkle a tiny bit of flour over the dough if it is a bit too soft and tacky once the butter has soaked in, but be conservative. You want a soft, slightly sticky dough. Knead for a couple of minutes and place into a bowl that has been lightly greased with vegetable oil or butter, cover with a towel or plastic wrap and set in a warm spot for about 20 minutes to rest (Don't leave it for an hour thinking more is better since you don't want to over-proof the dough as this will make it tough).



Turn the dough out of the bowl onto a smooth surface. Do not flour your workspace or the dough. Knead dough lightly and divide into two parts. Roll each half into an 8-inch rope and cut into 8 1-inch pieces.



Take each piece, place it on your workspace cupped in the palm of your hand and, with a reasonable amount of pressure, press down while moving your hand in a circular motion until the dough has formed a smooth, tight round ball.



[See also diagram] If your dough isn't a little sticky or you are having trouble forming a smooth ball, rub your workspace with a damp towel and try again. Arrange balls on baking sheet lined with baking paper leaving an inch or so between them. Lightly brush with egg wash. Cover with a teatowel or plastic wrap and leave in a warm place to rise for about 30 minutes or so.

Heat oven to 200C/390F. Bake buns for 10-12 minutes until they are a light golden brown. Place on cooling rack and allow to cool.



Traditional Almond Filling:

* 200g almond paste
* 1,5 dl or 3/4 cup milk
* bits of bun scooped out for filling

Grate almond paste into bowl. Beat until smooth. Blend in milk. Add bun crumbs and beat until smooth.

Whipped Cream:

* 3-5dl (1½ cups) whipping cream, cold
* 2 teaspoons sugar
* 1 teaspoon vanilla sugar

Pour cream and sugar into a completely dry, cold bowl and whip to stiff peaks. Place cream in a pastry bag fitted with a #7/14-mm star tip.

Assembling:

1. Slice top off of buns. Take the tops of the buns and cut into heart, star or other shapes if you like. For the strictly traditional, use a pair of scissors held at a 45-degree angle to make a triangular cut on top of the bun about 2cm or 3/4-in deep. Trim excess bread from the underside of the triangular divot.



2. Spread almond mixture onto the buns or into the triangular hole.

3. Pipe whipped cream generously over the tops.

4. Place top of bun over the whipped cream.

5. Sprinkle with icing sugar.


Now enjoy!