Easter: A Photo Diary

Abigail (in blue), Suzanna (under the covers), and Hillary (on top of me) came in to wake me up. They were oh-so-sweet, but they had an ulterior motive: they wanted to search for their Easter baskets (hidden by the Easter bunny), and Mommy had said they had to wait until I was awake.

It didn't take long for them to find their baskets, each of which was stuffed with two pairs of flip-flops, nail polish, a Webkinz stuffed animal, gum, a mini-gumball machine, and Hawaiian Punch flavor packets for water bottles. The Easter bunny also brought three other items for our daughters to share: a nail art kit, a box of sidewalk chalk, and a new game for their Wii: Dance Dance Revolution Hottest Party 3. Determining names for the new Webkinz animals was an important part of our morning, and the new Wii game was an important part of their afternoon!

We found one of our bowls stuffed to overflowing with candy. And the Easter bunny must read my blog to know that we needed (translation: I wanted) an immersion blender!

We went to church this morning dressed in our new Easter outfits. No, your color monitor didn't suddenly turn to black-and-white--those are the actual colors of our clothes. When we were shopping for Easter dresses for the girls, the prettiest, best-fitting, and most age-appropriate (i.e., non-slutty-looking) ones that we found were in black and white, so Susan and I went with that theme, too. (Thank you, tripod and timer function on camera, for making these family portraits possible.)

Aren't they cute?! (And look: no more snow in our front yard!)

And aren't we cute?!

After church, we ate brunch in the fellowship hall. It was served by teenagers at our church who are raising money for a mission trip that they're going on this summer, and it was tasty: pancakes and syrup, sausage links, scrambled eggs and cheese, fried potatoes, Butter Braid pastries, fruit juice, and coffee. It tided us all over until our Easter supper around 5:00 P.M. Susan set an Eastery-looking table and prepared a number of super-delicious foods. Read on!

We drank strawberry bellinis: fresh strawberries puréed and combined with either club soda (for each daughter) or spumante (for each adult).

For appetizers, we ate more fylte egg from last night (Abigail and I made enough for both meals) as well as this salad: mixed greens and herbs, grape tomatoes, red onion, and cucumber in a red wine vinaigrette, topped with sunflower seeds toasted on the stove, and garnished with a Parmigiano crisp baked from grated fresh cheese.

Susan made buttermilk biscuits for our bread.

This! Was! The! Best! Ham! Ever! It was a bone-in ham, so right from the start it had that automatic tastiness going for it. But Susan coated it in toasted spices (fennel seeds, coriander seeds, peppercorns, red pepper flakes, chili powder, thyme, salt, and cinnamon), drizzled it with honey, and basted it as it baked on a bed of celery stalks. I am so looking forward to ham sandwiches this week and ham-and-split-pea soup Thursday evening.

Susan drizzled fresh asparagus in olive oil, sprinkled it with salt and pepper, roasted it, and topped it with freshly grated Parmigiano cheese.

Susan made red, white, and blue mashed potatoes: smashed potatoes and garlic with crispy bacon, butter, heavy cream, ground pepper, and bleu cheese. Awesome!

(Yep, that's a Jell-O gelatin egg near the glass of spumante. It brought balance to an otherwise potentially too-classy meal.)

We were too full for dessert right after supper, so we cleaned up the kitchen and helped my sister Sandy (who lives several states away) get her Web camera and microphone set up for Internet telephone conversations via Skype. Once it was working, we got to see her, see her cats, and see her rushing out of camera range to chase after her cats. Finally we were ready to enjoy a sweet treat. Susan baked a lemon/sour cream pound cake and topped each slice with homemade lemon curd and homemade whipped cream that she had folded together. She topped each serving with fresh strawberries, blueberries, and blackberries. It was heavenly!

Here's hoping that your Easter was as wonderful as ours was!

Påskeaften Kveldsmat

(Before we get to the food, wouldn't you like to know something about Norwegian Easter traditions? Or about Easter eggs in Norway? Of course you would; click those links!)

Today it was Abigail's turn to be my helper in the kitchen for Scandinavian Saturday supper. I consulted my ethnic cookbooks for Easter recipes and found quite a lot . . . most of them featuring lamb, however, which isn't Susan's favorite and which we couldn't find in Dickinson anyway (not even at the butcher's shop). So we mixed-and-matched several Easter recipes from Beatrice Ojakangas (and one from Trina Hahnemann) and served this Påskeaften kveldsmat ["Easter eve supper"]:

Norway: fylte egg ["stuffed eggs"]

Some of the eggs were urt-fylte ["herb-filled"]: tarragon and chives with green olives for a garnish.

Some of the eggs were sitron-fylte ["lemon-filled"] with shrimp and red onions as a garnish.

Some of the eggs were sennep-fylte ["mustard-filled"] with smoked salmon and dill as a garnish.

Denmark: krydret svinekam ["pork piquant" or "spicy pork"]. We coated these pork spare ribs with whiskey mustard, fresh horseradish, anchovy paste, brown sugar, and seasoned breadcrumbs and then roasted them in the oven.

Norway: spinat med muskatnøtt ["spinach with nutmeg"], made by wilting fresh spinach in hot butter and seasoning with salt, pepper, and nutmeg.

Sweden: tomatisallad ["tomato salad"]: sliced tomatoes sprinkled with scallions, drizzled with a white pepper/allspice vinaigrette, topped with cucumbers, and sprinkled with dill and chives.

Sweden: Smålandsk ostkaka med hjortron ["Småland cheesecake with cloudberries"]. The cheesecake was made with ricotta and finely chopped almonds, giving it a grittier texture than the smoothly creamy cheesecake that we're used to. We added more sugar than it called for as well as vanilla extract, which it didn't call for, but its flavor was still pretty mild. The cloudberries have a unique taste that is difficult to describe. They also have hard, fat-teardrop-shaped seeds that are not fun to deal with in the mouth.

Susan and I tried this German ice wine with our dessert, and it was very good. I included the bottle in the photo so that you can go buy yourself a bottle to try!

Dolphins with Awards

I forgot to mention that we attended an end-of-the-season banquet for the girls' swim team Monday evening at the Elks Lodge. We ate a delicious meal of crudités, salad, bread sticks and garlic toast, spaghetti, marinara sauce, al fredo sauce, chicken breasts, parmesan cheese, corn, and soda. After we had eaten, the coaches gave out various awards; our girls brought home participation plaques for the season and ribbons from the last swim meet of the season. Also, Suzanna and Abigail had their names drawn for door prizes and each got a T-shirt.

At the end of the evening, one of the coaches announced that he is stepping down in order to spend more time at his son's own extracurricular activities; and one of the high school-aged assistants reminded everybody that this is her last season helping, too, because she'll be moving away for university next year. The girls are sad to see each of them leave, but otherwise they felt that the banquet was an upbeat ending to a fun season.