Relish Your Cheddar! All the Shawarma You Want!

The Danish don't like cheddar cheese. I really like cheddar cheese. This is a problem.

Well, not a big one; I can live without cheddar, though my omelets will not taste the same. I have found cheddar cheese in two grocery stores in all of København, so far. I've been to Netto (cheap) and Super Best (expensive!) and many in between--Fakta, Føtex, Irma, DøgnNetto, 7-11, and Super Brugsen. At Super Best I found cheddar at $9 per half pound. Yikes! At Super Brugsen (middle range prices) I found shredded cheddar for $4. Not too bad. So when the craving becomes unbearable, I'll bike to the other side of the city (figures this is where I found it) and get my cheddar cheap!

Immigrants from Middle Eastern countries have flocked to Denmark. It's an issue of modest importance to the Danes, who grumble here and there about the 'trouble they cause,' though not enough to start riots or hate crimes (as far as I know). All over the city I see falafel and shawarma restaurants, kiosks, butiks, and stands. I personally love the food, and it's really cheap too. Being and American I sometimes feel I may get hasseled when my accent blatantly flows as I pay and thank the shopkeeper, but I guess manners or a sense of indifference have take hold regarding the States. Whatever the reason, a pita shawarma sandwich and a Ølfabrikken Pale Ale go really well together!

Abstracts, Serendipitious Poetry, A Harrowing Bus Boarding, Roquefort Rejected

(Lately I've been titling my blogs in a style Stephen King uses; see The Mist, The Little Sisters of Eluria. I like its summarizing fragmentary MO.)

Today dawned in New York as the deadline for abstracts concerning the 17th Conference on Solid State Ionics. This biannual grand palaver between a bunch of the world's solid state chemists, physicists, ceramicists et al. will be held this year in Toronto, Canada. Turns out both my advisor at Mines (Nigel) and my boss here at Risø (Mogens) are members of the organizing committee. Nigel told me late yesterday evening (my time) to submit an abstract, angling for a chance to present my work. Trouble is, I don't have any even barely scientifically rigorous 'work' to show for it (I just started in August for heaven's sake)! This fact doesn't phase Nigel in the slightest and Mogens calmly agrees. They told me to write up a proposal of sorts, conforming to the SSI organizers' guidelines, talking about what I will be doing in the next 6 months. These conferences work by amassing results people have obtained far in advance of the actual gathering, giving them time to refine, add, subtract, and work out professional presentations. Should my abstract be accepted (I'm proud of it), I will be doing all those things in tandem with the actual research needed to legitimize it all! What fun!

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I subscribe to the podcast "Poetry Off the Shelf," which updates once a week with a 10 - 15 minute program covering various news, tributes, history, and language in the universe of this wonderfully undefinable human art. I hadn't listened in since before Christmas 08, and when I updated the feed, the first cast was all about Inger Christensen, the recently late Danish poet. How uncanny that I should first hear it while in Denmark!

Two Danish-born poets living in New York (where the show's produced) were guests on the program. One of them actually traveled and gave readings alongside Inger, and reminisced fondly on those days. They played several soundbites of Christensen reciting her work. Her background fascinates me too. She grew up interested in mathematics and enjoyed playing with numbers as much as words. She incorporated math into some of her poems. Check out "Alphabet," where she crafts verses in groupings to mirror the Fibonacci sequence (1,1,2,3,5,8...), assigning A to '1,' B to '1,' C to '2,' and so on, going all the way to O.

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Tonight I left my building late (the abstract's to blame), looking for one of the public Risø bikes to make the ride up to the guardhouse and adjoining bus stop, hoping to catch the 7pm line to Roskilde station and on out to København and home. But, to my slight frustration, the only remaining such cycle was broken (hence its presence half a kilometer out from the main gate at this hour). So, I walked the tree-lined lane expecting to wait for the 7:18 ride. As I stood at the stop eight or so minutes later, I saw the northbound 600S arriving at the Risø stop on the opposite side of the bridge carrying Frederiksborgvej over the entrance road to the lab. I hesitated maybe 10 seconds before running full tilt towards its idling bulk, hoping the driver would wait a half minute longer! I was able to see the bus would take me to Ølstykke station (another way to get to København, via the S-tog train system, a not-quite-metro-not-quite-regional-train network) and just as I confirmed this fact on the curbside time table, the bus began to pull away. I lunged forward and tapped (well, banged) the door with my hand and the driver (a middle-aged woman) slammed on the brakes while jumping half out of her seat in surprise. She clearly hadn't seen me sprinting to catch the 7:08 departure. The whole vehicle followed her movement and audibly protested the abrupt change in momentum. As I boarded and showed her my pass, she rebuked me in Danish and gave me the stink eye, two of them actually, complete with a frown/sneer. I didn't understand a word, except "nej," meaning "no," so the embarrassment was diminished.

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Home now. I bought grated cheddar cheese tonight. I've only been able to find it in one grocery store so far. The purchase recalled to my mind an article I found on The Washington Post's web page, covering the recent 300 % duty applied to Roquefort cheese, the blue-veined delicacy from southern France. I liked the story so much (for its eloquent journalism; I'm not rejoicing over the plight of cheese falling victim to international political tantrums) I decided to go find some of this cheese. I found my precious shredded cheddar instead and forgot all about the Roquefort till just now. Check out the article. The history of the cheese makers in Roquefort is fascinating.

Godnat, Dear Reader...