food for thought

i'm glad i come from a culture where love is associated with food. not that love = food or vice versa, although few may disagree, but food is definitely a way of expressing love. in fact, my changmoh cousins term it the 'asian mom syndrome' where they just feed and fatten. that, followed by repeated questions of the 'are you sure you're not cold / hungry?' sort. not that i'm complaining, anyway.

so it's little surprise that when my parents rolled round for a visit, the first thing my mother did was to make my gastronomical satisfaction her utmost concern. she expressed her shock at the sudden disappearance of parts of me that remain unmentionable in polite company, then set about making me one mountainous sandwich after another. such is the limitation of her cooking repertoire. daddy, on the other hand, knew my other favourite D word (degustation, for the uninitiated) and trawled through his hit lists for good eats. helps that one of his oldest friends is a food columnist and was only to happy to provide recommendations and reservations. we squeezed in at paul&norbert, which was an exercise in felicitous norwegian air, arlanda express and stockholm taxi timing. took off from oslo at 1840h and were esconed in the warm P&N dining room by 2005h. it had been a relatively harried few days in norway but rushing from plane to plate was both justifiable and satisfying. any later and we would've missed the degustation menu, anyway.

in addition to P&N, we dined at operakallaren on their last night in stockholm and i was in for the hugest surprise. i'd put my money on mathias dahlgren for their last night but my incredibly sweet parents said that dinner at mathias' was on them to celebrate when he visits and we were to go to town on their plastic. how awesome's that! and operakallaren was none too shabby.

it was surreal to be feasting for five days straight after my multiple kitchen disasters and i'm blessed with foodie parents who know how to live it up, with me in tow, of course. i hope i don't live to regret it, but i ate so much and so well when they were here that i'm satiated enough to survive on my abysmal cooking for the next few months, till i meet them in st. moritz in winter.

good times :)