Christmas in Tennessee

Happy New Year (almost)! Not only are we nearly at the end of the year, but we also are nearly at the end of our two weeks of Christmas festivities with our daughters. Tomorrow Susan, Abigail, and I will fly back to North Dakota and get ready to resume our daily routines. Here is what we have been doing the last couple weeks in Tennessee with our kids.

(Click on any photo to enlarge it.)

Sat., Dec. 20 -- Susan, Abigail, and I flew from Bismarck, ND, to Nashville, TN, where Suzanna, Jacob, and Hillary met us at the airport and drove us back to Murfreesboro, where they live. We got to meet Hillary's new puppy, Dodger, whom she brought to the airport! And he was a very good boy, napping in my lap on the drive home.

Sun., Dec. 21 -- After a day of running errands and playing with pets and relaxing, we made a supper out of our favorite dips (for chips, veggies, etc.) and had a family movie night, watching A Very Jonas Christmas Movie. It was pretty funny ... and it starred the Jonas Brothers, whom the Moberg sisters had just seen in concert in October!

Mon., Dec. 22 -- Instead of buying one another a bunch of things for Christmas, we decided to give each other experiences. Each person chose a day to sponsor an experience for the family. This was Susan's day, and her experience was a family game night. She made us homemade pizza for supper, and we played Catch Phrase, Farkle, and Wicked Christmas at the dining room table while snacking.

Tue., Dec. 23 -- This was my day, and my experience was a night out downtown. We started with cocktails and live music at High Society, then had a delicious meal at The Alley on Main (pictured here), then walked around the Public Square to see the shops' Christmas-y window displays and enjoy the temperate weather, and then had dessert from Andy's Frozen Custard on the way home.

Wed., Dec. 24 -- After the Christmas Eve service at Advent Lutheran Church, we gathered at Hillary's home to make our traditional Scandinavian Christmas Eve meal. Well, it's tradition for us to make a Scandinavian meal on Christmas Eve, but we don't usually eat the same foods every year, other than to start the meal with a shot of ice-cold akevitt ("Skol!"). This year we made halibut, Brussels sprouts, parsnips, carrots, beets, lingonberry cocktails, and dessert parfaits made from Icelandic skyr. Then we gathered in the living room for gift opening. (Yes, although we mainly gave each other experiences for Christmas, we did also draw names for a gift exchange so we'd have something to unwrap for Christmas.)

Thu., Dec. 25 -- Susan's sister, Cassie, and her family (husband, Nick, and kids, Davis and Marly) live in Murfreesboro, too, and invited us over to their place for Christmas. We lounged outdoors on their patio in the afternoon because it was 62° ... quite a difference from a Christmas Day in ND! Supper was prime rib, twice-baked potatoes, creamed spinach, baked corn, and blueberry cobbler for dessert--delicious. Pictured (left to right) are Davis, Nick, and Cassie next to Jacob, Suzanna, Abigail, Susan, me, Hillary (holding Dodger), Marly, and Nick's mom, Kutzy.

Fri., Dec. 26 -- Friday is "date night" in our family, and that usually means going out for Mexican food and margaritas ... so that's what we did this night. We had delicious food and great service at Las Trojas Cantina. Then Susan and I relocated from Suzanna's house to Hillary's to spend the weekend at her place.

Sat., Dec. 27 -- We got back to our experiences today, and this was Abigail's day. Her experience was an afternoon in Nashville, starting with an outdoor igloo reservation at Game Terminal, a "super arcade" and bar. We had cocktails and food delivered to us in our igloo out on the patio area (where they have games like shuffleboard, cornhole, and ping pong) and then went indoors to play a variety of arcade games, like Space Invaders, Q*bert, Frogger, and Dig Dug.

Then we went downtown and visited a couple Christmas pop-up bars for seasonal cocktails and views of the Nashville skyline. It was so bizarre to be sitting outdoors on December 27 without a coat on a rooftop bar's patio with the neighboring skyscrapers in the background!

Sun., Dec. 28 -- This was Suzanna's day, and her experience was an at-home variation of Liquor Lab, a place for mixology classes that she has taken before in Nashville. Before we all arrived in TN, she had each of us tell her the ingredients for a Christmas cocktail that we would make for everybody else. Suzanna had everything ready for us on this day, and we took turns making small versions of our chosen drink for the others (e.g., pictured is Suzanna's cocktail: a peppermint white Russian). We sampled and snacked while playing card games throughout the afternoon and evening.

Mon., Dec. 29 -- This was Hillary's day, and her experience was taking us to see the Dancing Lights of Christmas, a drive-through holiday light and music show in nearby Lebanon, TN. On the fairgrounds they have an enormous setup of Christmas lights, all of which move in sync to the holiday songs playing on their radio station. After driving through the light show, we stopped at Santa's village, where there was a petting zoo, several carnival rides for kids, and backdrops suitable for Christmas photos ... like this one!

