I miss my Swedish grandma very much. She was kind and very attentive. The following is something she used to say.
My cookbook, Following Good Food Around the World, with its 180 wonderful recipes, my newest novel, Do Lutheran Hunks Eat Mushrooms, a hilarious apocalyptic thriller, and all my other books, are available on amazon.com.
We are so proud of ourselves. We finally wrote down every last item we wanted, only to forget that piece of paper. Augh!
But we don’t have a word to describe this behavior.
It’s high time to correct this oversight.
TODAY’S AWESOME WORD
loralist
Awesome entry #18
– Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef, Ph.D.
My cookbook, Following Good Food Around the World, with its 180 wonderful recipes, my newest novel, Do Lutheran Hunks Eat Mushrooms, a hilarious apocalyptic thriller, and all my other books, are available on amazon.com.
– Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef, Ph.D.
My cookbook, Following Good Food Around the World, with its 180 wonderful recipes, my newest novel, Do Lutheran Hunks Eat Mushrooms, a hilarious apocalyptic thriller, and all my other books, are available on amazon.com.
Heck no, I wont make this.
INGREDIENTS
Dried cod
Lye
Water
Other stuff
PREPARATION
No! No, a thousand times, no. I will not give you a recipe for lutefisk. You bought my cookbook. I have a warm and fuzzy feeling for you. So, look at the ingredients. Lye is a poison.
Furthermore, lutefisk assaults the senses as no other widespread dish. It looks like glue or broiled phlegm; there is some debate on this. It smells like, like, a rat dried under the furnace supplying central heating. It has the texture of boogers. It tastes like fermented cod-liver oil. Fortunately, lutefisk cannot speak.
When I was little, my mother made me eat lutefisk to show what she had to go through when she was small. My grandmother fed lutefisk to my mother to show what she had to go through when she was little girl. My grandmother’s parents left Sweden in the 1880s to get away from lutefisk.
Vikings raided Europe with unparalleled ferocity stoked by lutefisk meal after lutefisk meal in the homeland. Many thousands of them never came back.
There are more disgusting dishes than lutefisk, but they are little known and regional. Let’s pray they stay that way.
– Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef, Ph.D.
My cookbook, Following Good Food Around the World, with its 180 wonderful recipes, my newest novel, Do Lutheran Hunks Eat Mushrooms, a hilarious apocalyptic thriller, and all my other books, are available on amazon.com.
Be sure to visit Pelkosenniemi, Finland for its annual Mosquito Swatting Championship. It is a much beloved, local event. Contestants try to swat the most mosquitoes in 5 minutes. I don’t know when the event takes place, but I imagine it is in the mosquito season. Visitors who attract mosquitoes like flies, hee hee, will be asked to sit in the back rows as the mosquitoes biting them diminish the number of mosquitoes available to the contestants. The record for squashed mosquitos in Pelkosenniemi is 21.
The Swedish town of Övertorneå holds its own mosquito-swatting championship every June. The event started when the town was denied permission to use chemicals to kill the little, flying biters. So the good Swedes made a festival about killing the pests. Contestants here get 15 minutes to kill mosquitos. The record for this town is 135. Tips for getting a high kill count include: working up a good sweat just before competing, standing as still as possible, moving as little as you can when swatting a mosquito, and wearing dark clothes.
Would-be entrants should know that the Swedish record holder guessed mosquitos bit him about 200 times.
– Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef, Ph.D., travel guru
My cookbook, Following Good Food Around the World, with its 180 wonderful recipes, my newest novel, Do Lutheran Hunks Eat Mushrooms, a hilarious apocalyptic thriller, and all my other books, are available on amazon.com.
