Swedish Inventions

One of the delights of living in Cincinnati is the Scandinavian Society. This group is over 50 years old, although we only discovered it about five years ago, shortly before we moved completely from Spain to this city. Our first event was its annual Lucia Fest, but we really became involved when we were invited to join the Scribblers, a writing group that meets once a month. I also joined the Readers, which also meet once a month. These two groups, in which we write personal stories and share them by reading with our compatriots, and read and discuss books by Scandinavian authors, have not only brought me into contact with people of Danish, Swedish, Norwegian, Finnish, and Icelandic heritage, but have also enabled me to get to know and become good friends with some of them.

Somewhat less intimate than the monthly specialty meetings are the full-society bimonthly gathering for dinner, each one supporting a theme: one of the featured Nordic countries. Last night we were honoring and enjoying the heritage of Sweden. Swedish meatballs, and more importantly, baked salmon, were added to the usual delicious buffer fare at the Manor House restaurant. The program part of the evening featured a short history of ten Swedish inventions. The items enumerated crossed several fields but most had something to do with technology; they included some digital medical techniques, the three-cornered automobile seat belt, and the crescent wrench. Personally I did not even know what a crescent wrench was, though when I saw a picture I recognized it as one my father had many years ago.


Not mentioned specifically in conjunction with the Swedish inventions, but surely one of the great ones, is the name Ikea, which has been developing products and an innovative marketing concept for nearly 70 years, and that now is known worldwide. We, for example, have furnished homes from Ikea stores in four countries and stayed in airbnb vacation  places furnished "in Ikea" in at least two more. Ikea was a sponsor of the Swedish dinner last night and contributed a large gift basket with wares from its Ikea Foods department to a raffle for the benefit of the Society.

And Johannes won the raffle! It could not have come to a more deserving and appreciative recipient. We happen to live only 10-12 minutes from the Ikea in West Chester, and whenever I have a luncheon meeting, Johannes goes to Ikea to eat salmon. Both of us stop by every two or three weeks to stock up on their excellent rye bread mix and herring for our Saturday-night smørrebrød, or just to take a lengthy stroll through the furniture and furnishings display areas to see what's new. The gift basket had no herring or bread mix in it, but was filled with cookies, chocolates, tea, coffee, jams, and knackebrød, as well as a mug and cutting board and a couple bags--Ikea's sturdy bags always come in handy for gathering smaller bags and moving items. We keep several in our cars.

Now we look forward to exploring even more Ikea goodies in the weeks to come. I think it's time for tea and cookies.

Girlfriends

Sixteen women friends with whom I graduated from Sidney (Ohio) High School in 1965 assembled at the Inn at Cedar Falls this week to celebrate the year of our 70th birthdays and our friendship. You may think that these were my closest friends in high school, but that is not necessarily the case.  They were all classmates, but in a class of about 300. Some of them I had gone to junior high school with, but there were two junior highs in town then, and most had attended the other one. None of these girls were in my elementary school, but some of them had known each other since elementary days. I knew several by virtue of going to the same church back then. And a couple I knew not at all, because they had moved into the school for only the last two years, and our paths had simply not crossed in the course of daily classes or extracurricular activities. I have no clear idea of how I came to be invited to the first meeting of this group, ten years ago in Naples, Florida. A matter of serendipity and knowing some of the right people, I guess. I am glad I went to that first meeting, and though I have missed a couple group events since then, I am glad I went back to this second big celebration.

We had reserved ten of the cottages at the Inn at Cedar Falls, adjacent to Hocking Hills State Park in south central Ohio near the town of Logan. The first surprise was that the cottages were so far away from each other and the lodge where we were to eat and gather--and that the quarter-mile terrain over which we travelled from cottage to gathering point was so hilly! Clearly we had remembered growing up in flatland Ohio. Even the hardiest among us was grateful for the assistance of cars and drivers that could make the trek, especially during the once-only light rain and the three evenings when we all returned after dark. Many of us, however, appreciated the lush greenery and solitude in the early morning, when we could take a cup of coffee onto our balconies and watch the sun rise, or at least listen to the wind before the joint activities of the day commenced.

