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kareinaThis year David and Caroline went down south to her family's house for Christmas. I stayed here in the north, where the weather is better (seriously better: he sent me a photo from there this morning--they don't even have snow!). Normally we spend the holiday with his parents, but this year they were traveling south to grand-kids. Since I had no other plans I asked FB if anyone wanted to come here, or if anyone was doing anything for which they wanted one more person. Linda and Marcus replied that they will come up and visit on the 26th, and that her friend Marlene had posted to FB inviting anyone who wanted to skip their own family celebration to come join hers in her house in the forest.
I vaguely recall meeting Marlene years ago at a larp, and liking her, and I think that David and I went to here her perform once (she is a musician), so we chatted a bit about what she had planed. I had already been half convinced by the "house in the forest", but when she said "rice porridge for lunch, around 12 o'clock" (ok, she actually said that in Swedish, but that was the gist of it), the deal was closed. Having typed up so many holiday baking recipes earlier this month when one of my friend asked, I had been thinking of family traditions, and thought it would be fun to bake a Christmas wreath. So I sent her a message to confirm that they eat wheat, and since they said yes I introduced some flour to some water and yeast late Friday night. Then last night I added some milk powder, egg, butter, honey, more water and more flour to the party and kneaded the bread dough. Then I set it in the basement to rise in a cool place overnight and went to bed.
This morning I brought it back up stairs, kneaded it, divided the dough in half, rolled the first half out, spread it with a mix of butter, cinnamon, and sugar, rolled it up, sliced it into rolls, arranged most of them into a nice circle on a baking pan, each roll overlapping the one before, and covered it with butter. The half a dozen spare rolls went into a small cake pan on their own and were also buttered. Then I repeated that with the other half, only using cardamon this time, and put that loaf straight into the freezer, to be taken out and baked in a couple of days when L & M arrive. After the wreath had had some time to rise I baked them, and left them to cool while I went out and plugged in the car and did the last of the shoveling I hadn't finished yesterday. By that time the wreath was cool, so I whipped some cream and decorated the wreath with a thin layer of cream and some sliced frozen berries in various colours (I don't even know what that yellow berry was, but it was tasty, and came in the box of "mixed berries" from the store). This isn't quite how Grandma used to make these--she used sugar in her dough (and probably more of it than I used honey), and she frosted hers with a powder sugar frosting, and decorated it with brightly coloured candied fruit in red and green. I remember loving hers when I was a kid, but today I like my version much better.
I had done a bit of a workout while the wreath baked (I also baked the two pans of little rolls, which got put straight into the freezer to thaw and eat whenever I want one roll), so then I took a shower and got onto the road just after 11:00, about 30 minutes later than I had hoped, but still in ok time. There was very little traffic, and once I left the highway I saw only one other car for the rest of the trip. They live about 45 minutes north and inland from here, and it was a beautiful drive, and a lovely day: -21 C, clear skys, and the sun very low on the southern horizon. The phone directed me to turn from one small country road to another several time, and eventually suggested that I turn right to reach my destination. However, it thought I should do that in a location where the snow berm was unbroken, and on the other side of the snow berm was a fence separating the road from some train tracks. I thought I could see a house through the forest on the other side of the track, but wasn't certain. So I continued forward and took the first road that crossed the tracks and experimented a bit, and soon came to a side road that lead to a long driveway, ending at a small, cute, old fashioned house and its outbuildings. I knocked on the door and confirmed that it was the right place, so I went back to the car to fetch the wreath and bag of nålbinding.
They had just started serving the rice porridge, which was great as I was rather hungry by that point, so I may have eaten more than I should have. Then, after a very short break we brought out my wreath and all tried that, too. Fully half the wreath disappeared at one go, since there were seven of us. Marelen and her partner, three kids, her mother, and I. Then it was time for their family's traditional "sparktur". I hadn't brought along snow pants of my own, so I borrowed a pair of theirs, and bundled up in my own winter gear otherwise, and out we went. They have enough sparkar (kick-sleds) that everyone got one of their own, and we set off down their road, which is plowed, but not graveled, so the spark is perfect for quickly making one's way (one stands with one foot on one of the runners, holds the handels, and then uses the other foot to kick the ground, propelling one forward). Here is a random photo of some lady in the 1950's and her kid out with their spark, for those of you who have no idea what I am talking about.
