In most European countries, Denmark in particular, new mothers push their babies in prams something I can’t recall ever seeing in any US city I’ve been to. Because these prams are rather large and most shops are very small, mothers often leave their babies bundled up in the prams while they quickly pop into a store. Time and time again I saw prams with babies outside stores and no one ever seemed to think it strange or dangerous.

When I shared this with friends in the U.S., everyone sighed at the idea of living in such a society where one could do that. Each lamented how that would be impossible here. In fact, I heard a lot of parents say how they don’t even let their children play in the front yard for fear of strangers or something happening.

However, Salon’s recent article, Stop Worrying about your Children, suggest that the fear is in our minds:

“The crime rate today is equal to what it was back in 1970. In the ’70s and ’80s, crime was climbing. It peaked around 1993, and since then it’s been going down.

If you were a child in the ’70s or the ’80s and were allowed to go visit your friend down the block, or ride your bike to the library, or play in the park without your parents accompanying you, your children are no less safe than you were.

But it feels so completely different, and we’re told that it’s completely different, and frankly, when I tell people that it’s the same, nobody believes me. We’re living in really safe times, and it’s hard to believe.”

I live in a highly affluent area where people are 97% satisfied with the city and 98% satisfied with the city’s (almost non-existent) crime rate. It’s a very safe area that has a relatively large family population (in multi-million dollar homes) yet I can literally count on one hand the number of children I’ve seen (or heard) playing outside.

I’m not one of those people who believes the world is a more dangerous place but I think I owe this to several things: I don’t have a television, I listen to NPR, I’m an optimist. So not being inundated with daily doses of murders or glorified crimes that sell headlines and instill fear. Instead I can take in information from relatively calm sources and assess every situation as it is - not what it’s made out to be.

Are there dangerous areas? Of course! But as adults we have the ability to judge when it’s safe and when it’s not. Front yards, probably safe. Leaving a child in a pram outside, depends on where you are. I think what it also comes down to is knowing your community. Knowing the people around you.

In Denmark, for example, people don’t go to large lot stores to buy goods; they patronize the local flower shop, the butcher, the seamstress, the same pub. People get to know each other so there is a sense of responsibility to look out for one another. There’s a sense of trust. Stores are set up so that you can see your pram outside or you know how long it’s going to take you to run in and out.

One of the places I find really interesting to see this sort of thing is at Disneyland. There are thousands of strollers in the park and, when you go on a ride, you must leave it. You see all sorts of things being left on the strollers (souvenirs, clothing, bags, toys, food) yet the crime rate at Disneyland is very, very low. There’s a certain sense of trust (we’re in the happiest place on earth!), a certain sense of relaxation (we’re on vacation!) and a sense of community (we’re all here to have a good time!). What if Main Street in Disneyland wasn’t just in Disneyland? What if it existed in our towns and cities too?

Would you be more willing to leave a pram, a stroller, your bike, your dog out? Would you do it now?

I think the only (spring) food that Danes like more than their new potatoes are perhaps Asparges. After a long, cold, winter the spring is welcomed with everything asparagus; soup, salad, open-faced sandwiches, and as alone as a simple side dish. If there is a way to incorporate asparagus into a meal, the Danes will find a way to do so.

However, it’s only recently I’ve come to really appreciate, love and cook Asparagus. With access to the famous Santa Monica Market, I’ve been meeting local asparagus farmers who are so passionate about this vegetable that they could give any Dane a run for their money. When I bought a couple of stocks a few weeks ago, one of the growers asked me how I was going to cook them. I gave him my tried and true recipe: put on pan, drizzle with olive oil, add salt and pepper and broil.

He looked at me with great disappointment and said that his asparagus were so amazing, so tender and sweet (it’s the season) that they deserved to be the full meal and not a sad side dish. He gave me a simple recipe which I have to confess to having for either lunch or dinner every day since. It’s the perfect light but satisfying meal that I intend to keep having until the season is over. Besides, there’s an old-wives tale in Denmark that says it’s bad luck to eat asparagus after June 23rd (Saint John’s Eve).

Click through for the recipe:
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She doesn’t know how much it weighs. Nobody she knows or has ever met could tell you how much their bike weighs. Likewise, she doesn’t know how far she rides each day. It isn’t interesting. She rides at a good pace, not too fast to cause a sweat, and the ride is nice enough. She likes the fresh air and she often sees friends on the bike lanes. She loves crossing The Lakes and seeing the transformation from season to season. That will suffice.

She doesn’t wake up and make a decision to “commute by bike to work today”. It’s just a part of her day. She just walks out of her flat and gets on her bike. If it has a puncture, she’ll walk it down to the local bike shop to get it repaired and then take the bus or train to work. Picking it up in the afternoon.

