Danish Delights

My Viet friends and I are always marvelled by how diaspora disperses natives far from their homeland. My friend Lehang is a cool Viet chick who was adopted by a Danish family and grew up amidst all the Hamlets with a knack for modern design. Now married to a tall, strapping Danish boy, whose architectural career took them to Los Angeles, she owns a boutique called Danmark that sells only Danish labels.

She also displays art by her adoptive brethren, including Trine Wejp-Olsen, who made these ceramic bunnies with floppy fabric ears.

God bless the Danish for their clean lines. I never noticed these chandeliers during previous visits to Lehang's boutique. They are the perfect answer to having form fulfill a function. How they shine on the Danish delicacies of liver pate with toast, rare roast beef on bread with roasted onions and frittata squares garnished with swirls of mayonnaise, which were all served at Lehang's recent bash celebrating her shop's one-year anniversary.

I befriended some Danish folks at the party. All I did was take a look at their cool outfits and neat accessories and ask, "Are you Danish?" One woman who was married to a Dutch diplomat was swathed in gauzy layers of white and a thin tube necklace that reminded me of a 3-D layout of plumbing in a home. She told me that the frittata did not hail from Denmark. I figured it didn't, as the caterer had an Italian name.

But the Danish lady said the roast beef canapes were typical Danish treats. So I gobbled up five of them.

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