Tue., Dec. 30 -- This was Jacob's day, and his experience was providing a feast of Polish food from his own family's traditions. Pictured are pierogi with a half-dozen different fillings, two kinds of sausage, potato pancakes, stuffed cabbage rolls, sauerkraut with caraway, beet salad, and two kinds of dill pickles. It was absolutely delicious.

This was also ... Suzanna's birthday! We went out for lunch and pedicures in the afternoon; and after the Polish feast, dessert was Suzanna's birthday cake, which Susan made and topped with homemade chocolate fudge frosting using my mom's recipe.

Wed., Dec. 31 -- Our New Year's Eve frivolity included a trip to Arrington Vineyards, about a half-hour west of Murfreesboro. There we met some of Suzanna's friends from work to sample wine flights while playing trivia together. When we got back to Suzanna's, we made our usual surf-and-turf NYE meal. Jacob grilled filet mignon and made garlic mashed potatoes to go with our lobster tail, carrots, wedge salad, shrimp cocktail, and stuffed mushrooms.

Now we're watching country music stars perform on Nashville's televised NYE countdown and pouring the champagne so we'll be ready when the clock strikes midnight. Tomorrow we'll have brunch in Nashville (at SweetMilk) before heading to the airport for hugs and tears and the return flights to wintery ND.

At Long Last, Our Home Theater

Don't judge me too harshly.  One of our Christmas gifts to ourselves was a Blu-Ray Disc/DVD high-definition home theater system with surround sound speakers . . . that I just today set up.  What?!  We've been busy.  Actually, our multi-state road trip at Christmastime did keep us preoccupied, and then school/work resumed soon after we returned, and I scootched the box out of our way until I had time to get to it.  Well, now that we're on a summer break, I have time.  The girls watched today as I unpacked and sorted all the pieces of equipment, and they helped me hook up wires and troubleshoot until everything was functioning properly.  The sound is great; the picture quality is great; and the Internet connection via our home theater system means that we can view online videos on our big-screen TV, as well as select whatever movies we wish to view and download them in high definition from online movie services.  It even plays the radio and our CDs, making them sound spectacular, too.  Success!

Thrifty Tour of Norway

Here is an easy way to visit Norway and enjoy its beauty without having to pay a cent or step away from your monitor:

Norwegian Pride, Swedish Food, and Norse Mythology

Norwegians celebrated Syttende Mai ["May 17th," Norway's Constitution Day] a few days ago (remember?), but our local Sons of Norway lodge waited until today for its annual Syttende Mai party so that we could take advantage of a weekend day to have a potluck picnic and play some outdoor games.  As Youth Director for our lodge, I was trying to figure out what I could do with the kids that would be Norwegian and fun.

I learned that Norwegians typically precede Syttende Mai with a community-wide dugnad ["volunteering"], tidying up the neighborhood before the big celebrations for Constitution Day--so I proposed the idea to the girls, who were "into" the idea of picking up garbage.  A Syttende Mai celebration usually features a barnetog ["children's parade"], and the girls were willing to do their best to put on a three-person parade; they have miniature Norwegian flags that they could wave, and they proposed wearing bathrobes instead of bunads [literally "costumes," but really they're traditional forms of dress that correspond to distinct regions in Norway; see this].

None of that came to pass, though, because the picnic was canceled on account of rain.  A continuation of days and days and days of rain, as a matter of fact.  The lodge president phoned this morning and said that we'll just have to make our Sankthansaften ["St. John's Eve," a Midsummer's Eve celebration; see this] picnic next month all the grander to make up for it.

But we made today a very Scandinavian-themed day anyway.  This is what we did:

The End Is Near

FYI: The new movie Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part I is awesome.  I know because our family went to see it today.  We have all read all the books in the series, and now we have seen all the movies in the series . . . and certainly intend to watch Part II when it is released next summer.  Despite knowing in advance what to expect from the plot, we were still surprised by moments of suspense that ended with elements meant to shock (and Hillary screamed quite loudly at one point when a snake made an attack that looked as though it were coming right off the screen and into our laps!).  We gulped down our dinner in order to make it to the matinée showing on time, so we had no time or appetite for popcorn or pop during the movie.  But other than the lack of snacks, it was a perfect movie-going experience.

Date Night

Today Susan and I are celebrating 17 years of marriage.  We had a big party last week (remember?), and it included our kids; so tonight was a kids-free evening in the form of a date: supper and a movie for just the two of us.

Hillary's Second Ninth Birthday

Faithful Reader, you may recall that, for Hillary's ninth birthday, we were in Missoula for a Sons of Norway convention.  She did a lot of fun, available-only-in-Missoula kinds of things that day, but she didn't get a birthday like what our kids are used to.  Usually we let the birthday girl make a lot of decisions on how we spend the special day: what to make for breakfast, what restaurant to go to for dinner, what kind of birthday party to have and where to have it, whom to invite for a sleepover--that kind of thing.  Since Hillary didn't get to do that on her actual birthday, we let her do it today and made this a "do-over" or substitute birthday for her!