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Kiruna, Sweden June 14, 2018 City views of the iron mining town of Kiruna
The top rated dining establishment is the highly loved Stejk Street Food. This established gets a 5.0 out of 5 from TripAdvisor’s food critics. Well done, Stejk Food. You’ll never forget the restaurant itself. It’s inside an warm, authentic Sámi tent. They serve tasty Swedish street food. Their Arctic reindeer and moose subs are fantastic. It’s also vegetarian friendly; try the halloumi (It’s a semi-hard unripened cheese made from sheep’s and goat’s milk.) The staff is friendly and professional. You really should go here.
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Winning the bronze medal is Camp Ripan kitchen. Its terse diners love it’s good Swedish, great ambience, and friendly staff. It’s vegetarian and vegan friendly.
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Be sure to visit Kiruna Kirkya . This large wooden church was built a century ago for the Sámi people. It has been voted to be Sweden’s most beautiful building. And it’s downtown, so you can walk to it. Well, perhaps during a wintry snowstorm
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Then reserve your spot on the Snowmobile Aurora Expedition with dinner. Snowmobiles, dinner, and the Aurora Borealis. What more do you want?
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Go on TreriksrÖset. According to Kiruna’s visitors, it’s a beautiful hiking trail with points of interest.
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Visit LKAB’s Visitor Centre. It’s the world’s largest underground iron-ore mine. The town of Kiruna was built around this mine.
Finally, see the Esrange Space Center. It has a science museum, an observatory, and a planetarium. A family that visited noted they went there. They also recommend that you go there as well. Yeah, tourists in Kiruna really don’t waste many words, do they?
But perhaps the visitors’ words are taken away by the many wonderful things to see in and around town.
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As always, “Good eating. Good traveling.”
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– Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef, Ph.D.
My cookbook, Following Good Food Around the World, with its 180 wonderful recipes, my newest novel, Do Lutheran Hunks Eat Mushrooms, a hilarious apocalyptic thriller, and all my other books, are available on amazon.com.
INGREDIENTS
1¼ cups butter, softened
⅔ cup sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
2 cups flour
½ cup potato starch or corn starch
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
½ cup raspberry jam (or your choice of jam)
SPECIAL UTENSILS
24 paper cookie cups
baking sheet
cooling rack
Makes 24 cookies. Takes 1 hour plus 30 minutes to cool..
PREPARATION
Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Add butter and sugar to 1st large mixing bowl. Mix with electric beater set at medium until soft and well blended. Add baking powder, flour, potato starch. and vanilla to 2nd large mixing bowl. Mix with whisk or fork until well blended.
Gradually add baking powder/flour/potato starch mixture to bowl with butter/sugar. Mix with electric beater set at medium until you get a fluffy dough.. Roll out dough until becomes a 12″-long log. Cut dough log every ½” to get 24 even circles.
Place dough circles into paper cookie cups. Press finger in middle of each dough circle to make a little indentation. Carefully fill each indentation with 1 teaspoon raspberry jam. Place filled paper cups on baking sheet. Bake at 375 degrees for 15 minutes or until the cookies just begin to turn golden brown. (These cookies should remain fairly pale.)
TIDBITS
1) Billions of year ago, the Earth was just seething seas and voluminous volcanoes. Yes, the elements of life existed, but nothing actually came into being, not even the simplest of telemarketers. There was just no animating catalyst.
2) The week after that, microscopic cave cookies appeared. These microscops were themselves inert, but any element of life attaching itself to a cave cookie became alive. Hooray for life! As thecookie micrcoscops naturally enlarged, so did the number of life elements that could attach to it. So, life forms became bigger and bigger. Eventually we would we would have life on Earth as we know it.
Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef, Ph.D., Paul I
My cookbook, Following Good Food Around the World, with its 180 wonderful recipes, my newest novel, Do Lutheran Hunks Eat Mushrooms, a hilarious apocalyptic thriller, and all my other books, are available on amazon.com.
