Swedish News:

Celebrity dog finds Swedish family. Swede gives back in Nepal. Swedish restaurants hailed in Europe. 

  • Swedish team captain Mikael Lindnord from Örnsköldsvik with his new friend, the now world famous dog Arthur. Photo: Krister Göransson/Team Peak Perfomance
  • Celebrity dog finds Swedish family
    Arthur, the stray dog who insisted on joining the Swedish World Cup team during an extreme adventure race through Ecuador, has thrived in his new life in Sweden. Severely injured, the dog was determined to stay close to the athletes, through mud and jungle and water. But that apparently wasn’t enough for the adventurous dog, now healed and healthy and living with Mikael Lindnord and his family in Örnsköldsvik, Sweden. Recently, he also participated in the charity race Wings for Life World Run. And he didn’t go unnoticed. Many cheered for Arthur as he ran 18 kilometers (18.6 miles) with Lindnord in Kalmar. The celebrity dog joined 100,000 runners in the race that was made tougher by a fierce headwind, but it was a breeze for Arthur.

  • White Guide Global Gastronomy Award for Fäviken Magasinet in Järpen and chef Magnus Nilsson.
  • Swede gives back in Nepal
    Jenny Adhikari, 33, whose home is in Mariestad, Sweden, works as a tour leader and lives much of the year in Nepal. On April 25, she was traveling near the village of Gyaltum, Nepal to plan a hike with Swedish tourists, when the road began to shake. Large boulders fell all around the bus she was in. She heard people screaming and saw buildings falling apart. “It was pure luck. We should all have been dead,” she says. That night they slept under the open sky, huddled together with the others and local farmers who cared for each other as one aftershock followed another. The next day, Adhikari managed to get to Kathmandu and knew she couldn’t return to Sweden on May 10 as planned: The need for help was too great for her to leave Nepal. “These people are like my family.” Adhikari, whose husband is Nepalese, quickly collected funds from friends in Sweden through Facebook — funds that will go far. She looked for mattresses, rice, salt, cooking oil and tarps. It is difficult to get ahold of goods following the earthquake, and aid consignments get delayed at the airport; it takes long hours for many sufferers to receive anything at all. She went first to the rice farmers in Gyaltum who took care of her after the quake, and she'll go with a few friends to other poor villages. “People are very happy, they cry when we come,” she says. “The needs are huge, I see no end. We continue to help as long as we can.”

  • Swedish restaurants hailed in Europe
    A list of Europe's 100 best restaurants has been released by Opinonated About Dining, and several Swedish restaurants made it to the list. Thirteen countries are represented, with Spain having four places in the top 10 alone. Sweden’s Fäviken restaurant is ranked as the 11th best restaurant in Europe. Fäviken, run by Magnus Nilsson in a remote resort town in Jämtland, was also named Sweden's best restaurant by the White Guide earlier this year (http://www.nordstjernan.com/news/food/5492/). The restaurant, like many of the winners, makes creative use of the wild, organic plants and natural resources around it. Sweden took six places on the list, three of which are in the top 50, including Frantzén in Stockholm and Daniel Berlin in Skåne-Tranås; Oaxen, Mathias Dahlgren Matsalen and Ekstedt Sweden also made the list. Opinionated About Dining (OAD), which published the winners list, consists of a jury with food bloggers, journalists and other food ambassadors who travel the world to eat. Results are based on over 140,000 reviews compiled by the jury.
    (www.opinionatedaboutdining.com)