How to learn Swedish in 1000 difficult lessons

Yesterday evening, I went with the architect from San Francisco to see the Naked Chef give a cooking demonstration. The architect had originally gotten the tickets because his husband, the Dutchman, wanted to go. But the Dutchman was in Berlin, and my own husband was working, so it ended up just the architect and I.

The chef was, of course, neither naked nor really demonstrating. He was putting on a show, which seemed to be geared toward the vast majority of the audience: 15-year-old girls. He did cook a little bit, but he also sang, and played the drums, and flirted with the audience (strangely, he did this somehow shamelessly and shamefully at the same time), and didn't seem altogether comfortable on stage.

"What did you think?" the architect asked me as we fled the auditorium.

In typical Swedish fashion, I was circumspect in my judgement. It wasn't what I like, I told him, but it was, in its way, entertaining. And it gave both of us a terrible craving for curry. So we went to Koh Phangan where the decor is authentic Thai - all crazy bamboo and palm thatching and colored lights and the noise of crickets on a tape loop - and the chicken in paneng curry is about as satisfying as it gets.

The Swedish word for the day is kokosmjölk. It means coconut milk.

- by Francis S.