40 Shrimp and 40 Winks 'til Christmas

We enjoyed a coupla Christmas events last night, although we didn't enjoy that they were scheduled to happen on the same evening. Last night was the annual Christmas party for faculty and staff hosted by the university president and his wife (remember last year's event?). So many people accepted the president's invitation to attend that the Elks Lodge (where the party was held) had to remove a divider that usually sets off our party room from the main dining room for their restaurant, and we took over the whole facility! There were four food stations in various parts of the room, and the highlight for me was the one that featured piles of gigantic shrimp with cocktail sauce. Delicious!

We pretty much had to wolf down our food, though, because we had to get to the next event on time: Hillary's music program at school. We ended up sitting at the party with two other faculty members with children in the program, so we all left early. (And I found out today that, after we had left, my name was drawn to win a door prize: one of the poinsettia plants that decorated the tables. Just my luck.) Susan's dad had eaten supper with the girls at our house (while we were at the party) and then delivered them to the school, Hillary to get ready to perform and the other two to help him save seats for when we arrived.

The music program was called . . .

(Notice any spelling errors? By the way, the title was spelled correctly in the program, so I can't explain this very public mistake.)

. . . and featured Hillary in the role of . . .

(That's Mrs. Claus, by the way, not ol' St. Nick himself . . . although Hillary's Mrs. Claus had a large belly just like her husband's!)

She was very expressive in the delivery of her lines--so much so that people who had seen the show earlier yesterday afternoon (the students performed it at 2:00 and 7:00 P.M.) approached Susan and me before we went to the evening performance to tell us how impressed they had been and what an impression she had made on them. We were pretty proud, and it was a joy to see how "into" performing Hillary was.

Abigail commandeered the camera and put herself in charge of taking photos last night, resulting in a collection of images such as this . . .

. . . and this . . .


So just take my word for it: It was cute, and Hillary did a fine job, and we all enjoyed it.

Here's Hillary after the show posing on stage. Inside that fake fireplace is an actual television on which ran a real video of an authentic fireplace fire, making for a faux fire in the imitation fireplace throughout the performance. Very post-modern, don't you think?

The White Meal

"White on white" was the theme for this meal . . . yes, it tasted as exciting as it sounds.

That photo is a mere foretaste of the feast to come. But first: some words about the daughters.

They've been s' social this weekend! After swimming at the Community Center Thursday, the girls waited in the lobby for me to finish my shower and come out of the locker room. I found Suzanna seated next to Andrea, a friend with whom she wanted to spend the night. On the telephone later that night, though, Andrea reported that she had since learned from her parents about a planned weekend outing at the lake, so that put the kibosh on a sleepover. For Suzanna, at least.

On Friday Hillary's friend Lexi phoned to invite Hillary over to spend the night. Then Abigail's friend Cailie phoned to invite Abigail to spend the night. So Suzanna had a quiet Friday evening at home with her parents, but then on Saturday her friend Sheena phoned to invite Suzanna over to play in the afternoon. Suzanna rode her bike over there and, a short while later, Sheena's little brother Reese phoned to invite Hillary over to play with him. Sheena and Reese's dad picked up Hillary while Abigail spend a quiet Saturday afternoon at home with her parents, and then Hillary and Suzanna came home together (Hillary on foot, Suzanna on her bike).

Got all that?

Besides Sheena and Reese's dad, Susan did most of the hauling to and fro; but Suzanna and I did pick up Abigail from Cailie's yesterday, and then I took them both grocery shopping for last night's Scandinavian Saturday meal. It was Susan's turn in the rotation to be my cooking partner, and she agreed to my proposal: to cook an all-white meal.

That's what often comes to mind anyway when people think of Scandinavian cuisine: bland colors (mostly white, except for the browns of bread, coffee, and cooked meat and the faded-by-boiling colors of cooked vegetables) and a bland palate (although salt is usually paired with its spicy partner: ground black pepper!!). It suits the stereotype of the Nordic appearance: pale skin, light eyes, blond hair.

