dinner by a brook

I caught up for dinner with my former boss from the US and a few other American's last night at the home of a dutch girl who now works in Lund. We had a Swedish-Italian-American feast. Starters were very Swedish – lots of fish (smoked, pickled, more of that pink stuff in a tube) – along with some ham and salami that my boss had brought over from Italy. His wife cooked a beautiful risotto with chanterelle mushrooms for mains which was a perfect accompaniment for grilled ribs and pork chops. Both my former boss and wife are jewish but obviously they don't keep kosher. We ate dinner at the back of the dutch girl's house, which overlooks a brook (teeming with iridescent blue damselflies) and a paddock with two horses running around....beautiful (it felt a bit like a photo shoot for some epicure/travel magazine). I met their two young daughters for the first time. They speak perfect English, Italian, French and Spanish but the oldest is only 5! When it got dark, shooting stars were streaming across the sky. What a wonderful evening.