Fäviken Cookbook
Magnus Nilsson
This isn’t a cookbook… it’s Magnus’ manifesto about a way of being…
Let’s be clear - if you just can’t figure out what to eat tonight, this will not help - Try this instead! But if you want to meditate on how to walk in the woods, fish for trout, cook meat like an artist or even wash a carrot with a level of attention normally reserved for space travel… then this is the book for you. Unlike many chefs who start a restaurant as a vehicle for their food vision, Magnus Nilsson started Fäviken as a vehicle for an entire way of being. Just to make sure he had some space to do it his way, he decided to locate it 470 miles north of Stockholm in the middle of nowhere. Here he threw out all the assumptions and set out to create something from whole cloth that was deeply committed to the place from which it sprang. This is not casual or commercial - it is monomaniacal and obsessive. It’s certainly not for everyone, probably not even most of us - but it’s lessons are.
So what lessons are in a book about food you probably can’t cook and a restaurant you will probably never get to (actually now that he closed it you really won’t). Because in a world that sometimes makes good things seem impossible, it’s an inspiration. The part that I love is the inspiration to look more carefully at every little thing that you do (you have to get the book to find the part you love). This slows us down, makes us better at the things we do and let’s us enjoy the doing and the result of the doing even more. I would say that if you can get the pace just right then the doing and the having can no longer be separated. For me this is a book about process. I may not make food, at least not like Magnus, but I can certainly strive to a bit more Fävikenian in everything I do.
So if you don’t need dinner but you could use a little inspiration, I recommend keeping Fäviken on your shelves and try my recipe for:
Life à la Magnus:
1 - Fäviken Cookbook
1 - Large whiskey or wine
1 - Wire haired Pointing Griffon
1 - Fireplace
1 - Straight No Chaser by Thelonious Monk
1 - Good Chair
Locate yourself near the fire in that comfortable chair with T. Monk on the phonograph, pour a generous glassful, give the dog a pat and let Magnus give you some inspiration for tomorrow.