Now, just as there are brunettes and people of all skin colors in Northern Europe, there are also some fantastic flavors in Scandinavian food. But for last night's supper, I was inspired by a few recipes that seemed to perpetuate the stereotype, and Susan played along.

appetizer

røkesild ["red herring" or kippers]

Susan has been told that, as a wee tyke accompanying her parents to the grocery store, she used to request kippers as a snack (whereas most children might ask for a cookie or a candy bar). She doesn't remember that, but I thought we'd have kippers for an appetizer in honor of Susan's being my co-chef last night. Kippers are salted, cold-smoked herring that have been cleaned and canned. Susan removed them from their tin and served them on whole-wheat crackers. Tasty! (The brown tones don't strictly adhere to the white theme--but brown is about as exciting a food color as white, so we went with it.)

main course

blomkål med reker ["cauliflower with shrimp"]

torsk i fløtesaus ["cod in cream sauce"]

Susan cleaned and steamed the cauliflower while I cleaned and chopped the shrimp. Then I made the sauce, which consisted of such bold flavors as flour and butter, cream and vegetable stock, and salt and white pepper. This dish could have been even whiter had I boiled the pink out of the shrimp and used fish stock instead of vegetable stock (fish stock is not available in our grocery stores, and I wasn't about to make it from scratch--get real!). But I love that the recipe itself called for white pepper--wouldn't want diners to be shocked by the presence of black flecks in their creamed cauliflower!

The cod recipe called for the fish to be poached and then covered in what amounted to a Béchamel sauce. Susan microwaved the cod instead and then set to work on the sauce, which required lots of stirring until brought to a slow boil. The sauce ingredients even sound "white": butter, flour, oil, white wine, white onion, milk, white pepper, and salt. The non-white ingredients were nutmeg and "a very small dash of cayenne pepper" (I love the sense of caution that tempers the addition of such a daring ingredient!). The recipe suggested giving the sauce "extra zip" by adding chopped green onion or chives (both of them quite bold flavors, no?), so that explains the vibrant green floating atop the bowl of otherwise white cream sauce. The cod is in there, too . . . it's just submerged beneath an ocean of sauce. The recipe made approximately 37 times the amount of sauce necessary for the portion of fish that it was meant to accompany.

This photo will allow you to appreciate the sight of the grayish-white cod in its cream sauce, the white cauliflower in its pale sauce, and the brown kippers and crackers, all on a white plate, of course:

The only real stand-out flavor in the meal came from the smoky kippers. Everything else had flavors that were, shall we say, on the "subtle" side. The fish was good, and the wine and onions were distinct flavors in the sauce. The cauliflower was fine, and the shrimp tasted like shrimp. And it was all predominantly white, so let's call it a success.

dessert

sandbakkeler med honningost ["sandbakkels with honey cheese"]

Next Saturday, August 15, our family will participate as Sons of Norway members in the Northern Plains Heritage Festival (called the "Northern Plains Ethnic Festival" by the local newspaper--hmmm). Members of our local Sons of Norway lodge have been asked to bake and bring either sandbakkeler or krumkaker to be sold at a booth of Scandinavian treats. A krumkake ["curved cake"] is a thin cookie made in a hot specialty iron (that presses a delicate design into it) and then rolled up onto a dowel to cool into something that resembles a waffle cone. Recipes vary, but butter, white sugar, eggs, flour, cream, vanilla extract, salt, and cardamom are typical ingredients. Time-consuming but not difficult to make so long as you have the requisite krumkake iron, which we don't.

A sandbakkel ["sand tart"] is a thicker cookie pressed into a fluted tin to come out, once baked, as a star or diamond or any number of other shapes. Again, recipes vary, but it's essentially a buttery sugar cookie with almond flavoring (either almond extract or almond flour), although sometimes I've had sandbakkeler with cardamom in them. Again, time-consuming but not a difficult cookie to make so long as you have a set of sandbakkel tins, which we don't.

However, another member of our Sons of Norway lodge offered to lend Susan some of her own multiple sets of sandbakkel tins! So yesterday morning Susan and Suzanna baked about six dozen sandbakkeler--and they turned out just like my grandmothers' and my mom's used to. Susan set aside several to serve as last night's dessert.

A sandbakkel is not frosted or powdered with sugar or decorated with sprinkles or any such thing; and, although it is cup-shaped, it is not filled with anything, either. It's just served plain with black coffee (which, in many Scandinavian-American homes--and certainly in most Lutheran churches in this region--amounts to brown hot water with just a hint of coffee flavor). But I had to jazz things up while still retaining the whiteness of the overall meal. I made a filling by whipping together mascarpone, honey, vanilla extract, cream, and white sugar and added a dollop to each sandbakkel. I made coffee for Susan and me (using an appropriate amount of grounds--my coffee tastes like coffee, thank you very much) but whitened it by adding Irish cream to each cup.

