Santa Lucia Day in Sweden

December 13th, Sweden celebrates the return on the light by honoring Santa Lucia.

This is our second Lucia in Sweden. Before the Julian calendar, solstice fell near the time Lucia is celebrated. The practice of having a young girl dress as Lucia is actually a newish way of observing the return of the light, but the idea of welcoming the sun's return amongst the darkest days of winter is older than anyone can say for sure.

We prepared by having Swededaddy, the Swede of the house, bake some gluten free pepparkakor cookies with the girls.

I made egg nog, my traditional American holiday drink, to sip as we baked.

SwedeGirl is a great baker, and even the little one enjoyed stamping out cookies with Swededaddy's help.

They came out very nice, ready for Lucia morning!

We celebrated Lucia on Sunday morning the 12th, so it would be on a slow unhurried weekend day instead of Monday. SwedeGirl set her alarm, got out of bed and arranged a plate of cookies, and dressed her self, and came singing into our room, waking us. We were amazed and honored to see Lucia! She had to take off her crown to show us, 'Mom, it's ME!!!!' Boy, she was good and fooled us, we thought Lucia had really come.

We took a drive to Farmor's-grandma's so Lucia could visit.

I am obsessed with photographing the sun, and there is no way I can capture how bright and white the light is when it shines over a field of snow, but I keep trying.

Lucia brought cookies, and Light

My cookie monsters think the best part of Lucia is the Pepparkakor!!

At Farmor's we found a picture of a Lucia Procession Swededaddy had painted as a child. So nice to see my girls being part of the tradition from his childhood!

On Lucia day, there was a event at school but the girls felt like staying home, and after a busy weekend I did not object, so they skipped the school Lucia. We planned to go to a church Lucia in the village church that night, and SwedeGirl decided that was enough for her.

Soft fluffy crystal snow flakes, the kind where you can really see all six sides fell as we entered the church, while the bells chimed.

The light from the street shone through the stained glass of the church window, making magical colors in the entryway

A nearby sign reminded us the church dates back to the 1500's

Lucia and her procession entered and sang their Songs

We returned home and it was still quite early. I had lamb stew with a holiday beer as part of the broth waiting for us, and had some ris gröt, glögg, and pepparkakor for desert. We put on some Christmas music and had a very cozy evening at home with a fire in the fire place, decorating the tree.

Happy Lucia, welcome the light!

GingerBread House
Our Fairy Tale Perfect Housing

My girl has been asking me to make a gingerbread house, and our first one ever came out looking pretty good!

The girls had tons of fun making it....

And it was as easy as buying this 23 kronor box from Anna's, the maker of the best Swedish pepparkakor/ gingerbread cookies!

I was all for doing the gingerbread house but imagined it taking a day or more. When I saw this short cut of buying a prefab yummy house, and envisioned skipping the struggle of finding the perfect dough, and then perfect construction plan, I was happy to lay my money down. The house became an instantly do able project, all fun no hassle. I found my kit at Co Op Forum, but I hear these boxes are sold at IKEA USA. It has the building parts only- 4 walls, 2 roof slabs, and 4 pieces for a chimney.

We made our own icing and decorated it using naturally colored candy from our stash. Gel hearts, and the last of the Sunspire M and Ms from the USA trip.

The Royal Icing for cement was easy, just beat one egg white with 1 1/2 cups of powdered sugar, and 1/8 tsp of cream of tartar powder. Two of the house pieces were broken, and the cement icing glued it back together nicely.

We made sure we had an extra box of Anna's pepparkakor on hand for my tasty-tasters, who were ready to eat some gingerbread, even though they had to keep their hands off the building materials!

The mom had to assemble the house while the girls watched and munched cookies, but they got to put the candies on.

We thought we did alright for amateurs.

Around town, we have spied these gingerbread creations in the bakery window.

I hate marzipan, and red food coloring, but the marzipan tomtes are pretty cute.

And the cinnamon sticks used for logs are nice touches, too.

Corn Harvest

So yes, we are still thinking about all that grows over here.

Corn is a summer food in USA, but it comes in quite late in the season in Sweden.

Somethings are better left to the farmers for us amateur gardeners, and corn was one. We planted a few seeds, but they did not do anything. A good crop takes space, and more know than we have. We were looking for a Saturday activity and we were in the harvesting mood after the potato pickin'. SwedeDadddy wanted to pick corn, so we found a little farm that had sold it's promised crop, and opened to the public to pick what remained of the sweet corn. They had a little ad on blocket, which is like craigslist of Sweden.

A blowy September day. It can be very windy in Skåne

Playing in the field of corn

Just 2 kronors an ear, a third of what I would pay if I was lucky enough to find sweet corn on the cob

With a little boost from her dad, Swedegirl towering over the field

We were given a wheel barrow to bring in the harvest, great fun for the girls!