I don't get to use my spark at home very often, since mine came with rubber attachments on the bottom of the runners, which make it better for snow than the ones with the bare metal runners. However, it means that I don't want to use it on gravel, and they tend to put gravel on our street often. It was really nice to use one on their road, which is never graveled. Not to far from their house there is a place where the road goes down a hill, so when we got to the top of that hill we made a"train" of the sparks, by putting them in a line, with runners of the one behind around the the runners of the one in front, and so on. Then we all sat down on the little seats, save for her mother, who took the back and did the steering, and we rode down the hill together. I didn't know one could do that with these, but then I had never seen a spark before moving to Sweden, and we have only one one at our place.
After our adventure we went back in, and they opened their Christmas gifts while I worked on nålbinding (and took a short nap enjoying the happy sounds of children babbling in the background). Then the kids played with the toys while the rest of us chopped veg for sushi for dinner. They also made some more traditional Swedish Christmas food, but, since they are vegetarian, the "meat balls", "sausage", etc. were all actually vegan. I would not have thought of serving vegetable sushi with traditional Swedish "meat" and potatoes, but it worked very well, and I may have eaten more than I should have.
After recovering from dinner they brought out their family's version of risalmalta. While the Granberg version is "the food of the gods", theirs is merely "excellent". Instead of serving the left over rice porridge blended with only whipped cream and berries on the side for people to take or not as they wish, they mix theirs in advance with a little vanilla sugar and a lot of chunks of peeled oranges. The result is nice, and I ate more than I should have, but no where near as much as I would have eaten if they hadn't mixed in the sugar and oranges (so it is probably a good thing that they did).
After all that food I thought about the left over wreath, and asked if they wanted to keep it for tomorrow. They thanked me and we transferred it to a plate, and I went out to start the car and let it warm up a bit. I love the fact that David's car starts at -21 C without having been plugged in just as easily as if it were mid summer. After the car was warm I thanked everyone for good food, a fun "sparktur", and nice company, and set off for home, at only 18:30, but it felt later. Soon after I started driving I begun to notice I was sleepy, and kept getting more and more sleepy the longer I drove, so I sung to myself the whole way, and was very glad that there was no traffic at all on the country roads, and once I reached the highway there was no traffic going the same direction as I. I was very glad to make it home safe, and even gladder to read on FB that my friends who did have a car accident today all survived (though their car didn't).
All and all it was a fun day, and really good Swedish practice, since we spoke pretty much only Swedish. However, that could be part of the reason I was tired so early...
I vaguely recall meeting Marlene years ago at a larp, and liking her, and I think that David and I went to here her perform once (she is a musician), so we chatted a bit about what she had planed. I had already been half convinced by the "house in the forest", but when she said "rice porridge for lunch, around 12 o'clock" (ok, she actually said that in Swedish, but that was the gist of it), the deal was closed. Having typed up so many holiday baking recipes earlier this month when one of my friend asked, I had been thinking of family traditions, and thought it would be fun to bake a Christmas wreath. So I sent her a message to confirm that they eat wheat, and since they said yes I introduced some flour to some water and yeast late Friday night. Then last night I added some milk powder, egg, butter, honey, more water and more flour to the party and kneaded the bread dough. Then I set it in the basement to rise in a cool place overnight and went to bed.
This morning I brought it back up stairs, kneaded it, divided the dough in half, rolled the first half out, spread it with a mix of butter, cinnamon, and sugar, rolled it up, sliced it into rolls, arranged most of them into a nice circle on a baking pan, each roll overlapping the one before, and covered it with butter. The half a dozen spare rolls went into a small cake pan on their own and were also buttered. Then I repeated that with the other half, only using cardamon this time, and put that loaf straight into the freezer, to be taken out and baked in a couple of days when L & M arrive. After the wreath had had some time to rise I baked them, and left them to cool while I went out and plugged in the car and did the last of the shoveling I hadn't finished yesterday. By that time the wreath was cool, so I whipped some cream and decorated the wreath with a thin layer of cream and some sliced frozen berries in various colours (I don't even know what that yellow berry was, but it was tasty, and came in the box of "mixed berries" from the store). This isn't quite how Grandma used to make these--she used sugar in her dough (and probably more of it than I used honey), and she frosted hers with a powder sugar frosting, and decorated it with brightly coloured candied fruit in red and green. I remember loving hers when I was a kid, but today I like my version much better.