Should we ever wish to repeat the "White Meal" theme for a future Scandinavian Saturday, I'm certain that we could find numerous other options from the cookbooks of my Norse ancestors (and the abundant resources of the Interwebs). But, as expected, last night's supper wasn't bursting with flavor--and we're a family who enjoys a flavorful meal. Still, it was an interesting chapter in our weekly ethnic food experiment. And next Saturday (as mentioned above): The ethnic/heritage festival! Stay tuned!

"We've Been Doing University Work?!"

Susan had to be available for parent/teacher conferences at the high school this late afternoon and into the evening, so the girls were with me after school. However, a colleague in my department at the university organizes the annual Undergraduate Research and Scholarship Conference, which was also this late afternoon--and I wanted to attend in support of his work and that of the students participating. The only solution? Take our daughters with me to the conference.

Yes, we marched in--Papa Duck and his ducklings, ages 11, 9, and 7--and joined the crowd of university professors and students, taking seats in the front row to listen to the keynote speaker's half-hour presentation on his research into range crops and nesting and hunting and such. It was quite interesting, actually, and he was an engaging speaker; but I was a little distracted because of keeping an eye on my kids to gauge their interest throughout the speech. They paid perfect attention throughout and, as it turns out, they retained more details from it than I did when telling Mommy about it later this evening!

There was a brief break after his presentation before we were to move into another ballroom to browse the university students' posters on their own research projects and engage them in conversation about their work. To prepare the girls for what they would see in the next room, I explained the setup by comparing it to something that both Abigail and Suzanna have done, which is participate in Marketplace for Kids. For that event, an elementary student prepares a project, creates a poster with information explaining the project, sets up the poster and stands by it during the exhibition, and discusses the project and answers questions about it for attendees as they wander from poster to poster. Upon hearing that what she, an elementary student, had recently done was so similar to what the university students themselves were about to do, Abigail said, "You mean we've been going university work?!"

In the ballroom with the poster presentations, we helped ourselves to refreshments (finger sandwiches, cookies, and lemonade) and then split up. I politely looked at everybody's poster and took the time to ask questions at a few that represented topics in which I was the most interested. There were lots of science, agriculture, nursing, and psychology research projects at the conference, so I got a lot smarter in those fields. Once in a while Suzanna would appear by my side only to be replaced in a few moments by Hillary, so I knew that they were both around and refreshing their refreshments frequently.

Abigail, however, stayed on her own the whole time. I saw her every so often, and each time she was carefully studying a poster and having a full-on conversation with the university students stationed next to their research. She was taking it all in. Afterward a colleague from my department told me that she had bumped into Abigail and had an in-depth conversation with her about the research on display; my colleague said that Abigail spoke with an insight and understanding beyond her years. Atta girl, Abigail! You are doing university work!

Saturday Miscellany

Well, the late nights and lack of sleep took their toll on Suzanna: she woke up today with a nasty case of tonsillitis. Susan took her to the doctor and got her some medicine, and we've got tentative plans for her tonsillectomy over Christmas break (per Suzanna's own request). There were two more performances of Seussical in her future (tonight and tomorrow afternoon), and the show must go on; so Suzanna steeled herself for the challenge, started her meds, and napped throughout most of the day.

En route to the doctor with Suzanna, Susan dropped off Abigail and Hillary at the riding arena on DSU's campus. A friend of the girls had invited them to join him for a trick roping class held by an expert, Felix Lopez, who was on campus this weekend for a rodeo event. So the girls donned their cowboy boots (yes, they have cowboy boots--we're in Dickinson), joined their friend and a bunch of other kids, and tried their hand at roping.

Here's the whole gang of youngsters being taught trick roping by the expert (the gentleman in the black hat, blue vest, and green shirt in the back) and his son (the boy in the red coat and black hat on the left). Can't find the Mobergs? Abigail is in a brown shirt on the left, Hillary is in a blue shirt in the front, and Suzanna is in a green coat on the right (and on her way out the door to the doctor's).

Hillary and her friend Sam, who invited the girls.

Abigail the trick roper!

Mr. Lopez's son, showing the other kids how it's done.