Chicago, Days 3 and 4

Status update: still loving Chicago!  The conference continues to be informative and enjoyable (with delicious food), and there is time each evening for fun in the city.  Faithful Reader, you know you want to know what I've been doing each night . . . and to see the photos!

Chicago, Day 2

It was a great day in Chicago!  I'm here primarily to attend a conference: the LiveText Collaboration and Assessment Conference.  Our department at the university uses LiveText's software, and I got a lot of resources and practical ideas today to put to use throughout the school year.  During a break at midday, I stepped out on the patio area just off the hotel's conference center, and this was the view:

That's the Dearborn St. bridge over the Chicago River looking east-ish.

After the conference's afternoon sessions, a colleague (Lou) and I took a double-decker bus tour of downtown Chicago (we sat on the upper level, of course), and I have more photos to share with you.

Two Holidays for the Price of One

Faithful Reader, you will recall that we spent Father's Day in a vehicle driving home from Missoula, MT--almost 12 hours, what with stops for food and gasoline and restroom breaks.  I got some great gifts in the morning and enjoyed spending the entire day with my four blondes, but we didn't find a day's worth of driving to be an especially fun thing to do for Father's Day.  So we had a "re-do" today!

Native Voices

This week I enjoyed attending two of the events that were part of the university's Native Voices: Conversations on Culture. At the luncheon yesterday, I heard Diane Hall Glancy speak and read some of her poetry. Afterwards she signed a copy of her poem "Grandmother Library" to be displayed in the library on campus.

At today's luncheon, I heard Joseph M. Marshall III speak and viewed a clip from a movie in which he acted and for which he served as an advisor. Afterwards he provided everyone in attendance with an autographed poster that is a gorgeous photo of bison with an excerpt printed along the side from one of his books.

It was so relaxing to sit, eat, and listen. Yes, it has been a hectic week that followed a hectic week last week and that precedes a hectic week next week. So I enjoyed clearing my brain of my enormous "to do" list and just letting the speakers' eloquent words and thoughtful messages fill my mind. Events such as this are a terrific perk of working at a university. I hope this will become an annual event (to join the numerous other literary and cultural events that the university sponsors annually).

Godt Nytt År!

["Happy New Year!"]

We were out of town last Saturday (remember?), so tonight was our family's first Scandinavian Saturday meal of the new year. I had no helpers this week; all the girls spent the day at the West River Community Center competing in their first swim meet of the season as members of the Dickinson Dolphins (and Susan spent the day there, too, timing in lane 4). How did they do, you may wonder?

• Suzanna competed in four events. In the 200-yard relay, her group took 6th place in the heat. In the 50-yard freestyle, she took 3rd place in the heat. In the 100-yard backstroke, she took 5th place and sliced 13 seconds off her previous time for that event! And in the 100-yard individual medley, she took 2nd place in the heat!
• Abigail competed in two events. In the 100-yard individual medley, she took 3rd place in the heat. And in the 50-yard freestyle, she took 1st place in the heat!
• Hillary competed in three events. In the 100-yard freestyle relay, her group took 2nd place in their heat. In the 25-yard breaststroke, she took 3rd place in the heat. And in the 25-yard backstroke, she took 2nd place in the heat and qualified for the state meet!! Yep, she swam two seconds faster than the state qualifying time for that event. The state meet will be in Bismarck in March.

So congratulations to our little dolphins! Because they were otherwise occupied with showing their underwater prowess, I planned the menu, shopped for groceries, prepped the ingredients, and made the dishes on my own today.

We started with Caesar salat med tomat basilikum røkelaks ["Caesar salad with tomato/basil smoked salmon"]. It's a traditional Caesar salad with the creamy dressing, crunchy croutons, and tangy Parmesan cheese. Adding the salmon was my Nordic touch, and the tomato/basil coating on the smoked fish was a terrific variation.

My sister Sandy made lefse and brought it to our home when she came to visit this past week (remember?), so I warmed it in the microwave, buttered and sugared it, and served lefse along with the salad to start the meal.

Sandy sells Tastefully Simple products, so we happen to have a large inventory ourselves! I used their Warm Up! mulling spice to turn some apple/cranberry juice into a cinnamony, citrusy hot beverage to go with the salad and lefse. Delicious!

For the main course, I consulted a new cookbook purchase that I made late last year: The Scandinavian Cookbook by Trina Hahnemann. We had leftover mashed potatoes from our belated Christmas supper Thursday night, so I used them to make potetkake med limettsitron bete salat ["potato cakes with lime/beet salad"]. To some of the mashed potatoes, I added chopped scallions, eggs, oatmeal, sesame seeds, thyme, and nutmeg and fried the batter in olive oil to make light-and-fluffy pancakes. To top the cakes, I chopped beets and marinated them in the juice from a lime to which I added salt, pepper, and onion powder.

