Foraging for Nuts, Fruits, Grains and Berries in the Mid-Winter

 
As long nights and short days set in we realized that it was time to celebrate the turning point of mid-winter—Lucia Day.  It wasn’t exactly the right day or mid-winter, but we needed to make do with holiday schedules.

Invitations went out to about thirty people a few weeks ago, and we ended up with twenty-one showing up.  Cheri had the last three days of the week off so she was able to spend time cleaning, decorating and cooking to get ready for the party.

We set out a buffet with Swedish food as the theme.  There was sillsalad (herring salad made with apples, beets and walnuts), roasted pepper cheesecake, Swedish cheese, and Swedish kottbullar (meatballs) for appetizers.  Then it was on to spiral cut ham, smoked salmon, (with a mustard-dill sauce), more meatballs (this time with a beef-sour cream gravy), cucumber salad, potatoes stewed in cream, Janssons Temptation (potatoes, Swedish anchovies, onions and cream), Holiday Fruit Soup, and glazed carrots.  All of the appetizers and buffet were accompanied by berry liquids (grapes in particular), glogg and punch. 

Card tables were set up in the large Keeping Room and one of the Front Rooms—the Scotch Room—so guests wouldn’t have to try eating out of their laps.

Guests ate and visited for a few hours enjoying the food and the company.

Then it was some clean up before moving on to Snow Pudding with custard sauce, along with pepparkarkor and candy-cane cookies for some dessert. It snowed a bit during the party and overnight so we woke up to  a wintery setting and the winter sun glowing through snow and ice covered branches.

Of course a Swedish theme would not be complete without some aquavit.  A couple of days earlier I set the bottle in a container with some holly, berries, baby’s breath and boxwood and then filled with water and set in the freezer.  The result is in the picture to the left. For those of you in warmer climates—and there are several of you—here is how nice the dusting of snow looks on the trees and in the front yard.  It was a cool crisp morning and a sign of what is coming when the days begin to lengthen again. ‘Tis winter now; the fallen snow Has left the heavens all coldly clear; Through leafless boughs the sharp winds blow, And all the earth lies dead and drear.                               - S. Longfellow