The secrets from the Chef & Sommelier

The Cantina Ascheri managed by the sympatric Matteo is a true world class wines from the Piedmonte region in north of Italy . The wines are always hand harvested with full maturation for obtaining full flavours and perfect sugar content. I like the way he treat his Wines with tradition and at the same time innovation to make the the perfect wine in La Morra, Serralunga and Bra area. The three estates all show different styles that are all excellent and very easy drinking wines with great complexity and full body that I love. You can easy visit the estate and stay at the wonderful little hotel so sample all the wines and to feel the true spirit of Barolo.

There are many things to say about the wines of Veneto and especially the much loved Amarone and Ripasso wines that the Swedish people just love and have embraced to their hearts. To speak about these wines without mentioning the Azienda Agricola Brigaldara wines are impossible due to the fact that the wines from this producer is one of the finest in the area. What I like about Sandros wines is the tru identity of the land and the deep tradition of making this type of wines in a very handcrafted ways. All the wines, from the Valpolicella, Passito, Soave, Recioto to the outstanding Grand Cru Amarone Case Vecie near Grezzana where the planted Corvinone, Corvina, Rondinella is grown from vines planted in 1994 in cooler climate with very long drying process. If you have a chance you must try the Brigaldara wines or contact me if you are in the HORECA trade in Sweden and I will help you out.

The history of Umberto Cesari is the history of its founder, a stubborn man who, poor in means but rich in passion, has dedicated his life to his local corner of earth and to great Sangiovese wines. Although Umberto Cesari is not from a winegrowing family, wine always played a prominent role in the Cesari household, since his father owned one of Bologna ’s historic osterie. But instead of a career of selling wine, Umberto Cesari decided to invest all of his efforts into making the highest-quality Sangiovese he could. In the 1960s, high quality was still not a characteristic associated with the wines of Emilia-Romagna, and Umberto Cesari was a pioneer in this regard, one of the very first who was convinced that the Sangiovese could make a truly outstanding local wine. In 1967, he purchased a small vineyard in the hills of Castel San Pietro and founded the winery that today bears his name. From those initial 20 hectares of vines Umberto Cesari grew steadily, until it gained its cur...

KOSTA BODA ART HOTEL is located in the small village of Kosta that are famous for the Orrefors glass design and the heart of glass manufacture in Sweden . The hotel that is built some years ago by the owner Torsten Jansson who hade the idea of a great place to show all the design and to use as showroom for the best glass designers that Sweden have today. The Hotel is a masterpiece in Swedish design and you can stroll around the hotel and you will find one of a kind pieces that are truly mind blowing and extremely rare. The pool is made of tailed glass and show some great pieces on the bottom of the pool and are changed on regular basis to showcase something new all the time. The exclusive Spa and guest facilities are wonderfully made and on highest level in every aspect, If you ever come to Sweden this is a must place to visit for some days. The Linnéa Art restaurant is serving excellent food in wonderful setting and serving some of the best food from around the area and t...

Making sausage with friends is one of the funny things in life. We started up with all of us bringing 5 kg of meat each to the table and ended up with 60 kg (some of the guys hade what they called leftovers) Great fun to grind the meat the different and to flavour all the mixtures in to what finally ended up as 12 varieties of classical and not so classical sausages. After a few hours and some more beer the kitchen looks like a disaster and we have to call in some cleaning persons who swiftly solved our little problem. Part of the meat was used to smoke in the backyard and we also BBQ some of it with great result. Here are some pictures of our sausage night, do try at your neighbours house J

If you travel to Korea you have to visit the DMZ (demobilisation zone) that runs between North & South on the 38 parallel. This is a remarkable please when you consider that in the south you have one of the worlds strongest economies and in the North are people starving to death to remember is that the line is only 2000 meter wide but the most heavily guarded piece of land on the globe. There are many places to visit and I recommend using a good guide who knows the history and all the stories. The known tunnels that have been found is impressive when you know that 40 000 men with field artillery could pass each hour, and this only 44 km from Seoul , scary! The south regular army of 650 000 men are nothing when you know that north side have over one million hungry men on the other side with army training for 10 years for all the men and 7 years for all the women, this is teambuilding don’t you think? North Korea:  The bridge of no return  Mines everywhe...

I did not have any expectations of Korea before we left for the congress, the only thing I did know is that the Korean chefs association will try the best to fulfil our needs for those days, and the did for sure, more than 60 people was food poisoned including me and Christina and that did take away many of the nice days that we expected to enjoy here in this beautiful country and friendly people. What surprises me is how low the level of foreign languages are here not even in the hotels do they speak anything except Korean at the front desk, strange due to that the hosted the summer Olympics 88 world cup in soccer 04 and will host the winter games in 18 this is for me very strange. The Korean people are as I mentioned very friendly and very stylish when it comes to fashion especially the female side where you can se how the high economic standard is worn in all the handbags and shoes of the most famous designers, I love it Seoul is a true mega city with 10 million people in the ci...

The WACS (world association of chefs societies) congress are over in South Korea for this time with great achievements regarding cooking and also great to make new friends and to meet up with all the people from the culinary world. 67 member countries was at place with some 500 chefs and with some help of culinary students we could set a new Guinness record of 2111 chefs in one place, great fun. The next congress will be held in Stavanger Norway in 2013 and we are all looking forward to this and dearly support Norway for great success. Athens in Greece will hold the congress in 2016 so they have 4 years to sort they economics out and make it work, I am sure they will. Sebastian Gibrand was representing the Swedish chefs association in the Hans Buschkens junior competition where 7 of the top junior chefs drawn from the globe are competing, he made 2:d place and made us all very proud. Going to the toilet here in Korea is a remarkable experience due to all the fuzzy buttons on t...