I also made stekt flyndre ["fried flounder"], fillets that I coated in dark rye flour and pan-fried in butter. I topped each fillet with a dollop of basilikum persille rømme ["basil/parsley sour cream"] and then a large spoonful of limettsitron dill reker med agurk og scallions ["lime/dill shrimp with cucumbers and scallions"]. It was a tasty combination of flavors!

For dessert, we ate some of the baking that Sandy had brought for us.

P.S. Last night we surprised the girls by driving them to the movie theater in Belfield to see the Disney movie The Princess and the Frog. We loved it! The movie has appealing characters, a fun storyline, and engaging music--typical Disney. Moreover, the movie theater itself is a fun place to see films. It's a refurbished building with period lighting fixtures and art deco designs on the walls and rows spaced far apart for ample leg room. Best of all, they put real butter on their popcorn! Oh, and admission is dirt-cheap. Well worth the 20-minute drive.

Christmas Music for You

'Tis the season! Here's a fun version of a familiar Christmas classic. The video itself isn't my candle on the water, but I like the arrangement. Enjoy!

Two Web Highlights

Check these out:

Culture Pulse -- A new Web site featuring information on all sorts of arts events in southwest ND: dance, theatre, music, visual art, museums, heritage events, festivals, special events, film showings, literary events, family- and kid-friendly events, classes and workshops . . . there's even a category called "sporting and outdoors"! As more and more regional arts groups become aware of Culture Pulse and start to add information about their own events, it will become a handy hub of information for those wondering, "What's there to do this weekend?"

Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me -- This NPR weekly news quiz show is always hilarious, but today's episode features NBC news anchor Brian Williams as a guest engaging in especially amusing repartee with the show's host and panelists. He shares funny stories, comes up with witty rejoinders, and (spoiler alert) wins his game after sharing his hilarious reasoning for arriving at the correct answers. Follow the link above and, if you wish, listen only to the Brian Williams portion (about 15 minutes). If you have more time, listen to the entire episode. It's news/current events-based comedy for people with brains! (And that's you, Faithful Reader.)

Home Again, Home Again, Jiggity Jig

We're back, kittens; did you miss us? (Did you even know we were gone?) Friday night the girls and I drove north to help my dad and stepmom move into a new house. As I phrased it this weekend, they'll be "summering in the country and wintering in the city" . . . which means that they're keeping the farm and spending time there whenever they feel like it; but during nasty winter weather, they plan to spend their time in the new home in town where they'll be close to everything they need (e.g., grocery store, clinic) and won't have to worry about plowing any roads leading to their house!

Susan did not accompany us due to obligations for her church job: a conference in Bismarck yesterday and Sunday school this morning. So our daughters and I packed up after school Friday, grabbed some fast food on our way out of town, pulled over along the highway several times during the drive to roll down the windows and talk to cattle and horses roaming in the ditches (ranchers along that route aren't so good at maintaining sturdy fences around their pastures), and arrived at Dad and Beverly's new house after everyone had wrapped up the day's work and was resting while eating some late-night pizza. Yes, our timing was impeccable.

Suzanna was eager Friday night to give Grandma a homemade gift: this washcloth that Suzanna knitted for her.

My sisters from NE and OR had flown in a few days earlier and had been helping Dad and Beverly pack and haul loads of stuff from one house to the other, and Beverly's son Dennis and his wife Julie (who live there in town) lent their trailer and their strong backs and arms to the cause, too. As a consequence, there wasn't so much left for the girls and me to help with this weekend. My sisters and I did move a load of big items (e.g., couch, bed frame, desks) and bring several boxes of smaller items (e.g., computer equipment, clothes, kitchen ware) yesterday. And both yesterday and today we helped unpack boxes in town, set up electronics, organize the kitchen and laundry room and spare bedroom, arrange the living room furniture . . . whatever needed doing in town. It was low-key but productive.

I don't recall ever having seen the living room at home (the house in which I grew up on the farm) empty. Yet just look at it. If one were a sentimental type of person, one would probably tear up at the thought of saying goodbye to one's childhood home as one's parent moves on to another house. (sniff, sniff)

Dad and Beverly spent each night in their new house, but the girls and I joined my sisters on the floor of the empty living room on the farm, spreading out our sleeping bags and having one big slumber party. We scavenged for food in the fridge, freezer, and pantry and made some tasty breakfasts (I made scrambled eggs on Saturday, and Sandy made French toast on Sunday) to start each day. My sisters and I had lots of "Aw, remember when . . . ?" moments as we packed up items in each room and found papers or objects from our childhood. When we didn't need the girls to help us pack for a few minutes, they built forts in the garage using empty cardboard boxes and ran around the yard, enjoying the fresh air and open spaces. It's always nice to be back home on the farm, even if for a bittersweet occasion such as this weekend.

