I moved to my own apartment when I was just barely 18 years old. I was the first of all my Swedish friends and so, I had to learn how to cook. Warming up TV dinners was as close to cooking my mother ever got to making homemade meals. Yet somehow, I discovered that preparing and presenting food was fun stuff.

Around the time when I moved from my aunt Lillemor, I eventually found work as a short-order cook frying frozen steaks, flipping burgers, and soaking fries in oil at an all-night diner on the Aveny, the main drag in Göteborg. It was relatively honest work and I stayed there for about a year.

My second cooking gig was significantly more advanced. I worked in a proper kitchen at a place called Jazzhuset (also in Göteborg) where a variety of bands performed New Orleans tunes three or four nights a week. To this day, I’m perfectly fine if I never ever again hear “When the Saints Go Marching In”.

Anyway, in the kitchen at Jazzhuset, I learned a bunch about cooking and above all, worked under a few chefs that encouraged me to experiment, just as long as I didn’t poison guests or staff.

Charlotte’s not very fond of making food, so, for the past 27 years, I’ve had the privilege of making our meals. I’m no foodie by any stretch of the imagination. Instead, I prefer classic, comfort dishes but with a twist, and above all, I really enjoy the process of making and presenting our meals. Particularly if ingredients are limited. That’s when my creativity really kicks in. I rarely follow recipes.

The above image is from last night’s sumptuous salad: chopped romaine, diced cabbage, a few wedges of avocado, some cubes of feta cheese, a dozen or so carrot wheels, and several wafer-thin slices of spring onion. I then doused everything with a vinaigrette made from Greek olive oil, fresh lime juice, a few dashes of apple cider vinegar, crushed garlic, some sea salt, and a pinch of wonderfully numbing Seschuan pepper. Protein: parmesan salmon baked in sesame seed oil.