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I got tagged for meme by Katie of Apple & Spice, and for once, I’m not going to dawdle. Let’s get to it!

1) LAST MOVIE U SAW IN A THEATRE?
Made of Honor. Cute chick-flick, which I enjoyed with my girlfriends. Next one will most likely be Sex and the City, with the same girls.

2) WHAT BOOK ARE U READING?
Romancing the Dead by Tate Hallaway. I really, really like these books – they’re cute girlie novels crossed with vampire-Buffyish-wicca-novels. Really amusing, the writer is great and expresses herself so well. She blogs, too! Also reading a Swedish crime novel in my PalmPilot. (Yes, I still have one.)

3) FAVORITE BOARD GAME?
Illuminati and Settlers of Catan. But Trivial Pursuit is great fun, too.

4) FAVORITE MAGAZINE?
BBC Good Food.

5) FAVORITE SMELLS?
Warm summer rain.

6) FAVORITE SOUNDS?
The patter of tiny kitten paws racing through the room. And the front door slamming shut when my husband gets home.

7) WORST FEELING IN THE WORLD?
I’m particularly averse to loneliness.

WHAT IS THE FIRST THING YOU THINK OF WHEN U WAKE?
Honestly, it’s always about going to the bathroom.

9) FAVORITE FAST FOOD PLACE?
Taco Bell. Yes, really. No, we don’t have it here. I probably wouldn’t love it half as much if I could eat it regularly. Of the ones we actually do have? I like McDonalds. (Shoot me now.)

10) FUTURE CHILDS NAME?
Not telling!

11) FINISH THIS STATEMENT—’IF I HAD A LOT OF MONEY I’D……
build a great house with a wonderful kitchen. And not work. I’d volunteer, and be active in politics, but I wouldn’t work, exactly.

12) DO U DRIVE FAST?
No. I’m a cautious driver. Too cautions, thinks my husband.

13) DO U SLEEP WITH A STUFFED ANIMAL?
Umm, well, ehhh.. I have a stuffed cat very close by, yes.

14) STORMS–COOL OR SCARY?
Both.

15) WHAT WAS YOUR FIRST CAR?
A silver Saab. We named it The Flash.

16) FAVORITE DRINK?
Water. And lots of Pepsi Max. For alcohol, I like many wines and some whiskies.

17) FINISH THIS STATEMENT-IF I HAD THE TIME I WOULD…
sleep more.

18) DO YOU EAT THE STEMS ON BROCCOLI?
Yep!

19) IF YOU COULD DYE YOUR HAIR ANY OTHER COLOUR, WHAT WOULD BE YOUR CHOICE?
Dark brown with caramel highlights. I have naturally red hair and it’s almost impossible to dye. (Everything washes right out.)

20) NAME ALL THE DIFFERENT CITIES/TOWNS U HAVE LIVED IN?
Saltsjöbaden outside of Stockholm where I was born.
Long Beach, California, for one year as a high school exchange student.
Linkoping, Sweden, where I went to university.
Nacka, outside of Stockholm, which is where I live now.

21) FAVORITE SPORTS TO WATCH?
Live, I don’t mind hockey or basketball. On tv, I hate just about anything. The Olympic Games are somewhat ok though.

22) ONE NICE THING ABOUT THE PERSON WHO SENT THIS TO YOU?
Katie has a delicious blog with yummy recipes, pretty pictures, and excellent writing! And she’s a fellow Daring Baker, of course

23) WHATS UNDER YOUR BED?
Dust.

24) WOULD U LIKE TO BE BORN AS YOURSELF AGAIN??
Yes.

25) MORNING PERSON OR NIGHT OWL?
Morning. I don’t do late nights.

26) OVER EASY OR SUNNY SIDE UP?
Sunny side up. The yolk is the best part.

27) FAVORITE PLACE TO RELAX?
At home in general, I love my house.

28) FAVORITE PIE?
Cherry.

29) FAVORITE ICE CREAM FLAVOR?
Häagen-Dazs Strawberry. Or anything homemade.

30) OF ALL THE PEOPLE U HAVE TAGGED, WHO IS THE MOST LIKELY TO RESPOND FIRST?
I’m not tagging anyone – but if you feel like answering these questions, please do, and leave a link to it in the comment section

Forget the popcorn. Nothing goes with movies like Japanese food. This year I was generously given a courtesy pass which allows me and a guest to attend as many movies as we like at the Sundance Kabuki movie theater in Japantown. As a result I end up eating meals in Japantown just about every time I go see a movie.

