Rosendals Trädgård 2

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I bought the English version of the cookbook from the garden cafe there, which is also my new favorite place to eat in Stockholm. It is all fresh from the garden and organic and seasonal, and this cookbook is hands down the most beautiful cookbook I have ever seen. The author, Monika Ahlberg, asked various people to contribute text for the cookbook, and here is what Ingmar Bergman wrote:

"Färö 11.5.94 - Dear Monika! You rang and asked me to write something about wild strawberries. It will be both a short and a sad story. I have been allergic to wild strawberries all my life. Five wild strawberries are all right. But if I sin and eat seven, then I am afflicted by small, fiery red, madly itching rashes round my wrists and ankles. Sometimes - very rarely - I really indulge. In the woods behind my house there is a field. It is reddened with wild strawberries several times during the summer, big heavy fragrant wild forest-strawberries, it's like a miracle and I indulge without a thought for the consequences, which promptly make themselves known. Yes, it is terrible and typically Bergman-like but I console myself; the smell of freshly picked wild strawberries is like special music, it gives me a concrete conception of paradise, infinity - perfection. I don't really know how I can put this, it sounds far too grand, but I can't find any other words so it will have to be like this."