With seventeen of us, a lot of time each day was spent in discussing who was driving whom where and when...but the discussions were all in good humor and achieved the result of caring for everyone's wishes. Groups left for hikes to Ash Cave, Old Man's Cave, and Cedar Falls. Also shopping at gift and craft places in the area. Some of us explored the little town of Logan, with its restaurants and unique shops. All these excursions gave us time to walk and talk in small groups or one-on-one. We ate as a large group in the Cedar Falls lodge two nights, and had a special prix fixe six-course dinner all together at Glenlaurel the middle night. We had a late afternoon bourbon tasting and book discussion, which lead us into such deep and moving discussion that our hosts had to come fetch us for out 7:30 dinner reservation.

I renewed friendships on this excursion but I also made news friends. We have all reached an age when we have accomplished a lot of different things, made different choices, weathered different crises, and enjoyed different blessings. But we all come from a certain place at a certain time, and it is interesting to see how that common rooting has served us in the years we have spent apart. Gone is any touch of envy or competition or insecurity, I think. What has grown is respect, support, and appreciation for the people we have become as we have each moved through life.

We told stories, we laughed, we sighed, and occasionally we cried through three days together, but it is noteworthy that in spite of personal challenges, we are all upbeat at this stage of our lives. My words cannot explain or describe the feeling of camaraderie we have developed. Thursday morning we met for breakfast and laughed again and hugged, and started planning for our next get-together. There is no doubt that it will happen.

Spring Forward Smørrebrød

This was my nod to the all-too-premature "spring forward" Daylight Saving Time command last night--a spring-like addition to our regular Saturday evening Danish smørrebrød, simply because I happened to have fresh asparagus in the house. Asparagus is not a usual accompaniment to Danish open-faced sandwiches, though it does appear occasionally on ham with Italian salad, I now recall. But it is not usual with us, since we concentrate more on good, healthy herring (shown here in the five smaller tidbits circling the spring sandwich).

We washed down our five different herring and the spinach-egg-tomato-asparagus-shrimp-dill mayonnaise concoction with a less healthy Carlsberg beer and aquavit. It was delicious, as always. I have been doing some thinking this weekend about the distinction between a habit, a tradition, and a ritual. A habit is done regularly, but without thinking. A tradition has been done before--a few times anyway--and tends to acquire meaning in the fact of being handed down. A ritual is also performed on a regular basis and has meaning; it is ceremonial and, according to Merriam-Webster, has "religious, courtly, social, or tribal significance."

I have been making smørrebrød for almost fifty years. It wasn't until we lived in Spain and had easy access to the ingredients (yes, Spain) that we started to enjoy it every week. Now, back in Cincinnati, we also have easy access to many, though not all, ingredients (bless Ikea and Jungle Jim's). Our Saturday evening dinners go beyond habit to tradition and ritual.

Turning the clocks forward or backward is just an annoying habit.

Happy New Year!

We were part of a Chinese New Year's celebration last night, hosted by a couple who have recently returned from spending six years in China. It was a gala evening of wine, "real" Chinese food, a slide show of pictures, and good conversation.

Only once before have I celebrated Chinese New Year. That was many years--decades--ago, in Boston, when we went to a parade in Boston's Chinatown with some Danish friends. It was colorful, but not as elaborate as the parades and fireworks I saw on TV yesterday. I remember that the weather was very cold. Perhaps we topped off the afternoon with a visit to Joyce Chen's Cambridge restaurant. Joyce Chen pioneered Chinese cooking in the U.S. She had a cooking program on WGBH, the public television station in Boston, which aired in 1966-67, after the better-known Julia Child had begun to teach America how to cook French. Joyce Chen was the first TV cooking chef I knew, as I was still living in Ohio in the early 1960s when The French Chef began broadcasting, from Boston but not all they way to small-town Ohio.