Saturday evening Dennis and Julie had us all over to their house for supper: grilled burgers and hot dogs, cheesy potatoes, and whipped orange dessert. Abigail and Hillary went grocery shopping beforehand with Julie and then helped her make supper--what a special treat for them to spend that time alone with Dennis and Julie! We ate on the patio in their back yard, and it was awesome: a serene summer evening with a light breeze spent in their lovely back yard with its carefully groomed grass and well tended flowers eating delicious food and enjoying their company. The girls, Julie, and my sister Sandy even played several games of Simon Says on the lawn while the rest of us looked on and laughed. After supper they invited us to their high-tech family room to watch a movie on their huge TV with surround sound. Julie made us ice cream sundaes while we laughed and cried at Snow Dogs. It was a terrific night!

The girls and I returned to Dickinson tonight (school tomorrow, you know), and my sisters will fly back to their own homes in the next couple days, giving Dad and Beverly some "alone time" to unpack and put things away and hang things on the walls without extra bodies underfoot. While my sisters and I were all still around, we wanted to take Dad and Beverly out for a nice supper to celebrate their wedding anniversary (which is tomorrow). We thought of driving to a steakhouse in some town in the area, but we couldn't find one that was open on a Sunday . . . even in Williston! We ended up eating at Applebee's in Williston, and it was an absolutely delicious meal (I recommend the steak and riblets combo with garlic smashed potatoes).

Beverly, Dad, Abigail, Suzanna, Hillary, Sandy, and Cathy in the lobby of Applebee's

We said our goodbyes at the restaurant, and then the girls and I headed south while Dad, Beverly, and my sisters drove north to go back to the house in town. At 8:30 P.M., I had the girls "go to bed," snuggling together in the back seat with their blankets, pillows, and stuffed animals so that they wouldn't be sleep-deprived for school tomorrow. It was a quiet drive through the pitch-black night that hung over the winding roads through the Badlands of western ND. Even though I was "home" this weekend, it's good to be home now for real.

Brev til et annet Skandinavisk Kokk

["letter to another Scandinavian cook"]

Dear Beatrice Ojakangas:

Thank you for another delicious Scandinavian Saturday supper. Your book Scandinavian Cooking gave me the inspiration (and the recipes) for yet another meal of dishes we had never even heard of before. My adventuresome family are always happy to try whatever I make, so I enjoyed leafing through the pages of your cookbook last evening to find unfamiliar items to make up tonight's menu.

It was Hillary's turn to be my helper today, but she ended up drawing a bye. She spent the night with a friend (who had a birthday party and invited Hillary to join several other girls for a sleepover last night), so she wasn't home this morning when I went grocery shopping for the ingredients for tonight's supper. The slumber party participants didn't slumber until the wee hours of the morning, so Hillary needed a nap once she got home--and slept through my late-morning food preparation. I woke her up to join us for dinner at noon, after which she and her sisters hunkered down in the family room to watch a Disney movie that we had recorded several days ago and saved for their weekend viewing--so Hillary missed all the food preparation throughout the afternoon, too.

I didn't really mind, though. In fact, it was kind of funny to note her obliviousness throughout the day. Whenever she would pass through the kitchen, I'd say, "Hillary, should we turn on the oven light and peek at the pork that we're making?" She'd say, "Sure!" and take a look, note how nummy it appeared, and then continue on her way, apparently feeling no guilt that her part of "we" was not helping my part of "we" in the least bit. Cute!

Anyway, Beatrice (may I call you "Beatrice"?), this morning I made the marinade and got the meat into it, made the dessert and got it into the refrigerator, and prepped the vegetables for the side dishes (marinating the sliced veggies for the cold dish and shredding the veggies for the baked dish to make this afternoon). This afternoon I set the table, baked and basted the pork, assembled and baked the casserole, whipped some cream for the dessert, and made the sauce for the meat. May I tell you which of your recipes I used?

Danish stegt svinekam ["roast pork"]

I couldn't get one pork loin roast big enough to meet your recommendation, so I got two and marinated them in port wine, red wine vinegar, juniper berries, ground allspice, ground ginger, and salt. The roasts soaked in that for about six hours and then were basted in it during their three hours in the oven. You told me to use the pan drippings to make the sauce, but much of the basting liquid had evaporated; so I improvised, stretching the pan drippings with chicken stock that we had in the fridge. I completed the sauce with cream, crumbled Danish bleu cheese, and red currant jelly. The basting created a delicious crust on the outside of the meat, which was tender and moist inside; and the sauce was a savory accompaniment to the pork.

Finnish porkkanalaatikko ["the carrot box"]

I shredded the carrots this morning and let them sit in the refrigerator until I was ready to make this carrot casserole once the pork was nearly done. I cooked some white rice and combined it with the shredded carrots, milk, brown sugar, eggs, and seasoned salt (I know, I know--you said to use just salt). I stirred garlic breadcrumbs (I know, I know--you said to use just breadcrumbs) into melted butter and then sprinkled that atop the carrot-and-rice mixture in a baking pan. The carrots were tender but still tasted fresh and slightly sweet, which was a pleasant contrast to the savory crust created by the breadcrumbs. Once on our plates, the casserole soaked up a bit of the bleu cheese sauce from the pork, which gave it a bite that tasted great with the carrots.

