School Family Picnic

Just like last year, we gathered with the other families from SwedeGirl's Waldorf-Steiner School at this lovely valley for a picnic.

We go for a potluck picnic but the real draw for the children is the pond

I forgot to take pictures to show you the food. The fastest going items were hazelnut-nettles croquets, and mini pizzas. I feasted on fresh greens and radishes, and all kinds of quinoa and grain salads. One of the great things about going to a Waldorf school is the picnics have yummy gourmet homemade hippy food! And the desserts....the buffet of sweets was enough to get the kids way from the pond for a moment.
The weather was damp, but the children of Sweden all have rain suits and galoshes, or wellies as the brits call them, which are so novel to me! I have never had a pair in my life, still! The kids were prepared to romp in wet grass and splash at the pond's edge.

They were hunting for Salamaders

Very Successfully, too

The Family

Little copy cat SwedeBaby wanted in on the action, of course!

SwedeGirl, the fisherman

SwedeDaddy found a blood Sucking Leech

And some big currant snails

Heading Home

Stopping to Say Hi to the Baby Lambs

The sheep mamas were protecting the babies, so I never a got a good photo of the sweet little lambs, but the girls got a good look.

The Kitchen Goddess and The Snow

.... has these wise words of welcome posted on her kitchen wall...

What happens when you call an old friend, actually two, who I met when I worked at Outward Bound, and say you are going to stop in after not visiting them in ten years since you helped them have their first baby? She checks her calendar, looks two months ahead, and declares 'Well I have to milk a goat that day, but other than that I am free!" and offers an enthusiatic welcome.

Diana is a kitchen goddess, and her new style is Traditional Foods ala Weston Price, which means there is a lot of soaked grains and fermentation going on in her kitchen. I love a woman with a jar of beet kavass fermenting on her shelves! And tintures brewing with home grown herbs.

Her shelves were so lovely, full of homemade jams from the community garden she maintains and the friends she meets there, I just had to include some pictures.

She has always been a baker, but when we were there bread appeared like magic. She had just made two fresh loaves when we arrived, but everytime you'd turn around a friend and lovely sould would come in the door and suddenly there was a loaf gifted in love. Always enough loaves and fish, you know.

And did I mention she made us cannelonni and made the crepes from scratch (from soaked flour of course) casually while we chatted.

If you ever get caught in a blizzard like we did, and have to add a few extra days at a home along your road trip, may it be with a very good cook like Diana.

We stayed a few days and got our winter fill of snow, and when we left we saw the cars of many unfortunate people had spun off the road in the storm the night before, there were some stretches of road where it was like a parking lot on the highway.

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!

Hedgehog Medicine:
Rising American Maternal Mortality rates,
and a call for the help of any quilters out there.

When I was talking to my friend Laura at Snip-n-Snail (click for link) about The Remembering the Mothers Quilt Project (click for link) (a quilt to remember american women who have did in childbirth) I kept seeing hedgehogs. Suddenly, they were all over my backyard!

I have never in my life seen a hedgehog before.

When an animal makes itself very obvious to me, or gets my attention like that, I like to receive it as a message. I google animal medicine or totem for that animal, and see what it's meaning has been to cultures that believe mother earth is a living, communicative being.

Here is what I found about hedgehog- it is the symbol of elder female wisdom. It is associated with fertility, and also the sun since it comes out in the summer season. Since it is nocturnal, and has poor vision, it is associated with psychic ability, prophetic dreams and visions, and particularly the knowledge of the weather, and knowing when it will rain. It is immune to snake venom, and so it is a native American symbol of the triumph over evil, and the defeat of death.

The animal walks close to the earth, and knows how to center itself by curling into the fetal position. It knows how to protect itself, and keep its environment clear of threatening energies, and always lands on it's feet. It is a symbol of the balance in work and play- being resourceful, strong, but playful.

Laura is planning a panel with the support of one of the founders of The National Organization for Women to bring attention to the very high and rising maternal mortality in the USA, and the utter lack of any tracking of the actual numbers or causes. Ina May Gaskins, midwife/ female elder conceived of The Remembering the Mothers quilt project to bring attention to this issue and will sit on the panel. The panel will be on November 1st in Sarasota, Florida, which is also the day of the dead. A good day to remember the mothers that have died. It will be a landmark forum, as previously this issue has received little attention from the feminist leadership and has not been recognized as the public health crisis it is with in the USA. It is an issue of global interest, as American birth practices are getting very bad results for both mothers and babies on a public health level (evidenced by the highest infant mortality and morbidity rates of the western world), yet the american birth models and practices are still being copied by other countries through out the world.

I hope they are blessed by 'hedgehog medicine' in their endeavor. That they walk with the wisdom of female elders, and can 'defeat death' by bringing awareness to the issue of high/climbing American maternal mortality rates, and lower them. And that Laura can protect herself, be balanced, and have fun along the way.

If you are a quilter, or know one, please ask them to contact Laura and help "Remember the Mothers" by making a quilt square for a woman who has died giving birth in the USA in the last 30 years (click here for link).

This post (click for another link) is a call to for quilters to help creates squares to remember women, and has specific names of women who need to be represented in a special quilt dedicated to women who have died of amniotic fluid embolism (AFE) . AFE was once a very rare complication that has now become staggeringly common and is suspected to be an (as of yet unrecognized) complication of induction of labor, specifically assocaited with the use of the prostaglndin drug cytotec. Laura has not gotten the quick response she has anticipated from quilters on this, so please do what you can, and pass the word on to freinds that can help so this project can be completed soon.