Life In A Northern Town

♪ Ah-heya ma ma ma, into the night-ahh
Hey ma ma ma, hey-ay-ay-ay, ah ♫

Ahem.  Anyway...

Today was the local town festival celebrating our Scandinavian heritage, complete with lefse, scalloped potatoes, lefse, brats, lefse, tacos (??), lefse, rommegrot, and oh yes, lefse.  Apparently I am a natural at lefse-rolling, so I was recruited to help with this task as a part of the live lefse-making demonstration.  The advantage of this, of course, is that when the demonstration is done for the day, who are still there helping get to eat what's leftover.  And it's amazing. 

(If you don't know what lefse is, think about dough roughly the consistency of sugar cookie dough, only made with potatoes.  Roll it into a ball...mmm...slightly bigger than a golf ball, but nowhere near the size of a tennis ball or baseball.  Now, with a rolling pin, on a very heavily floured surface, roll it out into a circle 14" in diameter.  Then fry it up on a griddle - careful, that thin it goes really fast! - then spread butter on it, sprinkle with sugar, and fold it in half, then half again, then one more time so it ends up being kind of cone-shaped.  Enjoy.)

Now for the rommegrot: you know how there are signs at amusement park rides saying things like, "Pregnant women or people with heart conditions should stay off this ride."?  Yeah, there should be a sign like that at the rommegrot booth: "People being treated for high cholesterol or who have any desire to not die from a heart attack in the next hour should not eat this."  It's basically heavy cream, whole milk, butter, sugar, and enough flour to hold the whole thing together in kind of a warm, soupy, pudding-like consistency.  Spoon it out into a bowl, pour melted butter over it (no, for real), and then cover it in cinnamon sugar.  Lord, have mercy.  It's good, but the experience is sort of ruined by the fact that you have no option but to contemplate your own mortality whilst eating.  I suppose if you live in Scandinavia near the Arctic Circle and need a ridiculously high caloric intake just to stay alive during the winter, then perhaps it serves a purpose. 

Anyhow, there's also, of course, a parade, and an antique car show, and lots of old tractors, and arts and crafts booths and a quilt display, and the whole deal.  It's loads of fun, there are TONS of people that get crammed into this teeny little town, and hardly any of them come to church.

Now then, for the entertainment portion of the evening...



Man, this makes me want to move back to Europe.  I ♥ those cold, rainy days - there's just something so...cozy and protective about them.