Danish agurkesalat ["cucumber salad"]

Yesterday my boss brought to work a bag of cucumbers from his garden and offered them to anybody who was interested. I took several home and used a couple for this recipe, slicing them paper-thin and marinating them for six hours in water, white vinegar, ground white pepper, salt, and sugar. I drained them before serving them. They had a distinct sweetness to them, but the pepper took us all by surprise by giving the cucumbers a certain level of heat that we weren't prepared for since we couldn't see the white pepper on the cukes. Crunchy, fresh, sweet-'n'-spicy, and delicious.

Norwegian lefse (a potato-based soft flatbread)

Yesterday some members of our Sons of Norway lodge were at the high school where Susan works to join a cooking class there as guests to help the students make lefse. They gave Susan some rounds of lefse to take home, and we ate them with supper tonight. Let me tell ya, those high school students learned very well from the expert Sons of Norway bakers! The lefse was soft and moist, just exactly the right thickness, and melt-in-your-mouth rich with butter and sugar on them.

Finnish ruismarjapuuro ["rye berry pudding"]

I cooked together rye flour, cornstarch, sugar, salt, cranberry juice, and dark corn syrup, whisking nearly continuously for the 20 minutes that it was on the heat and the 10 minutes that it cooled over an ice bath afterward. I let it chill in the refrigerator all day long, and just before supper, I made homemade whipped cream (with lots of sugar and vanilla extract) that was light-as-air but so thick and firm that I could probably have made a spoon stand upright in it! We liked the unusual flavor of the cranberry-rye pudding. The "dark" flavors of the rye, the cranberry, and the dark syrup were subtle but definitely noticeable, making the "light" flavor of the whipped cream the perfect accompaniment.

Along with water in drinking glasses, I served goblets of cranberry juice (with vodka added for Susan and me) to round out the meal. We thoroughly enjoyed every dish, Beatrice, and left the table satisfied but not miserable (or, as Abigail put it, "I'm full but not Thanksgiving full"). The agurkesalat made one hearty serving for each of us, but there is enough left over of everything else for another meal tomorrow. Thanks again for assembling all these recipes in one terrific Scandinavian cookbook. (And thanks for writing more than one such cookbook, two more of which I own, too!) Stay tuned to see what other recipes of yours will show up on our table in the coming weeks and months.

Best wishes,
Kevin

End-of-Summer Jaunt to Medora

After church today, it was too early to go out for dinner, yet the girls were dropping unsubtle hints (e.g., "I wonder if [insert name of restaurant here] is open today") that showed they were just as in the mood to go out to eat as I was. So, without responding to their hints or revealing my plan, I took them on a drive that would pass some time, show us some sights, and put us at a restaurant right around dinnertime.

Highway 10 connects Dickinson to South Heart to Belfield with a hilly, winding, scenic route roughly parallel to Interstate 94. I pulled over a few times to snap some pics, listen to the wind's rustling of the crops and tree leaves, and smell the terrific scents of prairie flowers and wild grasses carried upon the hot, persistent wind.

West of Belfield, we turned south off Highway 10 to drive into Fryburg, a sleepy town of just a few streets--not all of them paved--and perhaps an equal number of houses. On the south edge of town sits an elementary school that closed nine years ago but whose gym is still used for sports events by Billings County Public Schools. (Interesting tidbit: The production crew for the movie Wooly Boys--starring Keith Carradine, Peter Fonda, and Kris Kristofferson--used the school as production headquarters and built a set in the gymnasium during filming of portions of the movie!) We turned around and went north again out of Fryburg to get onto Interstate 94 and drive west into Medora.

In the middle of a cluster of trees just north of Fryburg is this curving path, which just looks so inviting! But I think it's private property, so we looked but didn't touch.

Here's the view of Medora from the highway that leads into town from the north (after exiting south off the Interstate). Can you see the rooftops in the center of the photo? How awesome it must be to have the surrounding Badlands as one's view whenever one leaves the house!

Once in Medora, we ate dinner at Theodore's, the restaurant in the Rough Rider Hotel. It has undergone extensive renovations since the last time we ate there (for Father's Day last year) and looks just awesome with dark stain on the wood trim, a patterned tin ceiling, stained glass windows, a big brick fireplace, light fixtures designed to suggest the 1800s but clearly new, rich carpet, beautiful tile in the restrooms . . . oh, and the food is good, too (we had bison hamburger, turkey press sandwich, hot pastrami, and grilled chicken fettucine alfredo). The Rough Rider Hotel redid the dining room after last summer and is currently building an attached convention center. Take a moment to read a brief history of the hotel and enjoy a slideshow of photos of the hotel and its restaurant.

The Badlands form the backdrop for the hotel and convention center.

Suzanna, Abigail, Susan, and Hillary posed on the stairway in the north entrance to Theodore's. This room will serve as the foyer for guests checking in once the hotel completes construction of its convention center.

