G'day,

I thought I'd use this email to tell you a little bit about lunch in Denmark. For lunch everyone has smørrebrød which is a pretty stupid name. First of all it literally means 'butter-bread' and traditional smørrebrød has very little butter or bread and second of all it's impossible for us foreigners to pronounce so you have no chance of ordering some smørrebrød without completely giving yourself away.

Now if you buy smørrebrød at a restaurant it's piled really high so you can't see the tiny bit of bread at the bottom but when you make it at home it's usually a bit more modest.

At the end of January, Nathan came to stay for a week which was great (cheers Nathan!). One day we decided to make some traditional smørrebrød of our own. And, of course, we took photos.

First up we tried some herring on leverpostej (liver paste) and rygbrød (a sort of rye bread but really dense, kind of like plastic). This one tasted really good. It's worth the money to buy the slightly better 'gammeldags' herring because we both really liked it.

Gastronomical!

Next we had frikadeller (Danish meat balls) with rocket and capsicum which was pretty good.

Frikadelicious!

Finally we tried 'Dyrlægens natmad' which means something like 'The vet's midnight snack'. It includes saltkød (salt meat), red onion, and sky which is like a meat-flavoured jelly (and it actually tastes even more wrong than it sounds).

Mmmm... meat jelly.

Nathan looking dubious.

Apart from smørrebrød Denmark is also big on cheese (Danish blue), beer (Carlsberg), pastries (Danishes), and ice cream although Nathan and I couldn't find any ice cream in Copenhagen, but that may have had something to do with it being the middle of winter.

Also, about a month ago the novelty of being totally uncontactable finally wore off and I got a mobile. My no. is +45 28 34 76 43 but I don't have international dialling yet so you can msg me but I can't reply yet.

That's it for now. I have lots more to tell (including more pictures to send) so start clearing out your inbox! :)

Seeya,

Brian.