I had done a bit of a workout while the wreath baked (I also baked the two pans of little rolls, which got put straight into the freezer to thaw and eat whenever I want one roll), so then I took a shower and got onto the road just after 11:00, about 30 minutes later than I had hoped, but still in ok time. There was very little traffic, and once I left the highway I saw only one other car for the rest of the trip. They live about 45 minutes north and inland from here, and it was a beautiful drive, and a lovely day: -21 C, clear skys, and the sun very low on the southern horizon. The phone directed me to turn from one small country road to another several time, and eventually suggested that I turn right to reach my destination. However, it thought I should do that in a location where the snow berm was unbroken, and on the other side of the snow berm was a fence separating the road from some train tracks. I thought I could see a house through the forest on the other side of the track, but wasn't certain. So I continued forward and took the first road that crossed the tracks and experimented a bit, and soon came to a side road that lead to a long driveway, ending at a small, cute, old fashioned house and its outbuildings. I knocked on the door and confirmed that it was the right place, so I went back to the car to fetch the wreath and bag of nålbinding.
They had just started serving the rice porridge, which was great as I was rather hungry by that point, so I may have eaten more than I should have. Then, after a very short break we brought out my wreath and all tried that, too. Fully half the wreath disappeared at one go, since there were seven of us. Marelen and her partner, three kids, her mother, and I. Then it was time for their family's traditional "sparktur". I hadn't brought along snow pants of my own, so I borrowed a pair of theirs, and bundled up in my own winter gear otherwise, and out we went. They have enough sparkar (kick-sleds) that everyone got one of their own, and we set off down their road, which is plowed, but not graveled, so the spark is perfect for quickly making one's way (one stands with one foot on one of the runners, holds the handels, and then uses the other foot to kick the ground, propelling one forward). Here is a random photo of some lady in the 1950's and her kid out with their spark, for those of you who have no idea what I am talking about.
I don't get to use my spark at home very often, since mine came with rubber attachments on the bottom of the runners, which make it better for snow than the ones with the bare metal runners. However, it means that I don't want to use it on gravel, and they tend to put gravel on our street often. It was really nice to use one on their road, which is never graveled. Not to far from their house there is a place where the road goes down a hill, so when we got to the top of that hill we made a"train" of the sparks, by putting them in a line, with runners of the one behind around the the runners of the one in front, and so on. Then we all sat down on the little seats, save for her mother, who took the back and did the steering, and we rode down the hill together. I didn't know one could do that with these, but then I had never seen a spark before moving to Sweden, and we have only one one at our place.
After our adventure we went back in, and they opened their Christmas gifts while I worked on nålbinding (and took a short nap enjoying the happy sounds of children babbling in the background). Then the kids played with the toys while the rest of us chopped veg for sushi for dinner. They also made some more traditional Swedish Christmas food, but, since they are vegetarian, the "meat balls", "sausage", etc. were all actually vegan. I would not have thought of serving vegetable sushi with traditional Swedish "meat" and potatoes, but it worked very well, and I may have eaten more than I should have.
After recovering from dinner they brought out their family's version of risalmalta. While the Granberg version is "the food of the gods", theirs is merely "excellent". Instead of serving the left over rice porridge blended with only whipped cream and berries on the side for people to take or not as they wish, they mix theirs in advance with a little vanilla sugar and a lot of chunks of peeled oranges. The result is nice, and I ate more than I should have, but no where near as much as I would have eaten if they hadn't mixed in the sugar and oranges (so it is probably a good thing that they did).
After all that food I thought about the left over wreath, and asked if they wanted to keep it for tomorrow. They thanked me and we transferred it to a plate, and I went out to start the car and let it warm up a bit. I love the fact that David's car starts at -21 C without having been plugged in just as easily as if it were mid summer. After the car was warm I thanked everyone for good food, a fun "sparktur", and nice company, and set off for home, at only 18:30, but it felt later. Soon after I started driving I begun to notice I was sleepy, and kept getting more and more sleepy the longer I drove, so I sung to myself the whole way, and was very glad that there was no traffic at all on the country roads, and once I reached the highway there was no traffic going the same direction as I. I was very glad to make it home safe, and even gladder to read on FB that my friends who did have a car accident today all survived (though their car didn't).
All and all it was a fun day, and really good Swedish practice, since we spoke pretty much only Swedish. However, that could be part of the reason I was tired so early...