A typical small farm in Skåne, houses arranged in a U to protect from the wind.

Shucks!

We got 50 ears, ready to freeze. Corn on the cob is one of the favorite veggies of the girl.

Tonight we ate some combined with the rainbow chard in the garden.

Mmmmmm, garden fresh rainbow chard.

Perfect for this recipe from Moosewood Lowfat cookbook for Black Bean Chilaquile which calls for corn and chard, a tried and true favorite Mollie Katzen recipe at our house.

Kalkon, Take me Away! Okay, you have to be an American who knows about the "Calgon, Take me Away! " bath bubble ads to get that. And to know Kalkon means turkey in Swedish. But here we are, letting Kalkon take us away.

Birthday week included a visit with Farmor, and we went to the Ingeststa Kalkon Trädgård (link) for lunch. The food was delicious. Not prepared the way Americans serve turkey, though, it was definitely distinctly Swedish. I think I expected to see Thanksgiving style roast turkey with gravy and mashed potatoes on the menu, but not here in Sweden! I had a turkey 'steak' with brown mushroom sauce, and little spiced potatoes. Swededaddy had a variation of the same, but dark meat and darker mushrooms. SwedeGirl had Turkey Swedish meatballs with potatoes and a side of lignon jam, of course, the standard kids meal at restaurants. There was a really cool playground with a zip line. Super fun, but just a wee bit to big and awkward for Swede girl to wrestle back to the starting line herself, which made it an activity requiring a high level of adult interaction, which is not really what you want for a lunch with grandma when you want to sit and talk. But it was fun anyway.

Really, the rainbows seem to show up in pictures of HER

I was excited to go to this turkey farm because it has recently become my turkey source. When we moved to Sweden, I missed turkey sandwiches dearly. I was pregnant, needed protein, and missed the foods of home. I do not usually eat nitrates, as they give me bad headaches. All the lunch meat here has nitrates. But after year of avoiding nitrates andlots of great foods, I gave up and had some yummy spanish chorizo at a tapas dinner. I got no headache, so I decided to ignore the nitrate issue and started looking out for turkey. I found Ingelsta Kalkon's smoked turkey was most like what I liked from home. Being able to make the (almost) perfect turkey sandwich in Sweden has been an important part of me feeling at home here. The Real Perfect Turkey Sandwich from Home is Alverado Street Sprouted Whole Wheat bread, Sliced Nitrate Free Smoked Turkey, half a ripe California avocado mashed sprinkled with Dr. Vogel's herb salt, and a slice of ripe tomato. Here it is Turkey on toasted Pågen Njuta bread, Ingelsta Kalkon Sliced Smoked Turkey with spices, and a slice of Prast Cheese warmed until the cheese is melty. Not the same, but like the turkey meal at the restaurant, good in it's own right.

Swedebaby Sporting her from Afar!

The swedish gårdsbutik is a concept worth mentioning though. In Sweden, there are farmers markets, but one way to buy local is to go to the small farms themselves called Trädgårds, which seems to mean both yard, like your own lawn and garden area at your home, or a farmer's home with the associated farm. The farmer's homes often have open stores where they sell what they grow and few other farm items, or have restaurants like the one we went to at Ingelsta Kalkon. Ingelsta Kalkon also has a chain of restaurants in the cities, but went to the Turkey Farm and the restaurant. it is obscured by the bushes when you drive by, and thinking they are a huge supplier of Turkey in Sweden, I was thinking it would be enormous. But it was about 5 building that house turkeys, a hay stack and hay field, a barn, a smoke house, some business offices, and the gårdsbutik. Very Swedish in that it was just nice and well kept, and small. In Sweden there is the idea of 'lagom', which means roughly good enough. And this was representative of that concept in a business- there was no sense they are trying to dominate the world turkey market by housing more and more turkeys until they are torturing them in inhuman condition for the sake of increasing production. They are just raising, cooking, and selling some good turkeys. It was nice to be able to know where my almost perfect turkey sandwich starts.

The red roofed building houses turkeys

Feeling at home abroad means making compromises, and finding acceptable substitutes. And finding the uniqueness and beauty in the new place, until you finding yourself referring to it as home.

Copenhagen Birthday Adventures: Mermaid Serenades and
The Best Brie in the World

Swededaddy shares a birthday with an important person. The Little Mermaid. The famous statue on the danish waterfront in honor of danish storyteller Hans Christian Anderson was installed on August 23rd, 96 years ago. To celebrate her birthday, 'Hans Cristian Anderson' comes in a top hat and reads 'The Little Mermaid' out loud, and then a boat full of danish mermaids- a number equaling how ever many years old the statue is- come waving danish flags and release red and white balloons, then jump in the water and swim in formation to make the magic birthday number while a marching band plays 'Happy Birthday' . So of course we went! SwedeDaddy got a 96 mermaid birthday serenade. And the band finished off with "It's a Wonderful World". A video of the whole upaloopma, screechy 96 mermaid birthday affair:

Perhaps more fitting for Swededaddy was the Triton sculpture.