The girls and I posed on the veranda just outside the foyer with the grand staircase (from the photo above).

After dinner we walked around town a little bit, stopping in several shops to look around and see what they had to offer. All the shops were offering big discounts; Labor Day weekend marks the end of Medora's tourist season, so the stores are trying to reduce inventory before closing--or limiting their hours--for the fall. Each of the girls got an embroidered "Medora" baseball cap at one store, and Susan bought a "thank you" gift at another. Even the Fudge and Ice Cream Depot was trying to get rid of its product. We stopped there for a little ice cream, each of us ordering a single scoop in a bowl, which is what they charged us for; however, they piled the ice cream up so high that we easily could have shared one heaping bowl amongst the five of us!

Pretty flowers all around town.

We saw this little train chugging on by no matter where we happened to be around town!

It was 92° in Medora, which, frankly, is cooler than it has been during previous trips to the town. Still we were happy to get into the vehicle with its air conditioning as we drove on the Interstate to one final stop: the Painted Canyon Visitor Center a few miles east of Medora. The view is stunning, and the visitor center offers guide books and history books and biographies and park-related toys (e.g., hand puppets of local wildlife) and photographs and kid-friendly "you're welcome to touch these" artifacts that could easily have kept us occupied for hours had we not needed to get home and tend to other obligations. It was a fun little spur-of-the-moment trip that served as a welcome break on this Labor Day weekend. Now, it's back to work . . .

The view of the Badlands from the Painted Canyon Overlook just east of Medora. (Remember my writing about/sharing photos from this locale two years ago?)

P.S. Here are some gems from the mouths of our babes today:

• Once Hillary's fettucine arrived, she dug right in, made the "yummm" sound, and said, "It warms up my soul."
• Not too long afterward, she slowed down her pace of eating and said, "I'm really full." That's pretty typical of her, so I put my hand against my cheek and opened my mouth as though to register my faux astonishment. She responded, "It's not a shocking thing."
• Toward the end of the meal, Hillary asked if we could go to the playground, and I said that we weren't there for fun; we were there for photographs. She replied, "No trip is made without having fun."
• On the drive to Medora, we heard a radio show that had invited listeners to write and mail in their original haiku related to the program's topics. Since we had haiku on our minds, we tried our hand at creating one of the five-syllable, seven-syllable, five-syllable three-line poems while we were seated at the restaurant. Here's what we came up with: "We're in Medora / Land of trains and horse manure / Love this scenic town."
• When we were shopping for baseball caps, Suzanna selected a pink one, and it was immediately clear from the expression on Hillary's face that she felt she ought to have the pink hat (since her bedroom is pink, much of her clothing is pink, etc.). In explaining that to Suzanna, Hillary said, "Pink's my go-to color."
• As we walked with our ice cream bowls back toward our parking spot, Susan gave the girls directions, telling Suzanna, "Turn left at the corner." Abigail added, "Then straight on 'til morning." (Do you recognize that allusion to Peter Pan?)

Documentary on Northwest ND

Have you heard of a recent documentary called Crude Independence? I just stumbled upon some Web sites regarding it, and I'll bet that many readers of Pensive? No, Just Thinking would find it interesting. Its topic is the current oil boom in ND with a focus on how it's affecting small-town life in northwest ND, where I grew up and where my dad lives! Check these out:

• an interview with the documentarians, Noah Hutton (son of actors Timothy Hutton and Debra Winger) and his step-brother Sam Howard (son of actor Arliss Howard) [the executive producer is Jonathan Demme, famous director, producer, and actor]
• a press release for the documentary's showing at the Oxford Film Festival this past February
• another interview with them after their film won "Best Documentary" at the Oxford Film Festival (includes the trailer* for the documentary)
• the documentary's Web site (also includes the trailer*)

It appears to be a fair look at how the resurrection of the oil industry in western ND is affecting the quiet, rural lifestyle of those who have grown up in the region. I'd like to watch the entire documentary someday!

*The trailer includes an interviewee who uses crude (pardon the pun) language. Don't watch it in the presence of children or adults with delicate sensibilities.

Norwegian Camp, Day 4

Camp Trollfjorden ended today with a church service at Metigoshe Lutheran Church followed by brunch before we packed up and left. Metigoshe Ministries is getting ready to start summer camps, so all the camp staff were on hand today to lead music throughout the service. Some of them played guitar, keyboard, bass, harmonica, and drums while the rest stood on risers behind the altar and sang with the wall of clear and stained-glass windows behind them overlooking the lake--a lovely view. The floor of the A-frame church is made of pebbles covering the ground, and there are screen-covered vents along the sloping walls to let air into and out of the building. Being inside the rustic church and hearing the upbeat, modern Christian songs made me feel as though I were a kid at Bible camp myself!

