Tak for mad

I have finally found out the secret to Danish cuisine, well the secret to how to pay for breakfast and dinner for the price of a single breakfast.   Breakfast and lunch are paid for by the company I work under contract with.  The trick is finding diner for as cheap as possible.  I found that the secret is to take some breakfast with you when you’re done.  

 

Apparently it is not a secret at all, but something that the Danes do all the time.  Breakfast in Denmark is a combination of lunch meat, salami, lettuce, mayonnaise, and rolls, fresh fruit, and cold cereal and sometimes fish.  I noticed that they always serve us way more than we can eat, and I noticed that at the breakfast bar there are always rolls and rolls of aluminum foil.  Then the other morning I noticed other people (besides our group) getting breakfast.  They made two sandwiches, one for breakfast, and another to stuff into their jacket presumably for lunch. 

 

Bingo.

 

I also get a paid lunch so my breakfast later becomes my dinner, and since outside is about the same temperature as the inside of a refrigerator all I have to do is leave my breakfast/dinner in the car until after work.  

 

Speaking of paid lunch, today we had salad, boiled potatoes, and frikadeller.  My Mom will immediately recognize the name as she has made them for us many times.  Tak for mad (thank you for the meal) Frikadellar is a basically a Danish meatball.  These looked a lot like the eggs from Alien.  They were large, tasted wonderful, and didn’t hatch a single monster.  I highly recommend them to anyone wishing to try a rational Danish dish.  The ones served in our cafeteria were not like the recipe listed below.  There was no sauce and the chef told me it was veal. 

 

Here is a recipe I found

Original source

 

FRIKADELLER DANISH MEAT BALLS  

 

1 lb. meat loaf mixture (veal, pork, beef)

1 onion, minced

1 c. fine bread crumbs

1 1/2 c. milk

1 egg, beaten

1/2 tsp. salt & pepper each

4 oz. Danish blue cheese

6 tbsp. butter

2 tbsp. flour

1 c. chicken bouillon

1 c. dairy sour cream

 

Combine meat, onion and crumbs; beat in milk, eggs, seasoning until light. Cut cheese in 1/2 inch cubes. With wet hands, pat 1/4 cup of mixture around each cheese cube and shape into egg-like ovals. Brown Frikadeller on all sides in butter until thoroughly done. Remove and keep warm. Stir flour into drippings, add bouillon and cook until thick. Stir in sour cream, heat gently. Pour over Frikadeller.

et navn

 

I have a really good friend John.  Sooner or later it seems that all of John’s friends get a nickname.  Eric is known as Elvis, Larry is known as Lars, and ever since my Vestas e-mail came out I will probably be known as Dainty.  (Long story) 

The point is that, what is a nickname for one person is the likely the given name of another.  I met the real Lars today.  Like Larry, Lars is an outstanding individual. Unlike Larry, Lars is such a common name in the factory that he too has picked up a nickname, Running Lars.  Apparently he is a rabid runner and regularly covers 50km on a weekend.  He will be following us back to the States in March, I am sure he will fit right in with the workers who live in boulder.

I really do not like nicknames.  I am sure they are meant as endearments or at the least as a sign of belonging.  However I have seen too many times nicknames being used as a covert way to ridicule an unsuspecting victim.  Sometimes this is tagged on a person who is overtly friendly and irritating or a way to describe someone that the in-crowd despises.  

When I was on a temporary duty assignment in Germany there was a guy that had to tag a nickname on just about everyone.  He called this one guy Sprinkles.  The guy hated the nickname but couldn’t criticize it on any specific grounds other than is sounded kind of effeminate. The guy was big and strong and the nick name didn’t seem to fit at all.  But that didn’t assuage the power of his nickname; it stuck on him like glue.  On the last day of the job he finally had enough and cornered the person who kept insisting on calling him Sprinkle.  He calmly stated that “If you have a pile of crap, and cover it in whipped cream and candy sprinkles, its still a pile of crap”  This ended in a rather heated fight that took four people to stop.   

On the other hand, on the same job in Germany our boss received the nickname of “Fresh”.  He liked it and encouraged others to use his nick name.  We called him Fresh out of disgust because all of us were freezing our asses off in the mud and concrete and he would just drive up in a jeep, roll down the window and ask how the job was going.  Then drive off, he was late for a meeting or something.  Fresh, it is said with a sneer not a smile.

So ever since my experiences in Germany, I have tried my best to keep from giving nicknames, or receiving a nickname.  I will only use them if I am certain that the person really likes it.  I simply can’t think of one I would like.  So I don’t want one.  Not even Dainty, as appropriate as it seems for a six foot six inch, two hundred and thirty pound man.

Does anyone have a nickname they like?

 

-PF

tak for alt

The weekend has been nice, but it is back to work tomorrow.  I will be working on the part of the production line where they mate the drive shaft with the gear box.  This doesn’t sound interesting, but it is.  First the size and weight is quite formidable. Second it’s really quite a high tech device.  It is also interesting work due to my co-workers, they are both really odd and interesting.  I have been working with two process instructors named Jimmy and Viel.  Jimmy is German and likes to shoot air rifles for a hobby.  Viel is from Transylvania and reminds me a bit of Frodo Baggins.   They have a good sense of humor and speak many obscure languages including English, which helps.  

 

            I spend part of the day strolling through a grave yard.  I can’t tell you how beautiful the gardening is in their cemeteries.  I stopped periodically in front of a headstone to use my pocket PDA to look up the meanings of the inscriptions below the dates. The most popular inscription was “tak for alt”, which translates to “Thanks for Everything”.  What’s interesting to me is who is the thanks going too?  It could be God, or the graves occupant? Maybe it’s everyone that person knows, or my personal favorite, it’s a proclamation of having no regrets.  

I like that.

-PF