The Breakfast Buffet, Snacks, and Kebabs

Umea Installment: 3, of 4: wherever you go in the world: this is important stuff.

As a self-proclaimed tour guide of the Breakfast Buffet whichever country I wake up in, I’ll report back to you from wherever I am. In fact, I adore “the breakfast buffet”, for its glimpse and taste of what locals eat, and also in an amusing vein, sometimes its take on what seems necessary for foreigners to start their day. Bacon! Baked beans! omelets! noodle soup! bagels…croissant…sliced white toast…its endless and pure in its geographical authenticity, and also: endearingly cross cultural, for those of us who like to move onto the other, less familiar breakfast tables…Anyhow, the breakfast buffet is a sociological, gastronomical, psychological, portrait of the travelers who come to it, and those who are dishing it up. For this reason: I am a world-wide devotee, as long as its not too wasteful.

Report from Umea: breakfast in the Hotel Bjorken was heartfelt, wholesome, and—so very important—not wasteful. Platters held modest amounts of local ham, cheeses, and raw vegetable salads, along with a basket of absolutely delicious breads and rolls, sturdy, tasting of wheat and grains and seeds.

Porridge simmered in a cauldron ready to be ladled up, surrounded by small containers of seeds, nuts, dried fruit and other wholesome sprinkling things; a hot plate kept thin, lacy pancakes warm and there was a choice of boiled eggs: soft or hard. There was a bowl of cottage cheese—oh how I LOVE COTTAGE CHEESE, and: a bowl of pickles, as well as two kinds of herrings. #herring-of-happiness

Below was my favorite breakfast in Umea, a version of my favorite breakfast anywhere: dense, dark bread toasted and topped with cottage cheese and toasted seeds: a sort of improvised “everything” mix. In addition to the seeds, I added a little bit of green onion from my handbag—I often carry several scallions for emergencies.

There was a tangy, unsweetened compote of cloudberries and lingonberries, with a drift of lightly whipped cream, also unsweetened.

Confession: I am one of those people who makes a sandwich from the breakfast buffet, wraps it up, sticks it in her (green polkadot) bag, and then…is ready for anything.

I do feel guilty, though—but far less guilty when I notice someone next to me doing the same. And at the table across the way, doing the same. (sandwich note: You can’t see the pickles and mustard in this one but oh oh oh, there are there. I want you to know that. This very generous sandwich took me from Umea, to Stockholm, to Waterlooville, UK, where I shared the last of it with Alan, the next day).

Ursula and her magic green fingernails help me get my sandwich settled into the plastic bag in my green polkadot handbag, right next to the “thin breads” aka wasa bread or crisp flatbread, from the breakfast buffet. I couldn’t help myself. My handbag demanded it of me.

And though it has nothing to do with the breakfast buffet, I adore sourdough bread. So this seems a good time to mention: several years ago, pre-pandemic, Gourmand Awards and Symposium was held in Macau, complete with a show kitchen that many of us gave classes and demonstrations in. I featured the food of Naples, that extraordinary city whose food is (often) scarlet with tomatoes tomatoes and tomatoes. Towards the end of the bookfair, there was a lot of leftover bits and pieces, including cheeses, fresh herbs, tomatoes, (homemade by me) kimchee, mango chutney, lime pickle, hot peppers, garlic, so many good things! I thought: Grilled Cheese party?

All I needed now was bread…not always easy to get in China.

At that moment a smiling young woman came up to the stage; we chatted. Her book on sourdough had won first place in the awards. I told her my predicament. She said: tomorrow morning you’ll have bread. Little did I know I was speaking to a true sourdough Goddess, Anita Sumer.

The next morning as I was slicing cheese, mixing condiments, and so forth, Anita appeared in the kitchen with her arms full of the most luscious, crusty, sourdough bread imaginable. “I have been making sourdough each day for the bookfair, so I had starter ready to go!”

This year she won first place for her next book, one making that sourdough bread gorgeous: with cuts in the dough, with seeds, with sculptural finesse. She offers an online masterclass.

Meanwhile, back in Umea, it was cherry blossom time (above). And next to the cherry blossoms, under the striped umbrella, it was kebab time: doner, pickled peppers, and salad wrapped in fresh thin/flat bread. And beer.

Ursula’s magic green fingernails, tearing the freshly made soft flatbread.

And, its ALWAYS pickles and beer time, at least for me. These pickles (Turkish), this beer (local) SO GOOD.

Another (delicious) beer: this time with a local flatbread which is remarkably like wholewheat matzo.