So, last night was our Christmas gift to ourselves, friends, clients and family - what did we do? We we commissioned our favorite modern dance choreographer Alexandra Campbell to create a dance piece called Valo. All I can say was it was amazing, we used Milliken gallery, 3 dancers , amazing lighting by Lina Kramar, a techno soundtrack, Kronenbourg and costumes by Nakkna. We filmed the whole performance so as soon as we place it on the site I’ll post a link. We had drinks afterwards, upstairs at Tranan, an old favorite of mine, the decor still provokes debate within our circle of friends. I personally dislike the new interior, its by the same architect as Sturehof and Riche which are fantastic, it feels he ran out of new ideas on the interior of Tranan plus the paintings on the walls are completely over the top and distracting to the food.So, for me Tranan lost some of its old charm. Thankfully the bar staff are as great as ever and the basement is untouched so far, I was worried they might mistakenly paint over the Futura piece in the entrance. Ben, the designer who made the first comprehensive Futura book had never heard of it but thankfully when in Stockholm last documented it for his archives. This morning I made pancakes, but I remember when I loved Crunchy Nut cornflakes with cold milk anytime of the day. They recently in London staged an entertaining and creative street campaign. I had never considered someone would create a blog about Beef Jerky but they have .

So, Saturday morning just before braving Ostermälm’s Saluhall to pick up some Christmas food we decided to try out the reasonably newly opened Rue de Pont Nouveau Patisserie - Restaurant. A rather grand name for a rather grand place. It felt like a modern ’space age’ rework of MelkersLa Rouge . We received great and friendly service, the grilled sandwiches came with a fantastic side salad of sliced green beans, white beans, carrot and mix leaves and the coffees were well made, but the price, well I think its the most I have paid for a Cappuccino in Stockholm so far, 38Kr. A good place to go if you want a luxurious breakfast, and you are over that side of town but there are better priced and better places to go if you love cafes.

So, seems a few people have got it in for the mouthy but actually quite funny Katrin .She just appeared in Cafe magazine with just some fruit for company and people are a little shocked, she’s also looking very fit nothing like a divorce to get you in shape. Im traumatized by Kura Kura Octopus which I just discovered on Jonas’s blog. Never been a massive fan of eating Octopus, I once had a whole arm served complete at Andrew Edmunds in Soho, quite ok, not too rubbery but it felt wrong. To end on but something right Peter’s got some great AM90’s up on his blog.

So, I’ve been eating quite a few Pierogi lately, my favorite is cabbage and egg filling. One of my favorite labels DC Recordings artists The Oscillation and Emperor Machine played in Russia recently. The weekend is fast approaching and I am in need of fish soup, not the northern European kind more southern, saffron, citrus and tomato as a base.

So, last night was my birthday, older yes, wiser, maybe! This time I fancy a travel inspired post. Vanessa is off to Africa to support Adam Tensta check her blog for Ethiopia her first stop. Kim Jones it seems has a Kim Jones archive in Tokyo. Thailand’s best go-go dancers supposedly. What am I going to have for dinner tonight? Maybe some Cranberry juice to wash it down.

In a sea of superficial shopping fixated (please note the usage of the word shopping over fashion) blogs (also Im certainly not judging either) its refreshing to see blogs such as Hanna’s. Especially since she is currently reading Neil Gaiman a great writer who I rather like along but not for me on a par with the great Alan Moore. Martin and Mrs both have great blogs worth checking out where great books make a welcome appearance. After so much talk of books and the cold weather outside there’s no better way to end this post than giving you the recipe to this forthcoming Wednesdays dinner.

A friendly Norwegian in Amsterdam.

So, I wouldn’t usually do two posts in an evening but I was on Gregs blog and came across Stacey Peralta bringing the Whopper to hamburger virgin territory. I have to commend a clever idea but also one that fills me with dread.. What have you done Peralta? What have you done…

So, this weekend I watched the whole first season of Absolute Power, its rather old but still has some rather entertaining moments. I forgot how amusing Stephen Fry can be so I went through youtube for some suitably themes clips to match my weekend. Wine tasting , Pre-Coital Agreement, and Gay.

Maurizio sent me a suitably heart warming Christmas card, its been a while since we first brought him to Stockholm for his first gig, I think another gig should be on the cards soon. I read on the Guardians website that Heston is to revamp Little Chefs menu, Im sure the majority of readers of this blog have never had the pain of having to travel across the UK in a car so have not indulged in the evils of a Little Chef cooked breakfast. I have,and well its unpalatable these days, but in my youth I loved them, traveling down to Cornwall in the early hours of the morning the Little Chef would be our first stop at 7am. I can begin to appreciate Little Chef as traveling down to CPH fashion week many times the only safe food options is MacDonalds, sorry to say as I hate them but it is. I have tried many of the other options on the road and they are all truly disgusting. I have to end this blog for the night with desert a chocolate Grace Jones.

So, I had to go back to London this week on business, flew into the Heathrow Terminal 5 which was surprisingly ok. It is however a glorified shopping mall but one that thankfully has some ok places to eat such as Wagamama and and a Gorden Ramsey restaurant - Plane Food. All the other Heathrow terminals have terrible catering so this was better so on my return flight I visited Wagamama, I used to eat there a lot as a student, but its certainly not as good as it used to be, the chili mushroom ramen was hot but the stock bland, and the service was terribly slow. So what did I do in London, not much but a lot of work. However at Magma I noted that James Jarvis has re-released King Ken as a mini figure. I also revisited a lot of Drexiya’s back catalogue on the plane. I also got the opportunity to visit DunHill’s store, which was fantastic, a store complete with members club (included games room, 3 apartments, bar, private dining and a Bentley for members only). The store had a selection of rooms which made up a humidor where cigars could be bought as well as stored, if you were a member you could lay your cigars down in ceder wood lined lockers. The whole store oozed luxury form every pore but you could buy a pair of jeans for 130€ or easily spend 9999€ on a jacket! I actually was able to visit one of my favorite seafood restaurants for lunch J-Sheeky as they recently opened an extension an oyster-bar next store. The venue was beautiful, a horseshoe bar, perfect oysters and lunch specials for £8.75. I then took a beer with JoJo&Malou at a pub on Marylbone Lane, yet again an interesting area to discover. I love pubs, but this situation became strange, as we walked in an ordered we noticed the ambulance men we carrying out a bloodied old man who had stumbled in the bar and hit his head, complete with his two older female friends, lets say, big hair, LV bag and big furs… him slippers, I swear he had slippers on… a strange combination.. and the pub landlord didn’t even say a thing. So, now I’m back in Stockholm and received a reminder that PUB’s Christmas activity for Unicef is up on Tradera where there is some great items to bid for chosen by some interesting people such as Pär Lernstrom, Daniel Lindstrom, Blondinkjella, Kim Jones and Sebastian Larsson.