Meet Ida Strandlund from Sweden
“I woke up one and a half mornings my face was paralyzed. ” Ida talks about her most unexpected experience since she moved here. “A simple cold had caught my facial nerve and it took me almost two years to recover, apparently it still looks like I flirt with people sometimes. It was a tough journey that taught me a lot about myself and my surroundings.”
Ida Strandlund, born in Sundsvall, Sweden, is one of the bravest women who in the middle of the post-pandemic decided to start her own company in Mallorca – a private cooking business called Cure / ate. She opened a couple of weeks ago and the bookings are already rolling in. Ida has previously worked as a private chef both on land and on yachts but is now based in lovely and lively Soller and this is where she has established her business. “I love the area and it’s a great place to use as a base on the island.” She makes luxury picnics and cooks at retreats. Her style is modern Mediterranean / Middle Eastern food (fresh, great flavors, lots of seafood and elaborate salads and accessories), but she definitely flirts with Scandinavian cuisine as well. The name Cure / ate is a bit of a pun that suggests something cured; as an exhibition, where the whole experience is important, but also of course cures that stem from the importance of nurturing, to heal (because what we put in our mouths affects very much our health and in the long run the whole planet).
“Food concepts represent the ability to create a tailored experience. I try to use as much seasonal, local and organic products as possible. I have more plans to cure / eat both in the near and distant future, but at the moment it is the private cooking that is in focus. ”
She has been on the island for about four years now. But the road to Mallorca was not straight. “Mallorca is my perfect compromise. Before I came here, I traveled, lived and worked all over the world. Australia was my last longest stop before Mallorca and I lived there for almost a decade. It took me a while to realize that Australia is very far away from the rest of the world. And when I did, it made me think about what I was doing there that I could not do anywhere else, somewhere a little closer to my loved ones in Sweden without living there. Once you have pampered yourself by living in the tropics, it is difficult to go back to minus degrees and darkness. When I moved down below, I devoted myself to surfing, but during my last years I became completely dedicated to free diving.
“My personal best is 35 m and my longest breath is 4.25 min, but I’m not particularly interested in the numbers these days. For me, free diving is about a connection to nature and the ability to literally dive into a part of our world that at the same time feels like it’s another planet.
Free diving is one extreme sport in the sense that you are exploring your limits but it is not an action sport. On the contrary, you need to put yourself in a calm, close meditative state (and stay there even when it gets uncomfortable) to enjoy and excel in the sport. Free diving is very fun but yes, it can also be very dangerous for various reasons. I would always recommend anyone interested to take a course. There are a lot of good instructors on the island and there are both shorter and longer courses. A course would not only train you in safety but also of course teach you the techniques you need to improve your underwater skills. Most students can dive to at least 10 meters after just a few days, regardless of previous experience. ”
She is a woman with many talents, besides being one of the few freediving instructors on the island and a great chef, she writes her own stories which she illustrates and paints them.