The New Year's celebration last night was in a warmer locale, and the food was better than I remembered from Joyce Chen's restaurant, when I had been surprised by very sticky white rice. For one thing, we had the option of brown rice last night, in addition to the traditional white (but less sticky). With the rice we had an egg and tomato dish, which our hosts explained had been their regular Monday night dinner while in China, because that was what their housekeeper prepared. It reminded me a bit of the Egg Foo Yung that had been featured on one of the episodes of the Joyce Chen program that I had seen during my early married years, but the egg was fluffier and there was lots of tomato, which was an ingredient that I don't recall Chen using, and which I don't think I've seen in American Chinese restaurants.

Prior to the egg, tomato, and rice we enjoyed a delicious cold salad of diced cucumber and carrot with boiled whole peanuts, with a nice dressing that could be spiced up with various sauces. Most cuisines have a cucumber salad, I have learned, but this may be the best I have ever tasted. It probably would not be bad with garbanzo beans instead of the peanuts, but less authentic, I suppose. It would also make a refreshing main dish summer salad.

After the rice and egg we made dumplings, a traditional Chinese New Year food, we were told. Some of us made them, that is. I just watched, sampled, and observed a handy little plastic dumpling press that the hostess told me she had found at the CAM International Market in Cincinnati, a giant supermarket that I had stumbled upon and previously walked through in awe, but where I had been too unprepared to buy anything. Now I have a mission: that dumpling press is the perfect gadget I need to make mini-empanadas for an Argentine meal.

We had been warned that the Chinese don't do good wine, so I went prepared to stick to the Chinese beer that had been promised instead. But our host had found wine with labels depicting roosters, and since we were entering the Year of the Rooster, that was a good enough excuse to offer wine as well and still be in the spirit of China.

The Rooster is one of the twelve zodiac signs of the Chinese calendar and connotes fidelity and punctuality. That "punctuality" characteristic would prove that I am not born in any year of the rooster. Rather, I discovered, I was born in the year of the pig, which suggests a whole host of characteristics that are not particularly pleasing to me.  The best that can be said for the year of the pig is that it behaves itself and wishes no harm to others. Therefore I will refrain from any further comments on the Chinese zodiac.

On the Line

I did not go to Washington, D.C. for the Women's March last Saturday; I did not even make the trek to Washington Park in Cincinnati for the local "sister" march, though I support most of the various causes espoused so eloquently and peaceably by the hugely divergent groups of women who assembled worldwide to bring attention to women's rights and threats to them under the new U.S. administration.

Instead I chose to make one small, concrete effort on a single issue: feeding at-risk school children in Cincinnati. When schools close on Friday afternoon each week, a shocking proportion of students go home not knowing whether they will be able to have breakfast, lunch, and dinner during the weekend. Freestore Foodbank helps to reduce the number of students who may not eat, or eat nutritiously, on Saturday and Sunday.

I helped to assemble Power Packs. A Power Pack is a brown paper bag containing easy-to-prepare and shelf-stable food for one person for two days. The food in a Power Pack may include whole grain cereals, fruit and vegetable juices, sunflower seeds, health bars, complete pasta meals, and other healthy options. We had four assembly lines going on Saturday, and I was in station two of one of them. I received a bag in which my partner in station one had placed a cup of beef-a-roni and another cup of...I can't remember what microwaveable individual main dish. My job was to insert a bottle of some branded sports/health water that I had never seen before, and a tetra pack of cherry juice, balanced on its side. My partner on my right placed a cup of applesauce next to the juice, and some pudding. She then passed the bag down the line to three other people, who inserted more food items. I never had the time to find out what products they were putting in. At the end of the line, someone folded over the tops of the bags, someone else taped them shut, and another person packed six bags in a precise pattern into a cartoon and placed the cartons on a pallet.

In addition to the four assembly lines of packers, there were people uncrating products and moving them quickly from pallets to the assembly line, and removing the empty brown cartons, breaking them down, and dropping them into tall dumpsters. There were probably 50-60 volunteers there Saturday morning, some of whom were veterans, and others who were novices, like me. In two hours we filled more than 2000 Power Packs, moved them out to a loading dock, and replenished products in the assembly lines for the next group that was coming in. When we were told to wind up, I was just beginning to realize that I was tired of standing on my feet and moving in a limited, prescribed motion for two hours with no break. But it was a great feeling to know that some kids would eat better next weekend because of what we had done. I hope to come back for another shift next month.

