If you let it, preparing food can be a kind of rite, a connection to all the people who ever prepared and ate food before you.

You should start by taking the corn husks from the bag - cutting the knotted piece of cornhusk that was used to tie the back shut - then pick through them and choose 12 that seem large enough or maybe just please you for no particular reason. It seems a bit cruel to have to weigh them down with a heavy pot on top when you soak them in hot water, as if you were drowning them. But they are corn husks after all, and quite dead ones at that.

While the husks soak, you prepare the mole, first melting a spoonful of pork lard - you think of your grandmother when you unwrap the block of lard - then slowly adding spices to the frying pan: four ancho chile peppers, leaving the seeds to give the sauce a little bite, a generous spoonful of cumin, a less generous spoonful of dried coriander powder, caraway seeds. Let the smell go to your head, but not so that you forget to add a good squeeze of tomato paste from the tube, stirring, stirring, stirring with your wooden spoon, before you had a nice handful of chopped cherry tomatoes. Then, as it turns to a lovely paste, you add a clove of minced garlic before you drop in two or three chicken breasts that have been cut into small bite-sized pieces, coating them with the paste until they are cooked through. And at last, you add the final touch, a small square of rich bittersweet chocolate, resisting the urge to eat it by itself, instead letting it melt around the chicken until it's turned the sauce a non-descript reddish-brown color. The color is nothing spectacular, but the aroma is sublime.

On the other counter, once you've beaten 4-5 tablespoons more of pork lard - thinking again of your grandmother - for five minutes by itself in a mixer, you slowly add 2 cups or so of masa harina from Quaker Oats (this is cheating because real tamales are made with hand-made corn flour) as the lard mixes in the mixer, until the two form a coarsebut even meal, then just as slowly you add a cup of chicken broth or so until, beating and beating and beating it in the mixer, adding more and more air, the dough is finished. Marvel at the soft consistency, but be gentle with it.

Now all you have to do is spread the dough on the cornhusks that you've removed from the hot water and dried off. One at a time, spread the dough on a corn husk, then press a small handful of the chicken mole into the dough and add a bit of fresh cheese on top, then fold the cornhusk shut and steam the packets in a steamer lined with more corn husks, reading a book - perhaps Under the Volcano - at the kitchen table with one eye so that you can with the other eye carefully watch that the water doesn't boil away. Let the tamales steam until they are cooked through and tender, at least 45 minutes.

When you've set in front of your husband a plate of black beans cooked in chorizo, rice, and a salad of lettuce, avocado, red pepper and tomatoes, and a tamale or two, you have earned the right to sit and open up your own tamale, peeling away the corn husk and smiling at the impression it has left on the perfectly cooked dough.

As you take that first bite, remember all the cooks who have cooked tamales before you - perhaps even in Aztec kitchens - and it will taste all that much better.

The Swedish word for the day is vana. It means habit.

- by Francis S.

The third Mr. Marilyn Monroe has died. I never cared much for the few plays of his that I've seen. But, he was one the guys who stood up to Joe McCarthy, and that counts for a lot. Even more, he was married to Norma Jean Baker, and that's really something.

The Swedish phrase for the day is Men pappa, du vet att jag vet att det finns ingen jultomte!. Which is what a little boy walking behind me with his father said this morning: but Dad, you know that I know that there is no such thing as Santa Claus!

-by Francis S.

On the train back from Västerås today, the woman sitting in front of me - probably 70 - carefully set herself down and delicately patted her hair, as if every strand weren't already carefully shellacked into place, instantly bringing back memories of my mother when I was boy, when she would go and get her hair set.

Does anyone other than 70-year-old women in purple overcoats get their hair set anymore? What does it mean, anyway, to get your hair set?

The Swedish word for the day is hänsyn. It means consideration.

- by Francis S.

Damn the policeman! He was over here yesterday with the priest and their daughter, Signe, and he played this Jimmy Durante song for me and now I can't get it out of my head.

"I'll never forget the day I read a book.
It was contagious. Seventy pages.
There were pictures here and there, so it wasn't hard to bear,
the day I read a book.
It's a shame I don't recall the name of the book.
It wasn't a history, I know because it had no plot.
It wasn't a mystery, because nobody there got shot..."

I wonder if there's a modern-day equivalent of Jimmy Durante, with his peculiar endearing and innocent charm? I suppose he wouldn't be photogenic enough for today's tastes.

The Swedish word for the day is näsan. It means the nose.

- by Francis S.

