How to learn Swedish in 1000 difficult lessons

The most difficult thing about leaving this apartment will be leaving our neighbor the chef behind. At least for me that will be hardest. She's working on a cookbook due out in the fall, and the husband and I are lucky guinea pigs testing, say, four different pasta dishes - asparagus and bacon, roasted broccoli and blue cheese and walnuts, cherry tomatoes sautéed in butter and sugar with sunflower seeds, lentils and orzo with oranges and rucola - or desserts like ice cream sandwiches with toasted gingerbread and clementines in anise syrup.

I don't think she's going to be at all interested in hauling these meals halfway across town just to be nice to us.

(They've finished sanding and oiling the floors; they've now started spackling the walls... we've only a month to go before we move in and whenever I stop by to see how it's going, it feels more and more like home, despite the mess.)

The Swedish word for the day is skrattkammare. It means funhouse.

- by Francis S.