The Freestore Foodbank's Power Packs are part of a larger national effort called Feeding America.  Perhaps there is one near you.

Sunday Dinner, South African Style

We entertained today with a special dinner benefiting St. John's Unitarian Universalist Church. I had been thinking about offering this dinner to their annual fund-raiser auction since we visited Cape Town last August. I bought a cookbook there, the West Coast Cookbook, which is a cultural treasure. From this volume, I learned more about South African fish than I could ever put into practice, sad to say.

I read through the fall and winter months and soon realized that I had made a small error. All those great fish recipes were wonderful, but they required fish that I had never heard of! I should have realized that the fish off the west coast of South African were nothing like the ones I knew from New England, the seas around Denmark, or even from the Mediterranean coast of Spain. There were detailed descriptions of angelfish, galjoen, kingclip, and snoek, but the only one I recognized was hake, which this said was commonly called stockfish.  The first fish recipe I tried was "St. Helena Bay fish pie," a deep-dish baked fish casserole with mashed potato topping. It called only for "white fish fillets," and I found fillet of flounder. The best part of this effort was the mashed potato topping! The West Coast Cookbook makes large recipes--most for eight people--and I served this pie twice for our dinner, gave away one helping, and threw the rest in the trash! I think the problem was that I used frozen founder, and both the freezing and the lack of body in the flat flounder contributed to little taste. Looking at the recipe now, I can see how I might tackle it again differently,

In the meantime, however, I found "Fish Soup in a Potjie,"and since a potjie pot is one of the utensils that is unique to South Africa, and since I had brought a spice mix called potjiekos back with me, I next tried that. Learning from experience, I made half a recipe to start with. This recipe requires "1 kg whole Hottentot or any line fish," and I wondered what "line fish" is (one that is caught on a fishing line as opposed to gathered up in a net? No matter, I decided on cod, nice full-bodied fresh cod, possibly frozen before it reached the fish counter in my market, but at least showing no signs of a frozen state when it came to my eyes. The recipe also called for cooking the soup with the head of the fish in it, and removing the head before serving. Well, I never even saw the head and I don't think anyone is any the worse for it. This soup turned out to be a winner--my favorite brother-in-law told me today it was the highlight of the dinner--but not without some alteration on my part, including a boost with Knorr seafood bouillon that I found in Portugal, and the addition of a generous two teaspoons of that potjiekos spice (with no package indication of its ingredients, but it certainly includes pepper) I had brought back from South Africa.

My highlight of the dinner however, was the bobotjie, which had been my first meal in Cape Town, and one of the best. I didn't find a meat bobotjie recipe in this west coast cookbook, but I found several on the Internet; I tried this recipe out twice ahead of time and made only one small change in the method. So with the fish soup and bobotjie, I had my first and main courses set, but I continued to read from the cookbook for accompaniments. As I read through the various recipes, I noted several that said "often served on Sunday." It seemed only natural, then, to make this gift dinner a Sunday dinner experience. We did, with guests arriving shortly after their morning gatherings, and we had a very pleasant afternoon of different food and interesting conversation. The topics touched on several countries in the southern hemisphere, teaching from kindergarten to college level, astronomy, physics, time travel, mushrooms, hallucinogens, church, and Jesus, plus several more when I was in the kitchen. Here is the final menu of what we ate and drank:

Sunday Dinner,  South African Style

Welcome

Wine: The Royal Chenin Blanc

Valley Vineyards, South Africa

First Course

Fish Soup in a Potjie

Yellow Pumpkin Bread

Wine: Goats do Roam, 2014

Fair Vineyards, South Africa

Main Course

Bobotjie

Spiced minced beef pie with egg topping

Yellow Rice with Raisins

Green Bean Salad

Beetroot and Onion Salad

 Wine: The Royal Pinotage Shiraz, 2013

Valley Vineyards, South Africa

Dessert

Melktert

A custard tart with more milk than egg

South Africans celebrate National Milk Tart Day on February 27 each year.