And where was I, you might wonder, during all this fun? On the floor in the laundry room installing the pedestals for the washer and dryer. There were supposed to have arrived weeks ago with the rest of our new appliances, but they took another week to get here, and I took yet another week to finally remove them from their boxes and read to find out what was involved in installing them. Just pick up the washer and dryer, slide the pedestals underneath, and set down the appliances on top of them? Nope. I had to disconnect both the washer and dryer, drain the washer, lay them both on their backs, bolt the pedestals to the bottoms, get the washer and dryer upright again and back into place, level them, and reconnect them. Good times. But they look snazzy, they make both appliances easier to access, and they offer convenient storage in their drawers.

My department colleagues and their families attended Seussical tonight, and beforehand we all met at Sanford's for supper together. It was a crowded table, and the Mobergs had to eat in shifts (we had to get Abigail and Suzanna fed and off to the theater before the others even arrived, but Susan, Hillary, and I waited to eat with everyone else), but it was fun to spend time with them.

The show started approximately 25 minutes late because people were lined up out the front door and onto the street outside waiting for tickets! Yes, it was sold out. Tomorrow's show is predicted to be the same, and Thursday's show had a full house, too. (Friday's wasn't completely full, but it was Halloween night, after all.) The audiences have included people of all ages: a good number of university students, lots of families with small children, parents and grandparents of the cast members, adults from the community and from the faculty and staff, etc. How nice to see the arts so well supported in this community!

Jazzed About Jazz

We have paid for a family membership to the Dickinson Area Concert Association yearly since moving here, and we have greatly enjoyed the concerts and plays that have been part of each season. Tonight was no exception. The opening event of this season was a concert by Chris Brubeck's Triple Play. Chris Brubeck's father is the legendary American jazz pianist Dave Brubeck, some of whose music includes "Take Five," "Unsquare Dance" (in 7/4 time), and "Blue Rondo à la Turk" (in 9/8 time).

Well, Chris certainly has inherited his father's musical talents--and developed some of his own, too. He and two fellow members of the ensemble came out on stage in pretty casual clothes and played a variety of funk and jazz. Chris himself alternated between bass trombone, piano, and fretless electric bass guitar. Joel stuck with guitar, and "Madcat" played a kind of hi-hat cymbal and a variety of harmonicas and jaw harps. They all took turns singing, too.

Their enjoyment over playing together was contagious. They laughed and exchanged one-liners and played without looking at music sheets and improvised and interacted with the audience and paused to tell stories or explain interesting aspects of upcoming songs and switched instruments and thoroughly impressed those of us in the audience for whom jazz isn't a first choice when selecting music to listen to.

For a play date after school today, Hillary had her friend Lexi over, whose parents were planning to go to the concert, too. So Lexi stayed for supper, and we brought her along to the concert, where we sat beside her parents and her toddler sister. Her dad (a colleague in my department at work, by the way) is a jazz aficionado, so he was lovin' every minute of it. Lexi even got invited onstage to help Madcat play one song. He had a container of all sorts of noise makers: toys and party favors that one winds up, blows through, shakes, or taps in order to make sound. He told her that he was going to start the song and occasionally reach out his hand, and she was to place into it anything at all from the box. Each time she did that, he kept the song going on the harmonica and added to the rhythm whatever she handed him. At one point he was even playing two harmonicas with his mouth and a third with his nose!

We had to tell Hillary all about it, though, because she slept through that song! The night just got a wee bit too long for her, and she nodded off toward the end. But we all had a great time.

Surgery and Four Other Important Items

So much to tell! This post has gotta have a checklist (in rhyme, for your edification):

1. school shopping
2. birthday greeting
3. skin chopping
4. outdoor eating
5. classroom hopping/teacher meeting

Yesterday Hillary had a medical appointment in Bismarck (more on that in a moment), so we left early enough to spend the morning there shopping for school supplies (1) and a li'l' home decor (photo frames). Then we met the girls' aunt Cheryl and cousin Arron for dinner at T.G.I. Friday's; it was also Cheryl's birthday yesterday (2), so I allowed her to sit directly across from me as a special birthday treat for her. I'm nice that way. That Arron just keeps maturing--he looks years older every time I see him! The girls just love him, and he's so tolerant of their hugging and hanging on and storytelling, etc.

We love the kinds of expressions we get from subjects when we make them pose with the sun shining directly into their eyeballs. Left to right: Hillary, Cheryl, Abigail, Arron, and Suzanna outside T.G.I. Friday's.

