New York is a city of vertiginous skyscrapers best seen from above. For Danish helicopter pilot Braveen Mahendran, that’s all in a day’s work.

When he was in high school, Braveen Mahendran spent his spare time flipping burgers at the local burger joint in his hometown of Viborg, Denmark. While many of his friends had no idea which direction their lives and careers would go in, Braveen was focused. He had only one goal: save his hard-earned money to attend flight school in Florida.

Fast forward to 2020 and Braveen now regularly hovers over the world’s most famous skyline, shuttling tourists and private customers to and fro in his helicopter. …

Author. Musician. Actor. Documentarian. The Danish Renaissance Man Kristian Leth calls Brooklyn his home and he wouldn’t have it any other way.

Among the neat rows of characteristic brownstones and quiet tree-lined streets in Brooklyn’s Park Slope, there is a Danish household: Kristian Leth, his wife Tea Lindeburg and their three kids moved to New York City over half a decade ago, settling in the genteel neighborhood and making it their home. Today, Park Slope is where Tea refines her work on her upcoming Netflix series Equinox and Kristian composes the series’ soundtrack. The Brooklyn neighborhood is, after all, a creative’s dream-space: leafy, inhabited by writers (Paul Auster), actors (Maggie Gyllenhaal) and a coterie of journalists, academics, and progressive thinkers.

But Kristian is an unusual artist and is particularly difficult to characterize. He has acting credits. He is a musician. He composes scores for films. And he is an author of non-fiction and fiction works, with a successful fantasy-fiction novel Mithos released in 2017. He has also tackled the role of Christianity in Danish cultural heritage in a documentary series for Danmarks Radio. “I am always trying to explore something but there is no strategy to it for me,” Kristian Leth explains. “I never saw one line of work as the limit to the other.” …

The Nordic Country is a Global Leader in Gastronomy. Now, It’s Defining the Flavors of Tomorrow

Noma. The Alchemist. Geranium. Denmark has long established itself as a major player in global gastronomy with landmark restaurants reinventing the concept of fine dining. Danish restaurants alone hold a total of 35 Michelin stars. And New Nordic cuisine has reframed the culinary conversation around seasonal ingredients all the while revolutionizing taste.

But while Denmark is now widely renowned as a foodie destination, it is also the capital of a lesser known but equally important element related to the food world: ingredients. …

As the COVID-19 pandemic has put cities, businesses and day-to-day life on hold around the world, many organizations and individuals continue to find new ways of reaching out to their communities to help hard-hit citizens thrive through the crisis. In New York City, as elsewhere, such help is especially found among communities of worship, where the faithful continue to seek solace, spirituality, comfort and healing — albeit in socially distant ways.

Enter the Danish Seamen’s Church in Brooklyn: New York City’s historical spiritual outpost for Danes living in the Big Apple. …

The Evil Twin Founder talks sustainable brewing, NYC’s COVID reboot, and being a Dane in the Big Apple

Just a handful of stops from Manhattan on the world-famous L line and one finds themselves in Ridgewood, Queens — a neighborhood known for its elevated trains, eclectic dining, and influx of Brooklyn creatives priced out of neighboring Bushwick. As Ridgewood adapts to its growing population of artists and hipsters, it’s also absorbing an international cultural input from Denmark. In fact, right next to the Halsey St subway stop, one might be fortunate enough to run into a Danish brewery located at 1616 George Street. This is Evil Twin.

Evil Twin Brewing emerged 10 years ago in Copenhagen from the passion of then-schoolteacher Jeppe Jarnit-Bjergsø and his wife, Maria. Jeppe, Maria, and their children began their US journey in 2012 as they made the big move across the Atlantic to New York City. The Bjergsø’s entered the beer scene in New York in 2013 with their Nordic inspired bar and restaurant, Tørst, in Brooklyn which immediately received positive attention from critics and locals alike. At the time, Evil Twin brewed their beers offsite at different breweries. …

Writer and translator Katrine Øgaard Jensen on the upcoming virtual panel event Danish Authors You Should Know

The Fall 2020 virtual event season has begun and New York’s Scandinavia House is welcoming it with a new series of online panels devoted to Nordic Authors You Should Know. And what better way to inaugurate an event series of such caliber than with a specific focus on Danish literature!

On September 29 at 2 PM ET, Scandinavia House will host Danish writers Shadi Angelina Bazeghi, Jonas Eika, Maja Lee Langvad, Dorthe Nors, and Ursula Andkjær Olsen for Danish Authors You Should Know — a virtual conversation on the state of Danish literature today.

Moderated by Katrine Øgaard Jensen, founding editor of EuropeNow, Acting Director of Literary Translation at Columbia University and winner of the 2018 National Translation Award, the event will kick-off with short readings of each of the authors’ work in both English and in Danish. …

Ambassador Berit Basse has served from Singapore to Senegal. Now, she lands in New York City to become Denmark’s envoy to The City That Never Sleeps.

The Consulate General of Denmark In New York is excited to announce that on September 1st, 2020, Ambassador Berit Basse of Denmark will commence her tenure as the new Consul General of Denmark in New York and take the helm of Denmark In New York’s multifaceted sustainability, climate and public diplomacy efforts in the Big Apple and across the East Coast of the United States.

Ambassador Basse has enjoyed an expansive diplomatic career that has taken her around the world — from Senegal and Munich to Singapore and Uganda. From 2012 to 2016, in fact, Ms. Basse served as Denmark’s Ambassador to Singapore and Brunei, successfully overseeing key commercial and diplomatic relationships between Denmark and the two States. She has also served as First Secretary at the Embassy of Denmark in Uganda andConsul General of Denmark in Munich, Germany. Meanwhile, from 1992 to 1996, the Ambassador worked on several development projects for the United Nations Development Programme in Senegal. …

Cities and urban areas are increasingly finding themselves on the frontlines of the global climate crisis — both as emitters of damaging greenhouse gases and in terms of their vulnerabilities to the effects of climate change. According to available statistics, buildings alone account for around one-third of global energy consumption and 20% of CO2 emissions — a number that increases to 50% in major cities. …