Crème de Menthe Liqueur

"The Last of the 60s!"

 

The Sisters in the '60s

   


Yesterday was the last day that the four "Nicklet girls" could all honestly say that their age was sixty-something. We were four daughters who grew up together in a small town in Ohio and then all went our very separate ways for the next 40-some years. One by one we have now reassembled in Cincinnati and live close to, but not with, each other. So on this last day that we could all claim to be in our sixties, we celebrated with a "Last of the 60s" party.

The Sisters in Their 60s

If you've done the math, or if you are from our era, you know that we all spent some of our youth during the 1960s. Our menu, therefore, was based on '60s food favorites and products that were introduced during the decade. You may be surprised to know how many products were launched in the '60s and are still going strong (as we are, of course!).

Appetizers

Lipton French onion soup and sour cream dip

Ruffles potato chips (1964)

Pringles (Proctor & Gamble, 1969)

Bugles (General Mills, 1964)

Easy Cheese (Nabisco, 1966)

Carrots, celery and radishes (the only fresh vegetables we ate regularly)

Stuffed eggs

Main Course

Tuna casserole with frozen peas (introduced by Green Giant in 1961), Mikesells (local brand) potato chips, and of course, Campbell's cream of mushroom soup

Heart-shaped Jello fruit molded salad on lettuce leaf

Crescent rolls and refrigerator biscuits (Pillsbury, 1959)

Dessert

Apple crumb pie (Pet-Ritz Frozen Pie Crust, 1962) with Granny Smith apples (introduced in the USA in 1960) and topped with Cool Whip (launched by General Foods in 1965)

Beverages

Ocean Spray Cran-Apple Fruit Juice (1965)

Diet Pepsi (1965) and Sprite (1961)

(both in tab-opening aluminum cans, first sold in 1962)

Tang (General Foods, 1964)

Taster's Choice freeze-dried coffee (Nestle, 1966)

Cremora (from Borden in 1963)

I tried very hard to find 3.2 beer, which was the only beer that we would have drunk in the '60s if we drank anything alcoholic at all, which we didn't. Research told me, however, that 3.2 beer disappeared from Ohio in 1982.  Fortunately, one of us had a "leftover" bottle of champagne, and that was enjoyed by all.

This party was  made even more fun by reference to The Food Timeline, http://www.foodtimeline.org/fooddecades.html#60snewproducts.

We appreciate the good cheer and support shared by our husbands and brothers-in-law, Phil Henry and Johannes Bjorner.

The Origin of "Pringles"

I had coffee and conversation with a friend at Panera in Finneytown this week. Finneytown is one of the north-of-Cincinnati residential areas that I have passed through frequently on the bus or in the car as we go into downtown Cincinnati by way of Winton Road.  Though I have thousands of hours of commuting time in all sorts of weather and road conditions under my belt, those days are past, and I am no longer an adventurous driver. Nevertheless I felt perfectly comfortable driving there by myself in the middle of a sunny afternoon, and I arrived early, as I usually do, since I don't really believe that you can get "everywhere" in Cincinnati in about a half hour, and always allow more time. I am wrong more often than I am right--it almost always takes less time than I allow.

We were in my friend's neighborhood, and after we talked, I offered to drive her home. I was watching carefully where I was going, so I could get back again, and after we made a couple turns I noticed the sign for Pringle Drive, though that was not where we were headed. Then she remarked casually that Pringles were named after this road! Oh, that's where the inventor lived? I asked. No, but the product manager at P&G who was working on their potato chip product back in the '60s happened to live in this general area, before the new product with the innovative shape and container was named. He and a colleague or two car-pooled, and as he passed one day he noticed the name of the street and thought it was catchy. Neither he nor any other Pringles associate actually lived on Pringle Drive, but the street is forever enshrined because its name caught his eye and his imagination.