Afterward we went shoe shopping for the girls, and even I got a new pair! (I'm suddenly picturing myself at a craps table, blowing on the dice: "Come on! Daddy needs a new pair of shoes!" I'm weird.) Then it was on to Hillary's appointment.

Hillary has a good-sized congenital nevus (mole present at birth) on her left side, and in recent months two darkish spots have appeared near its center. We had her doctor in Dickinson look at it, and he referred us to a dermatologist in Bismarck. The dermatologist (Dr. Cornatzer) recommended removing it--not only for cosmetic reasons (which aren't on Hillary's mind now but which will become important to her as she ages) but also to prevent the risk of its becoming malignant in the future, especially in light of the recent changes to its appearance. We were in and out of his office in a half-hour, and before we left, he had arranged an appointment for us later that very day with a plastic surgeon!

We did a little clothes shopping for Susan between appointments and then met the plastic surgeon (Dr. Paulson), who concurred with the dermatologist and then set about seeing when there would be openings in the Bismarck hospitals for him to perform Hillary's surgery (3). The earliest option: Thursday! of this week! that's tomorrow! That's the first day of the school year in Dickinson, and Susan cannot miss opening day at her new job; so I'll accompany Hillary tomorrow.

Missing the first day of the new school year is not bothering Hillary. Nor is the prospect of going under the knife. When the dermatologist left the room to phone the plastic surgeon, Hillary did cry, but for a very different reason: she's going to miss her birthmark. It's something that she and she alone has; it makes her different from her sisters, whom she is alike in so many other ways, and it certainly makes her different from most other kids. In conversations later last night and today, she anthropomorphized the mole, telling me that "he" is always with her, that she enjoys seeing him and washing him in the shower or the bathtub, etc.

Susan and I were thinking as Future Hillary might: that, if she has to have a lesion surgically removed, at least it's a plastic surgeon doing it whose skill will leave minimal evidence of the mole. However we suddenly found ourselves trying to comfort Hillary instead with the thought that, although the birthmark will be gone, at least she'll always have a scar to remind her of happier days with her mole. It's such a sweet perspective that she has toward the nevus . . . and undeniably odd, too.

All this has been in the midst of preparations for the start of another school year. We left Bismarck Tuesday right after the appointment with the plastic surgeon and made it back in time to attend (Susan and I; her dad, Roger, came to our house to stay with the girls) a pre-semester social (4) at the home of DSU's new president and his wife. Their back yard was elegantly appointed with numerous tables set with linens and summery decorations. Three food stations were situated beneath tents around the yard: a beverage table, an appetizer table, and tables for the entrées (toward the end of the evening, the appetizer table was reset with desserts). The food was fantastic, the weather was perfect, and we enjoyed visiting with the other faculty and staff members in attendance.

Tonight we attended (as a family this time--kids were invited to this one) a barbecue at the home of the chair of my department. He and his wife had all departmental faculty members and their families over for hamburgers and bratwursts made on the grill, and everybody who came brought a salad or dessert so that there was quite a feast laid out for us! It was my first social occasion with my new colleagues, and again, Susan and I had a good time getting to know people. One professor new to our department is new to the state, too, so she, her husband, and their son had the opportunity tonight to meet new people, get some questions answered (e.g., "What bank do you recommend?"), and start to feel a little more at home in Dickinson.

Before the barbecue, however, we went to the girls' elementary school for an open house (5). All the teachers were in their rooms ready to meet the students, show them to their desks, and answer any questions that kids or parents might have about the start of school tomorrow. Hillary's second-grade teacher was also Abigail's, so we knew her already when we stopped by with Hillary's school supplies (and with the news that Hillary will miss the first day due to her surgery). Abigail's fourth-grade teacher was also Suzanna's, and Suzanna's fifth-grade teacher was also Susan's sister Cassie's many a year ago . . . so, again, no new faces to meet for either our kids or their teachers. Still it's exciting to get the notebooks and pencils into the desks, the name tags on top of the desks, the lockers assigned, the friends in the hallways hugged after weeks or months of not having seen them, etc. The girls are all very excited for school to start!

Hillary agrees with the "School is fun" motto pasted on her second-grade classroom door.

Abigail is all smiles in anticipation of her fourth-grade year!

This might be Suzanna's teacher's final year after a long career in the district, so Suzanna might have the distinction of being in her final class. Only spring will tell . . .