She isn’t an activist, doesn’t belong to a cycling organisation with a long acronym and she doesn’t even think about the fact that she lives in something called a “bike culture”.

From a great article on Danish biking by Copenhagen Cycle Chic. This site has become one of my daily reads.

Scandinavians tend to drink the most coffee per capita although specialty, sweet, and flavoured coffees still aren’t as popular as in North America. The coffee here is usually bold, rich, dark and always had for breakfast and after meals (even at 10PM as seen with my mum above in Copenhagen).

However, I was a tea drinker and didn’t have my first coffee until I was 18. Living in England amongst dedicated tea drinkers I had comfortably avoided coffee until I visited with a sophisticated, polished couple that I wanted to be be like. So when they had coffee, I had my first cup and tried to be ever so polite about the horrible taste in my mouth as I sipped it bit by bit.

When I moved to Seattle, WA in 1999, birthplace of Starbucks and coffee snobs, I kept resisting coffee. It wasn’t until a frightfully cold morning commute did I pull into a cafe for a coffee - just to hold. The barista had loaded it up with Vanilla syrup and I found myself finally liking coffee (or perhaps really, just syrup!).

Tea remained my favourite beverage for taste and ritual but when I moved to Los Angeles a few years ago and discovered Urth Caffe’s Spanish Latte, I have to say that coffee began to be a favourite treat and I actually found myself craving a cup on cold mornings or when I was feeling a little sick. The rich, caramel, chocolate flavour of the coffee itself combined with the fact it’s organic and has one of the lowest acidic rates of any coffee won me over. It doesn’t need a lot to be good, which is how most coffee - and food - really should be.

With my mum coming tomorrow and my Danish cousins arriving next week, coffee had to be in the house. So I biked to Urth the other day, picked up a bag of the Italian Roast Coffee for home and I have been enjoying a cup every day since (especially since fall totally hit here and the weather has cooled).

My coffee routine is different than my tea one as is the gear. I love my gear. Here’s what I use to make a great cup:

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All little towns and communities in Denmark have a village grocery which is often a good little walk to get to if you live out in the country. So if you have to get some milk, you end up taking your dog along for exercise which is why you see these hunde parkering spots on the side of many of the grocers. Brilliant!

You wouldn’t think these dogs need the divider but just a second later, you can see why it’s there:

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“Over the past 30 years, in survey after survey, this nation of five and a half million people, the land that produced Hans Christian Andersen, the people who consume herring by the ton, consistently beat the rest of the world in the happiness stakes.” Morley Safer in a Feb. 17 CBS News 60 Minutes story highlighting Denmark.

When I first heard that Danes were considered the happiest people in the world, I admit I was somewhat skeptical. Loving, kind, open, truthful, straight talkers, quirky, crazy, polite, innovative, intellectual - totally. But happiest? No, that’s not the first word I, or most Danes, would think to use to describe themselves (in fact, I know far more grumpy Danes than Pollyanna ones!).

However, during the 60 Minutes interview, one of the Danes cleared up my confusion by saying that it’s not that they are the happiest, but they are, perhaps, the most content. All Danes have all their basic needs covered from birth to death (good wages, health care provided, free education including university, one year government paid maternity leave and some of the best elder-care in the world to name a few). A word that describes how Danes feel with this life is tryghed which simply means “tucked in” – like a snug child looked after.

With basic needs met one doesn’t have to struggle for the day to day things so much (how will I get into school, how do I pay for the doctor, where do I go when I’m old), so one’s energy can go into family, friends and job pursuits. This sets up Danes for that feeling of being content. Feeling content then frees them feed other desires/pursuits which fuels a lot of young people’s ambitions.

But what also needs to be added to this equation is that Danes generally have very low expectations of life. This is not to say they are pessimists or Eeyore about everything, it’s just that they don’t expect that they will all grow up rich and famous, have a big mansion, drive the BMW, and wear more bling than their next-door’s mama and all by age 25.

If that or something else fabulous happens - great! Wonderful! Celebrate! But they just don’t go around with the expectation of extraordinary events occurring all the time; they are content with where they are and might stay at that place without a feeling of missing something. If they’re in a small home, they don’t feel shamed by this because that doesn’t necessarily mean they’re not ambitious or successful or happy - it simply means they want a small home.

