Norwegian Night

The other day, Susan came home with an advertisement clipped out of the local newspaper.  Lady J's, a local club and catering business, was advertising a special menu for tonight's buffet: Norwegian Night!  How could our family not go to that?!  We decided to forgo our weekly Scandinavian Saturday supper at home tomorrow night and instead eat Nordic food at Lady J's tonight.  And it turned out to be an excellent decision!

Lady J's regularly offers buffets of food around a certain theme, often an ethnic one.  For example, we went there one night this past spring to eat Mexican food; and tonight we saw in their lobby a poster for an upcoming German Night at Lady J's.  They have a 32-foot buffet table set up (and another table for desserts and yet another for beverages), and it was packed with tasty food this evening.  Here's what I can remember:

• oyster stew and Swedish bread soup
• pickled beets, pickled herring, Swedish ham rolls, sliced cucumber salad, and Norwegian coleslaw
• Finnish carrots, creamed cabbage, and two kinds of potatoes (one creamy and one fried and crispy)
• a beef dish with stewed fruit, white fish stuffed with herbs and onions, fish pudding, lutefisk with melted butter, Swedish meatballs, Norwegian roasted chicken, and Norwegian black pot (a stew)
• lefse with cinnamon, rice and almond porridge, Swedish cookies, rhubarb compote, apple muffins, and a blend of apple sauce, whipped cream, and spices

Some of the items we were familiar with and have had before; others were new to us but were very tasty and fun to sample.  The coleslaw's non-creamy dressing tasted just like my mom's homemade relish that she used to can using vegetables from her garden.  The fish pudding was a mild but savory surprise that Susan suggested would go well on crackers.  The bread soup seemed to be a ham-and-vegetable soup, and we topped each bowl with croutons before eating it.  And, as usual, our daughters tried some of everything, no matter how odd it seemed from its appearance or name.  It's such a joy to have children who will eat anything (well, who were raised not to be fussy eaters).

It was a great meal . . . and now, thanks to Lady J's, I'm "off the hook" for tomorrow's supper!  (Instead we'll have the homemade pizza that normally Susan would have made tonight for Familiar Friday [the homemade pizza being our familiar, traditional Friday night food]).