Seen from the No. 42 bus at 6:38 p.m.: two women tanking up their car at the gas station on the corner of Kungstensgatan and Birger Jarlsgatan (I think I read somewhere that it's the oldest gas station in Stockholm); one is dressed in a bathrobe and slippers and appears to be wearing nothing underneath as she stands chatting with the other, who is dressed in typical parka, jeans and boots.

The weather is unseasonably warm, but it is only about 4 degrees celsius, tops. And it's not like there was a sauna nearby, either.

Swedes. Sometimes, they're just unfathomable.

The Swedish word for the day is bensinmack. It means filling station.

- by Francis S.

Worst Swedish translation of a movie title: Måndag Hela Veckan - which means Monday the Whole Week - for the movie Groundhog Day.

To be fair, I guess it was hard to come up with something that would make sense to the average Swede because oddly enough, groundhog day is not mentioned on any Swedish calendars.

Now, off to watch my favorite holiday movie ever.

(Isn't Bill Murray great? Even Andie McDowell is only slightly annoying and wooden... plus Chris Elliott plays a straight role, ooo-ee!)

- by Francis S.

When travelling to far-flung places, Paul Bowles is perhaps not your best choice for reading material. It's easy to become suspicious of even the generous and trustworthy Thai people or the horrendously poor Cambodians if you're spending your evenings reading short stories that feature hapless westerners faced with strange cultures that they invariably fail to understand or worse, misread so direly that it is their undoing. A father willingly seduced by his son or a French professor tricked into letting himself be captured by Bedouins who cut out his tongue and turn him into a pathetic clownlike figure, for example.

Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell it is not.

And yet, it can add a, um, frisson of peculiar pleasure to your beach reading.

- by Francis S.

I feel like Sally Field: "You like me!" It's all on account of a Satin Pajama Award for best writing, my second blog award since I started this whole writing project. Thanks, David Weman and the rest of the folks at Fistful of Euros. And kudoses to Mike M., who won two awards, and to Torill, who won one, and to those - Mig and Zoe and Des and Mr. H, Stefan, for instance - who should've won as well. Plus new interesting reads direct from Paris.

And now, a shameless plug for myself. You should know that the Bloggies - the oldest blog awards - are still open for voting in case you wanted to vote for me as Best Great Big Homo Type. Or for anyone else for that matter.

The Swedish phrase for the day is svag is. It means thin ice.

- by Francis S.

Talking on the phone today with the former punk rockstar, who has been homebound for over a week suffering with a flu that won't seem to go away, she told me that she has had it with television. The only thing on anymore are these horrible reality shows, she told me.

"Pretty soon there's going to be a new kind of psychological syndrome and a whole group of people suffering from it," she said. "People traumatized by being on a docusoap."

The Swedish word for the day psykiskt störd. It means mentally ill.

- by Francis S.

Flags on buses, in front of government buildings, atop random apartment buildings, on the corner outside the office. In a land where people are skeptical about displays of patriotism, this sudden waving of flags all over the place could only be some kind of vaguely political holiday, I decided.

When I checked my calendar after I arrived at work, I saw that, yes, it was a vaguely political holiday: the name day of the king.

"My father has the same name day as the king," K., my co-worker said. "When I was little and the old king died, I asked my father why he couldn't become king, since he had the same name day."

I like the idea of having a kind of second birthday, celebrating on the saint's day of whatever saint you share your name with, which is more or less what a name day is (although many Swedish names aren't tied to any saint, but still have a day assigned to them). It's kind of charming. A remnant of old religious practice and a time when the church held sway over people's day-to-day lives. Sort of like all Swedish bank holidays, which are with one exception - midsummer - nominally Christian holidays in a decidedly secular country.

As opposed to in the States, where all bank holidays with one exception - Christmas - are decidedly non-Christian, but the country seems to be anything but secular.

Please, give me religious remnants in the form of holidays and name days, as opposed to religious remnants in the form of laws enshrining religious beliefs, religious doctrine posted in public government spaces and children being forced to recite daily a belief in "God."

Uh, maybe remnants is the wrong word.

The Swedish word for the day is makt. It means power.

- by Francis S.

A Drunkard cannot meet a Cork
Without a Revery -
And so encountering a Fly
This January Day
Jamaicas of Remembrance stir
That send me reeling in -
The moderate drinker of Delight
Does not deserve the spring -
Of juleps, part are the Jug
And more are in the joy -
Your connoisseur in Liquours
Consults the Bumble Bee -

Poem No. 1628 by Emily Dickinson

There is nothing powerful enough to conjure up spring here, still so far away from Stockholm in January.