In Denmark, one can enjoy being a homemaker, working in a grocery store, growing old with wrinkles, sitting for hours drinking coffee instead of jet-setting, because they’re not stressing out about providing the basics that aren’t really basics or about becoming rich/famous/skinny just because they could be (or as we sometimes tell each other in America, should be). Danish society supports everyone in making sure they live well yet, aside from the basics mentioned earlier, doesn’t dictate what that is. Each Dane gets to decide what it is that makes them content.

And thus, we call them happy because, well, doesn’t that sound happy? It certainly does to me.

Beets have always played a huge part in Denmark; it’s one of two major crops (the other is potatoes) and it’s also harvested for sugar (there’s even a museum dedicated to it). There’s a 99% chance that if you are invited to lunch, nedlagte rødbeder or pickled beets, will be on the table for your smørrebrød (open faced sandwich).

This has always terrified me. Actually, most Danish food has terrified me (Liver Paste/Leverpostej?) ! And so despite having sat at countless tables with beets upon them, I just couldn’t ever bring myself to eat them. No matter how much “oohing” and “ahhing” my mum made over their taste.

However, recently my doctor suggested to me that I should juice some carrots, celery and yes, beets together to help with some health concerns. I’d heard of this tonic before (it’s been suggested as a great hangover drink) and how it helps the liver function. I’ve been an avid juicer but only with things green. I wasn’t sure I could add beets.

But I did.

Into my juicer went one large beet, three carrots, one lemon, half a stack of celery, a bit of ginger and a cucumber for good measure. I wasn’t sure I could drink it but in the name of health I did. And then I did some more. And some more. I couldn’t believe how sweet it was - I had fallen in love with… beets!

I don’t know if I’m into pickling or roasting yet (one step at a time) but juicing them has been tasty and easy. I’m not sure about all the health benefits yet but thankfully I’m now loving beets for their taste instead of doing it out of healing obligation.

My mum will be so proud.

Other beet ideas: Read the rest of this entry »

Photo by my mum.

The shoes on the left were mine when I was about 5 and 6. I wore them everywhere with everything. The pair on the right I picked out on my 10th birthday and I was so excited despite the fact I had a cast on my ankle and had to wait a few months to wear them both (it was worth the wait). These to me are just so Danish - the colour, the style, and the fact that they’re made for every sized person to wear (and to wear with every kind of clothing).

I’ve remained a huge clog fan and still have a few different pairs. My current favourite pair come from El Naturalista (you can see my review on Pet the Pretty Things). My mum loved them so much I bought her a pair as well. These are her go to’s for the 8 hours a day she spends on her feet at a winery.

I’m also loving Born’s new more fashionable looking Anita Clog. Born shoes are my go-to shoes (I’ve three pairs of boots, flip flops and dress shoes that are so comfortable and always compliment inducing). And I like these when I want the feel and support of a clog but perhaps just a little more dressed and a little less traditional.

And when the shoe no longer fits, they make great decor. These have been a staple in my mums entrance way for years no matter where she lives or what her entrance looks like. That, too, is Danish.

(The little thing in the back of the right shoes is a mouse door stop I gave her. It’s from Anthropologie)

Read more if you want to see me as a 5 year old in my clogs.

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My mum’s home, photo by her.

My mother and I are similar in a lot of ways; looks, giggle fits, dreams, habits and hand movements. But where we tend to differ greatly is in home decor. She’s very Danish, I’m very French/Shabby/Modern/Bare.

Her flat above is just so her and so Danish with artwork everywhere (and placed low), embroidery done by family, fresh flowers, teak furniture, hundred year old things mixed with new, and of course a Danish Flag.

My home, well, you’ve seen a lot of my home. The colours are softer, there’s not as much, and I just can’t handle anything teak. We live our styles and enjoy each other’s when we visit. And when we visited family last year in Denmark, I re-discovered how every home is just like hers. Filled with things in an artful, careful way. Never cluttered but never bare. Always filled with stories, artwork and family. And always, always filled with food. So very Hygge.

Currently enjoying Linda Mathieu’s Blog, Frenchless in France in which her guest blogger, Emily is doing a great job of sharing Provence. I’ve only ever been to Provence in the winter (February, for my birthdays), but I actually really love it then. It’s when you get to really see the towns without fighting mobs of tourists or unhappy hosts. The smell of fireplaces going, the mistral winds, the seasonal cooking of food so thick and warm it sticks to your belly. But, I confess, I’m a little envious of those who get to see it in spring and travel the fields barefoot.

One of my favourite places to stay in Provence regardless of the seasons is the self-catered gite, le pigenonnier in Isle sur la Sorgue. The flat is beautiful, modern but still French and the breakfasts are amazing. The location is perfect (if you have a car) in which to explore the area. And the hosts? Amazing though you’ll have to learn (basic) French to speak with them.