Pasty

I talked to my mother in law, Janet, on the phone last week and she told me that she just went to the Cornish Pasty restaurant in Tempe and I started craving a pasty so badly!! Oh man! I wanted a cottage pie pasty more than I can say! So I, of course, spent the next two evenings googling pubs and restaurants trying to find a place with pasties or bangers and mash or cottage pie to satisfy my craving. We had the absolute best pub food in London when we were there and I wanted it again so badly. My search ended in failure as I did not find anything that looked promising. Aside from pub food, there are so many other food I have been thinking about- a lot! Let me take a quick moment and list the restaurants in Arizona that I have been thinking about for the last month or so:

-Indian Grandma- (that is what we call it. The lady that is always there serving is like our dear, sweet Grandma- even though she was sitting at a booth plucking her eyebrows with a tiny mirror that one time). I think it is called Royal Taj on Broadway and McClintock. I get the Chicken saag (spinach) and Matthew gets the Tikka Masala. It is so good!!!

-Indian Delhi Palace- On McDowell in Phoenix - Matthew and I get the same dishes as above, they just taste different but awesome! Courtney knows this place rocks!

-Blue Adobe - Country Club and Main - I love the Enchanted Garden Enchilada. All tasty vegetables and cheese and creaminess!!

-Taco Bell- Mesa- I know it is wrong... but I want a bean and cheese burrito so bad! And cinnatwists! And a Tostada.

-Filiberto's- Mesa- I know it is really wrong... but Oh sweet bean and cheese burrito with their perfect hot sauce!

-Pizza Pit - Dobson and Baseline- This place has the best pizza! The crust is awesomely sweet. Their cheese bread stuff is so good too! GO there!

-Euro Cafe - downtown Gilbert - Butter garlic nuts!!!

-Cornish Pasty- Dobson and Guadalupe - Every pasty is so good, but the Cottage Pie is my favorite.

-Baja Fresh - Mesa - I want to go here with Jenny and get a chicken quesidilla with guacamole and that black salsa and sour cream and tomatoes so bad it hurts. Their chips and salsa make me so happy!

-Bahama Bucks- Mesa - Jenny! Please go get me a Strawberry Colada ice cream/shaved ice treat like in the old days (2 months ago)!

-Ted's Hot Dogs- Broadway and McClintock - Chili Cheese Dog!!!! This place is so tasty and we always seemed to go after a long day of manual labor. Mmmm!

-India Star - Los Angeles, California (on Melrose Avenue)- It was rare that we got here, but this place has the best buffet of all time. If you are ever in LA, you must go here! Lacy, take Megan and go there for me!

-And for some reason I want some gum drops- the spice drops, so badly! They have gum drops here but not the spicy ones. My friend, Rory, at work was bringing them a lot the last few months I worked at MRM and I got really hooked on them! Matthew was sweet to bring me some here and they were good but not spicy!

Back to the pasties... So, I decided to make pasties at home. I did the traditional pasty instead of the cottage pie, nothing too crazy. The recipe basically calls for potatoes, lamb, turnips and onion. It was near impossible to find a turnip here for some reason, so I went without. I forgot to take pictures of the pasties, so I am going to steal a picture off of the website where I got the recipe. My pasty looked every bit as professional as the one above, I assure you. Actually mine were pretty rough looking (no symmetry and the pinches were not great) but I was happy with them.

Matthew and I settled in to eat them that night and they turned out so good! The crust was so crumbly and buttery and delicious. Now I want to start experimenting with different savory types as well as dessert pasties. I am so excited! Matthew said that "we are really onto something here". I will translate for you- let's make this every night.

I used this recipe from Connie, an older lady who grew up in Cornwall- or so she says. It really could be some young dude from Texas who wants the Cornwall cred on this pasty site, I have no idea. The recipe is fantastic, though!

We are having our friend, Stine, over for vegetarian pasties next week, so I am starting to come up with something in my head. I think we will need apple caramel pasties for dessert!

The Talent

We got a call on Friday last week from the people at http://www.workindenmark.dk/ to see if we would participate in a survey. About a month ago we contacted the WorkinDenmark organization, which is basically an arm of the labor market here geared towards foreigners, immigrants, expats- any non-Danish person that is thinking about coming to Denmark to work or is in Denmark and looking for work. We met with a guy named Martin and he helped Matthew and I with some job searching tips and changing our resumes into CV''s and other job search related items. I guess Martin gave our names to an outside consultant for Work In Denmark and they contacted us to participate in the survey. The Work in Denmark website is being overhauled and they want new video and pictures and new stories about people coming to Denmark.

Matthew and I agreed to the interview, thinking it would be very casual and only take a few minutes. The lady who coordinated everything sent Matthew an email over the weekend with an attachment with all the details. I guess we both just assumed it was not a big deal so Matthew didn't open the attachment until about half an hour before we were about to leave Monday afternoon for the appointment. As he read the attachment, he came across a list of about 30 detailed questions that we should be prepared to answer like:

- Why did you decide to move to Denmark?