Pringles, which I have seen in numerous countries throughout the world, is one of the hundreds of consumer brands that I recognized as a Procter & Gamble (P&G) product even before I came to Cincinnati. But it turns out that my recognition is outdated. Since I moved here and read The Enquirer I have been aware that P&G is downsizing, selling off tons of its brands. They sold Pringles in 2012 and it is now owned by Kellogg.

The Wikipedia article about Pringles gives a good history of the "potato snack," as it is now called, and speculates--but without this exact story--about its name. I like this one.

Spanish Tapas in Cincinnati

I've been too busy to write about them before, but there were two significant events in June before we left to sell our house in Spain. The first was that we "catered" an afternoon of tapas at our new home here on June 7; the second was that we "catered" an evening of Danish smørrebrød the following week.

Both these events were sponsored by my first sister and brother-in-law as fundraisers for their church fellowship. Both had been planned for months--the seats were auctioned off at the church last October--and the dates had been carefully selected to avoid any foreseen conflicts with the four hosts involved. The first change was that both the sponsor-host and the caterer-hosts moved house between the auction and the event. As the time neared, we all decided that it would be easiest to handle the food preparations and serving at our new home, and that gave us the motivation to get things organized for entertaining after our move, as well as help in doing it! Perhaps not knowing the guests in advance removed some of the tension from first-time entertaining, too.

For the record, here (below) is the menu for the tapas festival, the first event.

Taste of St. John’s

An Afternoon of Tapas

Sunday, June 7, 2015

“Bienvenidos”

Cava

Endibias (endive with tuna filling)

Tortilla Española (Spanish “omelet” with potatoes, spinach, and onion)

Olives

Almonds

Queso manchego (Manchego cheese) and jamón serrano (serrano ham)

At the Table

Cóctel de Gambas (shrimp cocktail)

Barras de pan (Bread)

Albóndigas (Meatballs) en salsa con guisantes (peas)

Patatas alioli (Potatoes with garlic mayonnaise)

Gazpacho

The quintessential Spanish summertime soup

Paella Valenciana

with chicken and chorizo

Sobremesa (Afterwards)

Dulces (sweets) y café

From my point of view it was a good party. I had fun planning a diverse but representative menu, canvassing food stores throughout Cincinnati for the right ingredients, and working with my sister on the project. There were no culinary disasters. The guests said they had a good time, and the conversation flowed. There were enough left-overs to spread around the next day, but not too many. That was a good thing, because by then we were on to Denmark...!

A Danish Dinner

There are plenty of tapas restaurants in Cincinnati--and everywhere else--so the guests at that event had a pretty good idea of what to expect. But Scandinavian food is not as well known, and the Danish open-faced sandwiches called smørrebrød are not available in restaurants here. They are, however, available in our home almost every Saturday evening, so preparing for this event was not difficult at all. The only problem was accepting that some of the wonderful food combinations had to be left out, because, after all, the dinner had to be consumed in one sitting. Below is the menu that I finally settled on.

Taste of St. John’s

June 14, 2015 at 6:00 PM

Smørrebrød

Danish Open-Faced Sandwiches

Snitter

Appetizers

Hardcooked Egg with Herring Bits ~ Paté of Sprat with Cucumber

 “Victor Borge”

The favorite sandwich of the Late, Great Dane

Smoked Salmon, Egg, and Shrimp on White Bread with Dill Mayonnaise & Caviar

“Stjerneskyd”

 A Shooting star, or fireworks

Baked Breaded Tilapia with Remoulade, Shrimp, Caviar, & Tomato on Dark Bread

 “Hans Christian Andersen”

What the Famous Storyteller Ate When He Wasn’t with Company

Mushroom & Chicken Liver Paté on Whole Wheat Bread, with Tomato, Aspic & Horseradish

“Summer Salad”

Egg with “Italian salad”

or

Sliced New Potatoes with Curry Mayonnaise and Fried Onions

Citronfromage

A classic light summer lemon dessert

There was a bit of a cosmetic glitch in this dinner, with the lemon dessert, which is definitely not traditional with the smørrebrød but is traditional in spring and summer, and the weather was perfect for it. It tasted fine, too. Again, the conversation flowed--this time with beer--and inspired.