A day off - but not quite!

Søstrene Olsen

When you're writing a book about eating in a country, you're never really "off duty" since you of course are eating the entire time that you're in that country! So while we had no appointments today, we came out of it with a delicious recipe from a restaurant called Søstrene Olsen in the town of Hornbaek which is on the Northern coast of Denmark. A husband and wife team run the restaurant, which recently celebrated it's 30th anniversary. The building has a thatched roof, views of the dunes, and apparently nice sunsets (we were there for lunch so we'll have to take their word for it!).

The delicious æblekagen for the book

Yesterday during our marathon day of speaking with chefs we learned that chef training in Denmark comprises of 4 years of schooling; for about 10 weeks you're in the class room, and the remaining 3 1/2 years or so you're working in a restaurant. Based on the size of a restaurant they are able to take on a certain number of students, who get paid about half the rate of a non-student chef. When you graduate you pick a list of about 15 dishes that you could have to prepare and then you're told which of those you must prepare. Some of the classic Danish dishes that we've been discussing a lot are featured on the exam card, which is how we learned about it. Thorleif, the chef at Søstrene Olsen, has been cooking since the age of 14. At 65 he has started to think about retiring.

Tomorrow we head to the island of Fyn to explore what culinary delights they have in store for us in Odense, and then on Monday we'll be in Århus which is located in Jutland. Depending on the availability of the internet, a new post might wait until Tuesday evening.