The Swedish word for the day is dröm. It means dream.

- by Francis S.

Is it shameful to still have a Christmas tree standing in your dining room on January 26?

We've removed all the ornaments and lights, we just haven't been able to muster the energy to drag the thing out of the apartment.

I'm reminded somehow of a sketch from the original Saturday Night Live, in which Lily Tomlin plays a crazy woman - with a fully-decorated Christmas tree in her living room in July - visited by salesman Garrett Morris. I think Lily Tomlin was the 1970s answer to Amy Sedaris. Or vice versa.

Whatever happened to Lily Tomlin?

The Swedish phrase for the day is svårt att få tag på någon. It means difficult to get a hold of somebody.

- by Francis S.

Apparently, Ultra-orthodox Jews in Israel are more likely to jaywalk than other Israelis, research shows.

I wonder if this is true of all orthodox types, regardless of choice of deity?

I suppose this means that they are more likely to get hit by cars, which probably makes them happy because it means less time in this vale of tears and more time sipping kosher lattés with assorted cherubim, seraphim and even the big guy himself. Still, I can't help thinking it was merely an oversight of Moses, who somehow failed to get that all-important 11th commandment: Thou Shalt Not Cross the Street Wherever the Hell Thou Wilt."

The Swedish word for the day is gamla testamentet. It means the Old Testament.

- by Francis S.

Poor Nikolai Nolan - he's exceeded his bandwidth no doubt due to traffic for this year's rounds of the Bloggies, so it's impossible to get onto the site at the moment. But if you could, you would notice that I'm nominated in the GLBT category - my third nomination in three years.

Fuck modesty. I'm proud, popularity contest or no.

Now, will there be a scandal as we've come to expect from past experience? We can always hope.

[post script: I neglected to say in the original post that for some reason, the usual suspects are missing this year from the category - they've moved out of the gay ghetto and into the "lifetime achievement" part of town. But, I am up against Mike, the fabulous Troubled Diva himself.]

- by Francis S.

Who says transvestism isn't natural? Apparently, if you're a male giant Australian cuttlefish, it's not just a way of life, but one of the best methods for getting the female giant Australian cuttlefish of your dreams. Plus - a major side benefit - you may attract other males!

- by Francis S.

"Do you want some cheesecake?" the husband called out from the kitchen yesterday morning as I dragged myself out of bed.

Sure, I said.

Somehow, the night before we never got around to dessert: instead A., the producer and C., the fashion photographer, had slept in front of the television - Miller's Crossing, one of my favorite period pieces - the husband had gotten up and crawled into bed and me, at 10 p.m., I was checking my e-mails and listening to the snores of three different people.

"Not bad," the husband said in the morning as he finished off his piece of cheesecake - made by A. with lingonberry jam and a gingerbread crust - and gulped down a cup of coffee, dashing off to Gothenburg for a weekend of work.

No wonder he has problems with his digestion.

The second Swedish word for the day is ont i magen. It means stomach ache.

- by Francis S.

Okay, so I blew it on the self-promotion for the Queeries. I've been given another chance to shill myself: the Satin Pajama Awards, from A Fistful of Euros. Voting starts tomorrow.

Remember when I had my own awards, back when I was new to the game?

The Swedish word for the day is självupptagen. It means, surprisingly, self-absorbed.

- by Francis S.

First Susan Sontag dies, now I learn that Victoria de los Angeles has died as well.

Her name alone was splendid, if a bit over the top in a biblical kind of way. Of course, I should admit that I've only ever owned a recording of her singing what some would say is the operatic equivalent of pop, Heitor Villa-Lobos' "Bachianas Brasileiras No. 5." But who can argue against eight cellos and a soprano called Victory of the Angels, singing like a bird, literally? It is, in fact, sublime.

-by Francis S.

I stand corrected by my brother, who obviously has a far better memory for these things than I do. It was on this date in 1958 in El Paso, Texas that a small red-haired squalling baby at last showed her face to the world.

Happy birthday again, Bethie. Sorry I fucked up yesterday. And thank goodness you don't visit this site very often.

The Swedish word for the day is jävlar. It translates literally as devils, but it's a good Swedish equivalent to dammit.

- by Francis S.

On this date in 1958 in El Paso Texas, a small red-haired squalling baby at last showed her face to the world, the first child of a couple of gawky 23-year-olds, the husband conscripted into the army and hating every minute of it, the wife working as a nurse in a local hospital and disturbed by the extreme poverty all around them.

Happy birthday, Bethie.

The Swedish word for the day is storasyster. It means big sister.

- by Francis S.