christmas came early for familien als

This past weekend was the only time we could arrange to get all of Christian's family together for all things Christmas before everyone took off for the holidays.  

We hosted the day of Christmas things at both our teeny house and Farmor's next door.  We baked cookies, made the traditional Danish Christmas dinner, played a game of 'yankee swap' (white elephant exchange, grinch exchange, whatever you call that), and opened gifts.

Christian did most of the baking - well he made all the dough and let Emma and I make the cut outs.  We made what I would kind of consider gingerbread cookies (the spicey kind), vanilla almond cookies and chocolate chip.

After cookie baking we went straight into Danish dinner making.  Danish Christmas dinner consists of a pork roast, brown sugared potatoes, regular potatoes, red cabbage (we did a salad this year with oranges and walnuts), gravy and there was sausage for Ann whose family has a tradition with it. So yummy.

Christian feels like Christmas is over now - I am still counting down the minutes to come home and hug my friends and family!!  Everyone needs to get rid of any grinchness! ;) 

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summer has arrived

My friends and family love us so much they sent us their east-coast heat wave.  :P Only problem is that we don’t have those fancy, new-fangled things called air conditioners here! Or outdoor public pools.  Plenty of beach, though!  Danish summer is here!

Christian and I went to the beach last week and it was awesome.  There weren’t waves but the water was not atrociously cold and I could see through it (and we know this is important) so I had a blast just slashing around so to speak. 

Before it gets too far gone I should talk about last weekend.  There was a lot going on!

Friday we helped Christian’s uncle with some floral arrangement delivery and decorations for a horse show in Sweden.  The customer was a bit off her rocker and we moved everything like 400x for her but I think it turned out well!

(yes, that is in a horse stable)

Saturday we went back to Sweden for Christian’s grandma’s sister’s 75^th birthday.  Did you follow that?  Christian’s grandma (Farmor – the little one who lives across the terrace) is Swedish and is one of something like 7 or 8 children, no one can really answer that question for me.   So there is a lot of Swedish family.

Lots of Swedish family that no one really knows through whom they’re related.  I thought I was struggling to understand Danish… you should hear Swedish – it makes me laugh mostly.  It’s definitely a whole different intonation than Danish, yauh.

Apparently birthdays aren’t a big gift giving ordeal but everyone comes and brings maybe a small gift and sits down for coffee and 3 courses of cakes, cookies and other delicious desserts (see picture of dessert table below).   I see where Christian developed his sweet tooth!

Sunday we had the brunch for Emilie’s graduation and it was also the 4^th of July and so obviously we had to celebrate!  We hosted a barbeque at our house in the garden (ok backyard ugh where is this proper English coming from already?!) and invited friends and family.

Apparently evite is not commonly used in Denmark and hit half of our friends spam folders instead of inboxes. Whoops! So our brave and handicapped friend, Sillas, made the trip out to grannytown from Copenhagen to spend the 4^th with us and Christian’s family.

We made so much food.  I made Kayte’s guacamole recipe and some fresh pico de gallo and served with tortilla chips as an appetizer. Ok so not American but hello, every American loves Mexican food.  Or it’s just me. Either way YUM. 

We grilled all kinds of meats and corn on the cob. I made potatoes and a salad to serve as side dishes.  I was particularly proud of my salad – mixed leafy greens, cucumbers, red onion, strawberries, blueberries, walnuts and feta cheese with homemade balsamic vinaigrette.  Delicious! I also made the cake shown above. Cake mix from a box does exist here but it's just not the same! ;)

We drank a few cocktails and played a Danish yard game.  It’s called I forget… Købclub or something.  Haha I totally forget what it’s called but it was super fun.  I played on the winning team the whole day until the very last round. 

It would take me forever to explain the game so maybe you should just come over and play it with us sometime instead!

It’s been sunny and warm, if not hot, every day for a long time, I almost don’t want to jinx it!  I am loving it! Hope all is well with my loyal readers!

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Me gustan las tapas

I am watching the typical Wednesday night marathon of Top Chef Las Vegas - love this season!  It has me thinking of one of my favorite things in life, food of course!  Here's a diddy on food from Gail's birthday celebration!

I can't think of too many people I know that don't like tapas, in some variation. And if you ever tell anyone you're going to a tapas bar or better yet invite someone... well say it fast and see if the person raises an eyebrow or says "wait, what?"  Minds out of the gutter fools, we have some tortilla to eat!

For Gail's birthday a big group of us went to Bar Lola on Comm Ave in Back Bay for dinner.  It was delicious and hugely inexpensive for tapas. Their red sangria rocked my socks.  Between seven of us there was plenty of variety, yum!

There were plenty of traditional Spanish plates available but Bar Lola did well to cater to the typical American as well. Would be lying if I told you I didn't order mini hamburguesas! ;) Service was good and food came out as it was ready.

I've been to two other tapa bars in the city and Bar Lola fits securely in the "just right" category.

Toro in the South End wins in the "worth the splurge" category.  I still dream of their corn dish (left) and delicious cocktails and red wine. Highly recommend you make that trip but they don't take reservations so be sure to get their early or just plan on having drinks at the bar, first.

Tapeo on Newbury St in Back Bay is the other restaurant.  I honestly didn't love Tapeo.  Every dish I had was greasy but it could have just been what was ordered.  

Anyway - Bar Lola & Toro - can't go wrong!!  Are you hungry yet?  Serrano ham... Tortilla... YUM!

Who's going home on Top Chef tonight? 

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happy spring!

I haven't blogged in awhile, apologies.  It's been a hectic week coming back to work.  My boss was out of town as well so that just meant even more work for me.  Not so bad to be so busy after leaving Denmark, though.  Makes the time pass quicker.

I got a good distance run in on Wednesday after work with Gail. The weather was SO nice.  Perfect, I dare say.  A little windy running on the Charles leg of the run but not too bad.  I am glad day light savings has gone into effect!  Today marks the first official day of spring!  Too bad it's so cold in Boston today.

Yesterday we had a potluck lunch at work with my department (clearly I own it, haha jk) and the finance department.  I made "Danish" meatballs - Frikadeller.  Too bad they were more like Tanzanian meatballs.  They did not come out as hoped.  I couldn't find ground pork (half of the main ingredient in Frikadeller) anywhere in the store.  Then my breadcrumbs were seasoned, which they shouldn't have been.  Oh well, some people said the really liked them.  Maybe they were just being nice.

I'm going to pull a Kayte here and give you a recipe.  Christian makes these best but he never measures anything.  Based on my recent experience I urge you not to do the same - I think you have to be a Danish citizen to get the precise feel for the amount of ingredients without measuring.

Frikadeller (the word sounds as cool as the food!):

Ingredients:

1/2 lb Ground Veal/Beef

1/2 lb Ground Pork

1 small to medium Onion finely chopped

1 1/2 cup milk

2 tb flour

1 cup bread crumbs (plain duhhh)

1 egg

S & P to taste

Instructions:

Ready for this?  Mix all of the above REALLY well with your hands (you know you love that squishy feeling...)

Warm a pan with a little bit of oil/butter in it.  Use a tablespoon (the kind that you'd see in your silverware drawer, not the actual measuring one) to spoon oval shaped (spoon shaped) balls of the meat mixture.  Fry the meatballs on each side until cooked all the way through. 

Typically served with potatoes and red cabbage and some gravy.  Though, Christian and I serve it with Tzatziki - YUM!

Voila!  

What do you think?

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