Trollfjorden staff had set out cold cereal early in the morning to "tide over" those who just couldn't wait for brunch. After church, we had our final meal at Trollfjorden: vafler og pannekaker ["waffles and pancakes"] topped with bær saus og fløtekrem ["berry sauce and whipped cream"] or sirup ["syrup"], eppler og appelsiner ["apples and oranges"], blåbær banan brød ["blueberry banana bread"], yoghurt, saft, and kaffe. We resisted the urge to go back for seconds because we had plans for dinner--more on that in a moment . . .

It was a great weekend filled with learning and having fun (the girls had a blast and want to come back again next summer). We enjoyed meeting new people and getting to know better not only the other two attendees from our own lodge in Dickinson but also the two people attending from the Vang Lodge near Killdeer (remember their having hosted us for Syttende Mai?). Mange tusen takk for alt, Trollfjorden ["Many thousand thanks for everything, Trollfjorden"]!

View Larger Map

We were in no particular rush to get back to Dickinson, so we chose an unusual route home that would take us through towns and terrain we had never seen. We started by driving around Lake Metigoshe and then made our way to Bottineau. After a photo session with a gigantic snowmobile-riding turtle (see below), we went to Denny's Pizza Inn for some of their wonderful pizza (thus the light brunch, mentioned above). Five years ago, on our way back home from visiting my sister Cathy in OR, we drove through Bottineau on our way to visit the International Peace Garden. A friend had told me beforehand that Denny's in Bottineau serves the best pizza in ND, so we decided to try it out. He was right; it did--and still does.

The ladies pose in front of Tommy the Turtle. Here is his story.

Then we "took the backroads" to Minot and stopped at the Scandinavian Heritage Park (an appropriate stop for this particular weekend, no?), spending several hours perusing the gift shop (notable T-shirt slogan: "Norwegian Girls!"), wandering the trails in the park, touring the buildings, and posing for photographs. The park celebrates the five Scandinavian countries--Norway, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, and Iceland--and has buildings and statues to represent them all. It's a great (and free!) place, and the weather was perfect for being outdoors.

Notable story: When standing at the top of the waterfall in the park, Abigail stepped up onto the railing in order to get a better peek at the water below, and one of her flipflops fell off, tumbled down the waterfall, and lodged itself in the rocks and out of our reach. So she spent the rest of the afternoon hopping along on one foot, peeking into the buildings from outside, and crying over her lost shoe. We'll have to return someday when she is more securely shod and can go into all the buildings. In the meantime, some groundsperson someday is going to discover a bright yellow and orange flipflop either wedged between two rocks or else floating leisurely downstream.

This troll sits on an elaborately carved log bench in the Heritage Center.

Look! He's frightening the children!

Oh, wait, they were only kidding. Friendly troll!

The Norwegian flag flies alongside the flags of Sweden, Finland, Denmark, and Iceland, all of them flanked by the flags of Canada and the United States of America. They comprise the flag display just to the north of the Heritage Center.

This windmill represents Denmark but was built by a man from Powers Lake, ND--just a few miles from where I grew up!

This stavkyrkje ["stave church"] towers over the grounds of the park and is definitely the highlight--a beautiful building with a fascinating history. Read about it here.

This stabbur ["storehouse"] is decorated with some of the same kind of intricate woodcarving featured on the stavkyrkje. Note the grass growing on the roof! I wonder how they get the lawnmower (or the goat) up there . . .

From Minot we drove south to Washburn and then headed west for a pretty drive on curvy roads that took us over and alongside the Missouri River, past little lakes tucked between hills, and into a horizon of green grasslands and buttes rising in the distance. We stopped for supper in Beulah because we know from prior experience that the Subway restaurant there still offers creamy Italian dressing for its sandwiches. Sadly, we now know that it used to offer creamy Italian dressing. It has gone the way of the national chain and discontinued that choice of sandwich topping. Heavy sigh. Still, the subs were tasty, as were the ice cream treats from Dairy Queen on our way north out of town.

"But why north?" you wonder. Yes, going south from Beulah to the Interstate and then west to Dickinson would have been a more direct route home, but I wanted to go to Zap. I had never been there, but I had heard of the infamous Zip to Zap (read this and watch this) and wanted to be able to say that I, too, had zipped to Zap. So zip there we did. We drove through town (it didn't take very long) and then got back on the road, making our way to Richardton to glance at the beautiful Assumption Abbey there. We took Old Highway 10 from there through Taylor and into Dickinson.

What a carefree day full of culture and nature! But it's good to be back home, and I'm looking forward to sleeping in a real bed again.

This guy waved to us from the north side of the road just outside Golden Valley (after we had zipped out of Zap).

Here's a view of the Assumption Abbey. We intend to take the girls to the abbey for a tour someday. Would you like an online tour? Then click here.

P.S. No, Susan did not get an uninterrupted night of sleep last night. Early this morning, Abigail made her way to Susan's room to announce that she had thrown up. Abigail was fine afterward and fine all day today. I guess she just felt as though she should do her part to make sure that our children interrupted Susan's sleep every night of our stay at Camp Trollfjorden. Mission accomplished, Abigail and Hillary.