This Saturday I had a ridiculously cheap lunch in Japantown at Takara. This little restaurant tucked away behind the Hotel Kabuki and often packed with local Japanese folks is well worth seeking out. Their special lunch combo is tempura plus a choice of breaded pork cutlet (tonkatsu) white tuna sashimi, chicken or beef teriyaki or deep fried fish of the day. In what has to be one of the best bento box deals, I got white tuna sashimi, tempura, a California roll, salad, rice and miso soup for $6.95 and it was delicious. But next time I’m ordering the tonkatsu which I noticed several other patrons had ordered, it was dark golden brown, thin and crisp. The tempura is light and crunchy and includes all of my favorite items–shrimp, sweet potato, carrot, green bean and eggplant and thankfully no broccoli, zucchini or onion.

If you’re willing to shell out a little more you can get a variety of rice bowls (donburi) for under $9 or a lavish chirashi for just over $11. Takara also has tons of “appetizers” which are really izakaya style dishes, such as grilled eggplant served with bonita flakes (yakinasu) braised pork belly (butakakuni) and deep fried marinated chicken (torikaraage). These dishes range from $3-10 each, order several and make a meal out them. And if you need a movie date, call me.

Takara
22 Peace Plaza Suite 202 (inside the plaza, next to the Kabuki Hotel)
San Francisco,CA
415. 921.2000

Mon – Sun 11:30 – 2:00
Mon – Sat 5:30 – 9:30 pm
Sun 5:30 – 9 pm

Apple Spice filled Danish Braid

This month’s challenge for the Daring Bakers, chosen by Kelly and Ben, is a Danish Braid. I’ve always found it amusing that wienerbrod, which is really common in pastries here, is called Danish in English. Danish? Huh? I’ve never thought of it as particularly Danish, but.. I suppose it might be. Or maybe it’s about as Danish as French Toast is French? The Swedish name means “bread from Vienna”, by the way.

Almond-Orange-Cardamom-Chocolate filled Danish Braid

But what it is is basically a laminated yeasted dough. I’ve done that once before, for /2005/02/sugar-high-fridays-5-petis-pains-au.html”>Pain au Chocolat. It was a real pain – that dough was much harder to work with, but it also yielded better results. That one was much more flaky, whereas this one was more like an ordinary yeasted dough. Not that I’m complaining – I don’t like the flakiness at all, so this was more to my taste. And the Danish-lovers in my family loved it as well, so it might have been a pleasing compromise.

This was fun to bake! Basically, you make a yeasted dough without butter, but you don’t let it rise just yet. (That’s a major difference from the recipe I had tried before.) You then beat butter with flour, and spread that onto the dough. After that, you fold. And roll. And fold. And roll. It gets harder each time, but not hysterically so. It’s do-able. After that, you roll it out one final time, fill it, braid it (really quite easy) and THEN you let it rise.

The filling recipe we got was for an apple filling. It was optional, but I liked the idea so I made it. I used three apples instead of four, and it was just the right amount for one braid. Per loved it, by the way, he’s a huge fan of apple pastries. The other one turned out better in my opinion – I took about 200 g of almond paste, beat that with a little bit of unsalted butter and some white syrup to soften it, added the zest of one orange and about one teaspoon of crushed cardamom. I spread it onto the dough and topped it with chocolate chips. Yum!

The recipe called for an eggwash before the rise, which I found a bit odd (or maybe I just read the recipe wrong), so I waited until the end of the rise to wash the braids and top them with cinnamon sugar (for the apple filling), and chopped almonds and pearl sugar (for the almond-cardamom-orange filling).

You can find the recipe, with photos, here.

I just bought the cutest cat bed at IKEA – flower-shaped – and I have to show you some more photos

And, finally, a Hamlet who’s not amused by this whole kitten-thing.

Mommy Kelly with her two little ones tucked under her paw.

My two girls are now just over two weeks, and very strong and healthy. They slurp happily from their bottle, and are gaining weight every day. Still no names though – I must decide soon!

Tiny golden girl

Little silver girl

For more photos, see Flickr.