Culinary Delights in CPH + Tour des Chambres

The other day, a certain someone mentioned to me that he thought I’d been neglecting this blog a little bit. I want you to know that this is simply not true, in fact, I’d be more than happy to show you what I’ve been doing eating in Copenhagen lately. Okay, maybe that wouldn’t make for the most interesting blog post, but let’s start with that, and then move to the main event- the Tour des Chambres! (My rusty French tells me that it should be Tour de Chambre, and Wikipedia agrees, but using the extra s’s is more widespread when referring to this Danish tradition).

Last week I was struck by the urge to make wonton soup from scratch. Wonton creation is a bit of a labour intensive process, but luckily I have amazing kitchen-mates, so it became more of a communal event. I made the dough, Astrid rolled it out, Sarita dealt with the meat for the filling, and together, we filled and wrapped the wontons. Perfect system!

Sarita and Astrid

The wonton soup was delicious! I highly recommend both of the recipes I used. If you’re interested, you can find the recipe for the wontons here, and for the wonton wrappers here. And for my North American readers, be thankful you don’t have to translate those recipes into deciliters. Ugh.

Wontons- ready to be boiled!

A few days later, and following a late night, a few of us decided to have a impromptu common dinner – “American-style”. Woohoo! Luckily we had a genuine American in the kitchen to help keep us on track.

Evan the Amerikaner and Astrid - check out those burgers!

Here’s a shot of Wednesday’s Thai inspired meal- it’s basically green curry, but with a few extra additions (like potatoes). Delicious!

Thai Green Curry

Last week I came up with a ridiculous AMAZING idea- I was going to become what they call a “morning person”. I know, I know- the words make my stomach turn too. Hahah. Anyways, one morning my neighbour, Vedran, and I got up and met in the kitchen at the crack of dawn (okay, it was 7:30 AM) and went to the gym. I’ve been avoiding official “gym-going” for the past couple of months and instead I’ve doing lots of biking, walking, and lugging my groceries around-  but, since the gym is literally 15 seconds from where I live, I decided to go for it, plus, they offer spin classes- which I’ve always really enjoyed. So- we made it to the gym, and I did my spin class – which, unfortunately, I wasn’t terribly impressed with. The gym that’s around the corner from us here at Tietgen is fairly new and strives to be “low-cost” – so most of the classes they offer don’t have live instructors, they’re video-classes. The classes with live instructors cost an extra 9 kroner ($1.50 CAD) and don’t run very often, whereas the video-instructor led classes are at no extra cost, and run all the time. Anyways, the video-instructor wasn’t terribly engaging, the music was quiet —  it was kind of like spinning to amped-up elevator music…. still, I was up early and felt super-productive for the rest of the day!

The next day the same neighbour and I decided that hitting the gym two days in a row was pretty ridiculous, but thought that we would get up early and go for coffee instead. At 7:00 AM. Yeah. The coffee run was a bit of a bust (it was cold, dark, and it turns out nothing is actually open before 8:30 or 9 AM anyways). However, I went for a nice, peaceful walk around town, and ended up stumbling across Rosenborg Slot/Rosenborg Castle – originally built as a country summerhouse in 1606, and used as a royal residence until 1710. I can’t wait to go back to the beautiful gardens in the springtime.

Rosenborg Slot, Copenhagen

On Friday afternoon, Astrid and I hit up a BodyPump class at the gym. BodyPump is a group fitness class offered through Les Mills, a massive New Zealand company that exports its fitness classes to over 14,000 clubs across 80 countries. Sadly, I don’t think we have Les Mills in Victoria, because it was a blast. Check it out! It was pretty much exactly like that, minus the massively- muscled men. Great music, an awesome instructor, and an incredible workout!

And then we…… made cinnamon snails and played Bop? Let me tell you, it was a rockin’ Friday night. A couple of Astrid’s friends from another kitchen also came up and joined us.

Cinnamon Buns from scratch. They are called Cinnamon Snails here, which is really a much more accurate description.

Bop- A childhood game of many Danes and Swedes. I have significantly improved my Bop skills since I first played a couple of weeks ago.

Okay- and now for the main event, the Tour des Chambres! TDC is a tradition for residents of kollegiums. The purpose of TDC is to get to know your kitchen-mates, see each other’s rooms, play ridiculous games, and just have a good time. The date of our TDC was decided on at least a month and a half ago- it’s a pretty big deal. Each resident has to come up with a theme for their room, a game, and a drink. Each kitchen has 12 rooms… so you can see that the night can get pretty crazy. We had a pre-TDC pizza dinner, and then we drew names to see in what order we’d be touring the rooms. From what I’ve learned, no-one wants to be the first room (awkward?) or the last room (messy!). I was feeling pretty good about my placement- I was the fourth room.

And so the night began!

Blindfolded, we tried to find hidden balloons, without tripping over strings and bells, while being instructed by our guide. (The girls won!)

In teams, we tasted red wine, and tried to figure out which glass of wine was from the 30 kr, 50kr and 100 kr bottle. (The other Laura and I won!)

Blind wine-tasting

We boxed, also blindfolded, and tried to step on each other’s balloons. (Guys won)

We entered Candyland (my room) and had a donut-eating race while listening to Aqua’s Candyman. Yes!! And points for authenticity, Aqua is definitely Danish!

We wore plastic grocery bags as clothing, and had a grocery race, running around the kitchen, frantically searching for the required grocery items (Team Fakta won!)

We visited the “hospital” and “bandaged” our kitchen-mates.

We jumped on rafts in the jungle and played “name that song”. (Girls won!)

We strategized with Lego..

And we danced and played Twister in the 70s disco room!

All in all, an amazing night!

Now if you’ll excuse me… I have some donuts to remove from my ceiling.

- Laura

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