So, you get that I live in EUROPE, now, right? Copenhagen, with it's many verdi gris rooftops and city sculptures, is all you would hope for in a European City.

This tower is made of alligator tails twisted into a spire.

After the mermaids, I took Swededaddy to the Eat 2009 Food Festival (link), part of The International Copenhagen Cooking food festival (link). We missed the kick off event, the roasting of the Whole Ox. Maybe next year (link).

We parked one block from the event, and got the 'treat' of realizing we had parked in the red light district. After walking past some very interesting and colorful window displays, sex shops, girly shows, and 'men's shops', we passed the drug dealers who did a deal right in front of us. SwedeDaddy spied someone shooting up as well, but I was too enthralled watching a guy smoke crack on a set of recessed stairs to notice. The next block over, and we suddenly were on a lovely street lined with open cafes and a splash fountain. Which SwedeGirl was under no circumstances allowed in. And this is where Denmark and Sweden diverge....after going to Denmark, I appreciate the urban cleanliness of Sweden. But, I diverge...back to the food festival!

One of my favorite danish words "FlodSkum"- (has nothing to do with whatever 'Flood scum' that could be in that splash fountain!) It means Whipped Cream. Chocolate Flodskum Balls, Yum
Now, for a moment we thought we had erred showing up hungry to a food festival. I had a panicked moment when I thought we were going to have to feed the family on nibbles of chocolate and sips of wine. But to our relief, we found The Danish Crown cooking school inviting guests to learn to cook the perfect pan fried chops and filets. They welcomed Swedegirl at the line of burners and pans, and gave her an apron and taught the class in English for my benefit. We had a 'meat tasting' and after cooking the meat under expert supervision, we sampled free range organic, conventional, and Bornholm grown pork chops, and well as veal, angus beef, and some other beef. Tips we learned- sprinkle salt on the chop a few minutes before cooking, let the pan get scalding hot, use oil for high heat and butter for flavor (using just butter will cause it to burn), then brown on one side until crispy on the outside, the flip and take off heat while still lightly pink in the middle, so the juices run. Serve quickly or the juice will run out.

Ah, protein! Served as a sit down meal with bread and sides and everything. We had some smoothies and carrot cake to fill our tummies, then we were off to drink the danish microbrewed beers and spirits, wines, and other tasty little treats sampled throughout the hall.

From a Danish Chef who wrote the cookbook "Chop Chop" a little salad of watermelon, feta cheese, chorizo, gomashio, roasted pumpkin seeds, basil, and cilantro. He also had a lovely white apple gazpacho topped with pistachio nuts. Creator of the best AquaVit in Denmark, 2008. We bought some of his microbrewed cider, as the Viking Ale was all out. He learned about microbrewing when he lived in California from the founders of the American microbrew movement, the guys who started AnchorSteam Brewing . I looked for a link his website to link to here, since he says he has a great tasting event every month in a lovely village 30 minutes outside Copenhagen. Trying french brie cheeses...we were given tastes of "the best brie the world" What is chocolate made of? Chocolate artistry, in spun chocolate bowls The butcher demonstration. Yes, that is a bone saw. Yes, we just watched Tim Burton's Sweeney Todd last week. In view from the butcher table was the fellow destined for the slaughter. Marked in chalk to demonstrate how he will be butchered, outlining the various cuts of meat. This is what happens when two former vegetarians start eating meat, and raise a daughter eating meat. We take her to cooking lessons at age four to teach her how to cook the perfect pork chop, then take her to see butchers, cows, and pigs and say "you know that pig is what we were just cooking and eating, right?" Eating in full consciousness. Milk cow, and the 275 liters of milk the cow makes in a week. While feeding my baby some milk, the baby cow came and stared longingly the whole time, and actually mooed at me. We were able to bring the 'how grain turns into food" lessons from the harvest festival to completion by hand grinding wheat into flakes, which we will use for breakfast, and flour we will use for a loaf of bread.


After being in city and festival madness, we headed out looking for a restaurant, with the hope of finding a kid friendly place Swedegirl could run around at. 'The Powder House' near Christiania in Copenhagen was the perfect place to get a breath of fresh air and a little space to run around. The downed tree near the outdoor seating was made into this fun playground. Plus, I was able to get another local microbrewed beer. Copenhagen has bunches of canals, and people living in house boats. This geodesic house boat and greenhouse floating nearby was fabulous! You can see through the windows to all the plants growing the greenhouse on deck.
So this brought us to the part of Copenhagen that was right around the corner from Christiania (link). But that deserves a post of it's own!