- How did you navigate the green card process?

- What has been the most difficult thing about moving to Denmark?

- If you could rewind time and go back to the few months before you left your home country, what would you do differently to prepare for the move to Denmark?

- Are you doing fine so far? (I thought that was a really funny question!)

- If you have work already, how is the office culture different than the culture in your home country. If you don't have work yet, when you think about your future job, what do you think the office culture will be like?

After we read through the questions, Matthew gets to the part in the email where it says that we should be prepared to be filmed and to have HUNDREDS of pictures taken of us. WHAT?! Funny story, the night before, Sunday night, Matthew decides to shave his goatee. He has been wanting to for years and years but has been nervous about how it will look. He finally does it the night before the biggest photo shoot of our lives- besides our wedding! What are the chances?!Once his brain registered the situation he was in, there was a little bit of a freak out. We got through it. For the record, he looks great!

We took a bus to the building we were asked to meet at. It was a really cool building right on the water's edge. We walked into the lobby and were met by a nice lady and a professional camera man. They took us outside to the water's edge and had us walk back and forth towards the camera while acting natural. I was pushing Olivia in her stoller. The camera man took many different angles and got up in Olivia's face a few times which was funny. We did that for maybe a half hour. It was freezing outside, the coldest day so far here in Copenhagen. I just kept thinking how awesomely rosy my cheeks must look!

Then we went inside and upstairs to a really nice office where there was a reception area with all kinds of treats and food. There was juice and tea and coffee and coffee cake and cheese cake and cookies and fruit and vegetables- it was so fun! They told us to help ourselves. When we arrived, a second person, a nice Danish man, started asking us a lot of questions. Matthew went first and I kept Olivia with me. He was in the office for almost an hour and I just assumed he was being asked all the questions. When they came out they said that they had just finished photographing him! For almost an hour! Then they wanted to photograph Olivia and Matthew together. Then me and Olivia. And then just me. They talked to us during the shoot and got us to make gestures with our hands and stuff. It was so bizarre, but fun. When the pictures were done they sent the photographer away and then took Matthew back in the office and asked him questions with professional sound recording equipment. He wore a headset like you would in a radio booth or something. I went in when he was done to answer all the questions and he watched Olivia. We were there for about 2 and a half hours!

At the end as we were wrapping up, the people offered to pay our bus fare to and from the meeting and told us that they would like to give us a Christmas gift worth the equivalent of 1000 Kroner (about $200). He said they could not give us cash. He gave us his card and told us to email him and tell him what we want for Christmas! It was so funny! We will probably just ask for a gift card to a department store here like Illums or Magasin. We have had our eyes on a few things. This, this and this. The whole thing was really fun! The people in charge of the project were really nice and funny and they treated us like we were The Talent. It was a fun day! The website overhaul should be done next year - around March 2011. There is a very good chance we will be on the website looking very awkward! If/ when we are on the site I will post it here!

Tivoli Video 3

Scroll down to October 25th to see the first Tivoli post...

Tivoli Video 2

Thank you, Rod and Paul

A few days ago we received a large package in the mail. It was addressed to Olivia Cox. She opened it and inside were four Winnie the Pooh stuffed animals shipped all the way from Portland, Oregon. She loves them! Olivia already sleeps with a stuffed dog that my friend Rory gave to her for her birthday that we brought with us to Denmark. She also sleeps with a doll we bought here in Copenhagen. Now she tries to take all four Winnie the Pooh animals into her crib and sleep with all of her favorite toys! I usually only let her bring in one or two, in addition to the dog, and she usually picks Piglet or Roo. Thank you so much Rod and Paul!! It was such an unexpected and much appreciated present! I showed her a Winnie the Pooh video on YouTube and she grabs each animal as it comes on screen and kisses it or makes it dance or pushes it up against the computer screen. You guys are great! We love you!

Halloween in Sweden

We spied these cute ghost cakes at the bakery next to our apartment!

For Halloween we went to Lars and Ulrika's house in Malmo, Sweden. It was so fun! The house was decorated so cute and festive and there was candy everywhere! Olivia and Siri dressed up as mummies. Joar was a vampire. Love was a zombie/ monster of some kind. Matthew and I went to IKEA and bought a couple of cheap sheets and ripped them into strips.

Olivia sat there patiently while I wrapped her. I don't know if she was so compliant because it was already well past her bedtime or because Siri was also getting wrapped, but she just sat there and let me do it. I was so happy; I had planned on her struggling!

Finished product!

Olivia was okay holding Siri's hand for a second and then she looked up and kind of freaked out at Siri's costume!

Olivia loved Trick-or-Treating! She got so excited and just mesmorized by people putting candy in her little cauldron. It was great!

Ulrika holding Lisa, Love, Siri, Joar, me holding Olivia and Lars and Matthew behind where you can't see!

It was a really fun night and Olivia loved it!