Supper from the Swedes, Finns, and Danes

While in Fargo a couple weeks ago, Susan and I took the girls for an evening walk downtown and stopped in at Zandbroz to look around. While browsing the selections on their bookshelves, we spotted several Scandinavian-themed books, including a number of cookbooks by a woman named Beatrice Ojakangas. I was so excited to find a source of authentic Northern European recipes that, as soon as we were back in our hotel room, I fired up the laptop and ordered three of Ojakangas' cookbooks online. (She's quite a prolific culinary writer, apparently.)

Those books have since arrived, and I predict turning to them often as sources of recipes for future Scandinavian Saturdays. In fact, I took one recipe from each book for tonight's meal! I started by thawing a loaf of Danish rugbrød ["rye bread"] that has been in the freezer since we bought it at the Northern Plains Ethnic Festival a few weeks ago.

Rugbrød with caraway seeds on top, which we sliced and served with butter.

Then I made the dessert: Danish citronsmåkager ["lemon cookies"]. I mixed unsalted butter, sugar, eggs, flour, and lemon extract for the batter, which made about four dozen cake-like wafers, each with a mild sweetness and subtle lemon flavor. Abigail was my helper this week, and she frosted the cookies with a glaze made from powdered sugar and freshly squeezed lemon juice. We had to sample a few, of course, and were pleasantly surprised at how tart-but-sweet the frosting was. In fact, the fresh lemon juice in the frosting delivers more lemony flavor than the extract in the batter.

Sorry about the poor photo, but you get the idea what citronsmåkager look like. This recipe came from Ojakangas' book The Great Scandinavian Baking Book.

I thought that soup and salad would go well with the rugbrød, so next we made Finnish lohikeitto ["salmon soup"]. I sautéed onion, scallion, and celery in butter. To that I added flour, chicken stock, and freshly squeezed lemon juice. Then I flaked in smoked salmon and added cream, nutmeg, ginger, salt, and pepper. Abigail was a good stirrer throughout the process, keeping a skin from forming on top of the soup while it was heating. When we dished up the soup, we topped each bowl with a generous amount of chopped fresh dill.

The recipe for this thick, hearty, savory lohikeitto came from Ojakangas' book Scandinavian Feasts.

For the salad, I selected Swedish västkustsallat ["west coast salad"]. In between batches of cookies, I steamed some frozen peas, boiled some fresh asparagus, and hard-boiled some eggs, setting all of them in the fridge to cool before we would need them. I had much more chopping to do before we could plate each salad, but Abigail joined me at that point and helped insure that everybody's salad contained goodly portions of these ingredients: romaine lettuce, asparagus, sliced cremini mushrooms, sliced canned beets, peas, tomato wedges, egg wedges, tiny shrimp, and crab meat. I made a dressing using minced garlic cloves, Dijon mustard, white wine vinegar, olive oil, and minced fresh dill.

The recipe for this fresh, colorful, zesty salad came from Ojakangas' book Scandinavian Cooking.

It was a really terrific meal that had us all so full that we had no room for the cookies . . . but that didn't stop us from eating them! The best part is that, were I to consult no other recipe source than these three books by Ojakangas, I could still continue to prepare Scandinavian Saturday meals for years without ever making the same item twice!

My Five-Year Anniversary!

Didja realize that Pensive? No, Just Thinking is five years old today?! Yeah, it's been awhile since I first fired this thing up to record my thoughts about the goings-on in my life. Feeling nostalgic? Let's reminisce:

• Five years ago, I was recovering from the exhausting first days of the school year.
• Four years ago, I was (surprise, surprise) recovering from the exhausting first days of the school year.
• Three years ago, I was whining about the never-ending home improvement projects that we undertook upon moving into our new house.
• Two years ago, I was looking back on previous years.
• One year ago, I was telling tales about a party that we had attended, about the girls' hectic schedule of weekly activities, about a university musical for which the girls auditioned, and about our blooming flowers around the yard.

Let's see if this thing is still around five years from now. Will people still be blogging, or will some other innovation have replaced blogs? Time will tell!

Eating Sticks and Twigs

My friend Kelly and I went out for dinner today and tried a new downtown restaurant called Stix n' Twigs Café (yes, they know enough to include the accent aigu over the "e" in "café" but don't know that an apostrophe should go wherever one has left off a letter in a contraction so that "and"--missing both the "a" and "d"--would be written apostrophe "n" apostrophe). The subtitle on the menu says "Innovative Organic Cuisine," and I didn't know quite what to expect from that.

We met there at 11:30 A.M., and it was already full--although it's not a terribly large space. The door is flanked by two windows looking out on the street, and in each window is a built-in table with two stools pushed up to it (Kelly and I sat at one of those). There is a sitting area with couches and bookshelves, and on either side of that are a few tables--maybe half a dozen total? There is a counter at which to pay or to order from the "service case," and the employees prepare beverages and desserts behind the counter and get into the kitchen from a door at one end of the counter. The restrooms are at the back of the room.

The owners did a terrific job renovating their portion of the old building and creating a tastefully decorated, inviting, relaxing space. Outside, they chose tumbled bricks set in a random pattern more appealing than the even, predictable, pink/tan bricks of most of downtown. Inside, the paint colors are muted, the wood is stained dark, the light fixtures are modern pendant lights, the walls feature artwork created by local artists, the floor is a marble-y green tile, and the men's bathroom has candles on the toilet tank and a fun stone sink (that slants down from the front toward the wall where the water disappears in a long slit against the wall) with a pump bottle of "stress-reducing" soap. They even replaced some of the sidewalk outside with what looks to be black slate. I was impressed.

And the food was fantastic, too. Kelly ordered their burger: "organic vegan burger with wheat, nuts, and beans and spices sautéed and served on a bun with tomato, lettuce, pickle, and lime vegenaise." I had the Cobb salad pita: "avocado, chicken, vine-ripened tomatoes, bacon, bleu cheese, and romaine mingled with vinaigrette, garnished with egg, and served in a pita." I really liked them both (Kelly let me try some of her burger) and was tempted to try the peach "krisp" that was one of today's dessert offerings, but I was just the right amount of "full" from the reasonable portions that they served us.

Based on the fun atmosphere and the tasty items that I tried today, I would happily make a return visit to Stix n' Twigs Café (and would do so even more quickly if they would write it "Sticks and Twigs Café"). The menu itself is enough to bring me back; I found plenty of unusual items that I'd like to return to try sometime (including toasted quinoa vegan soup, coconut curry chicken salad, beet and chevre salad, and rustic Moroccan goat cheese tart). They were even kind enough to give me a copy of the menu to take home!

There's also the healthy, earth-friendly appeal of the place. This is what the owners write about themselves on the front of the menu: "Endeavoring to bring you whole foods without artificial flavors, colors, or preservatives. Organic foods grown without chemical herbicides, pesticides, or GMOs (genetically modified organisms). Striving to use green products using renewable sustainable sources that are compostable." (That is followed immediately by this: "Hebrews 1:3--"The Son . . . sustaining all things by His powerful word." It might be the first menu I have seen with a Bible verse featured on it!)

I like having a variety of options from which to choose when we feel like dining out, so I'm delighted to add this to the list of restaurants in the area. You wanna try it out? Let me know, and we'll schedule a dinner date! (Forewarning: Stix n' Twigs is open from 10:00 A.M. to 4:00 P.M. Monday through Friday, so do try to be hungry during those time spans, please.)