Thursday, March 10, 2011

The One You've All Been Waiting For

What question did I get more often than any other once it was announced that we were moving to Denmark?

"Are you going to eat a lot of danishes?" (or some variation of this question)

Honestly, I wasn't even sure if the Danish people were the originators of the danish pastry. When I think of a danish, I think of a round sweet thing with some kind of sugary goo in the center that I don't like.

But according to one definition, a danish pastry is: A sweet buttery pastry made with raised dough.

That leaves things a little more wide open.

Wikipedia tells me that the danish pastry really originated in Austria... This is getting more confusing by the minute.

But who cares about all this history and origins business, the fact is, they have bakeries here. So many bakeries. And the bakeries are important.  So important that there is a symbol for bakeries. The bakery and the post office have symbols in this country. Any business that gets its own symbol is clearly highly valued.


I have come to love the bakery symbol - a little too much.


The bakery symbol

For a brief moment, I entertained the idea of trying a chocolate croissant at every bakery I came across in all of Copenhagen. I made it through two bakeries and realized this was a very foolish thing to do for a couple of reasons. 1) Because each croissant is akin to consuming a pound of butter and 2) because I found the best chocolate croissant ever at Lagkagehuset.  I need not look any further.

Once I established that I lived only a few blocks from the bakery with the best chocolate croissant in the world, I spent one (shameful) week going to said bakery every morning while Riley napped in his stroller and purchasing a latte and a chocolate croissant. This was a lovely routine. I would enjoy my delicious treat while sipping warm milky coffee and looking out the window at one of Copenhagen's frozen canals. Riley would sleep peacefully in his stroller beside me. My arteries would slowly close and my jeans would become a bit tighter. All the while my bank account was shrinking because while pastries are one of the more affordable things here in Copenhagen, the accompanying coffee made my whole "breakfast" a little extravagent.

I knew my Lagkagehuset visits had to stop, or at least taper off. I went cold turkey for an entire week and since then have only been allowing myself a weekly visit.

So the answer is yes. Apparently moving to Denmark means I am eating lots of danishes. I believe Neil is on the quest for the best Kanel Snail (cinnamon roll pastry) in all of Denmark. But you'd have to ask him about that.

1 comment:

  1. The bakery symbol looks like a pretzel to me...but the chocolate danishes sure sound appealing to me!!! Enjoy

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