Swedish Dessert
CINNAMON ROLLS
(Kanelbullar)
INGREDIENTS – DOUGH
⅔ cup butter (⅓ cup more later)
1½ cups milk
1 egg (1 egg more later)
2 teaspoons cardamom
¾ teaspoon salt
½ cup sugar (⅓ cup more later)
2½ teaspoons yeast
5 cups bread flour or flour (2 tablespoons more later)
INGREDIENTS – FILLING
2½ tablespoons cinnamon
⅓ cup sugar
¼ cup brown sugar
⅓ cup butter, softened
INGREDIENT – ASSEMBLY
2 tablespoons flour
1 egg
1½ tablespoons water
3 tablespoons pearl sugar*, sparkling sugar, or sugar
* = Pearl sugar is remarkably hard to find in supermarkets. Try Whole FoodsTM, the food department of IKEATM, or the cake decoration sections of JoannTM, Michael’sTM. and other hobby stores. Alternatively, smash sugar cubes with a kitchen mallet.
SPECIAL UTENSILS
bread maker
parchment paper
2 cookie sheets
Makes 16 rolls. Takes 2 hours 45 minutes.
PREPARATION – DOUGH
Add ⅓ cup butter and milk to pan. Cook using low-medium heat until butter melts. Stir often. Add butter/milk and 1 egg to small mixing bowl. Mix with whisk until well blended. Add cardamom, salt, ½ cup sugar, yeast, and 5 cups flour to large mixing bowl. Mix with whisk until well blended. Add butter/milk from small mixing bowl to large mixing bowl. Whisk until well blended.
Add flour/butter/milk/sugar/yeast mix to bread maker. Run bread maker using dough setting for 10 minutes. Add dough to large mixing bowl. Cover and let rise for 1 hour or until doubled in size.
PREPARATION – FILLING
While dough doubles in size, add cinnamon, ⅓ cup sugar, brown sugar, and ⅓ cup softened butter to small mixing bowl. Mix with whisk until well blended.
PREPARATION – ASSEMBLY
Dust flat surface with 2 tablespoons flour. Add dough to center of dusted flat surface. Roll out dough until is a 12″ x 16″ rectangle. Spread filling evenly over rolled-out dough. Tightly roll dough along 16″ side until you get a 12″ long log. Cut log into 16 round discs or rolls. Cover with kitchen towel for 45 minutes or until doubled in size.
While dough rises, add 1 egg and water to cup. Mix with whisk or fork until well blended.
Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Line cookie sheets with parchment paper. Place rolls on parchment paper. Brush rolls with egg/water. Sprinkle pearl sugar on rolls. Bake at 425 degrees for 7 minutes or until golden brown.
TIDBITS
1) October 4 is Cinnamon Bun Day in Sweden. Sweden is a wonderful country.
2) So is Britain. Even during hard times when its RAF was on the ropes fighting the Luftwaffe, which could turn the sky black with its fighter planes.
3) British pilots were superb. But no matter how many dogfights the British aces won, they still lost planes. No one could get around the fact that the RAF was running out of metal to build new Spitfires and Hurricanes.
4) Britain needed a miracle. It occurred when Chef Ollie Erickson of London’s Royal Swedish Bakery mentioned the dual nature of cinnamon rolls to Prime Minister Winston Churchill. “They’re tasty as Heaven when fresh, but absolutely impenetrable when dry.”
5) The boffins at Churchill’s Toy Shop learned how to make Spitfire-shaped cinnamon molds. One only needed to pour cinnamon-roll batter into these molds, remove the molds, and let the shaped dough dry. These cinnamon-roll Spitfire proved to be impervious to the Luftwaffe’s machine-gun and cannon fire. Not only that, bakeries turned out cinnamon-roll fighters by the baker’s dozens. The RAF rapidly established supremacy in the skies and soon won the Battle of Britain.
6) Britain also mass produced thousands of cinnamon-roll tanks. America with its preference of bacon and eggs over cinnamon rolls, had many more steel-rolling mills than bakeries. So, it mass produced tanks and planes the old-school way, with steel. Germany simply could not compete against both dough and steel. Germany lost. The world was once again made safe for breakfast.
Chef Paul
My cookbook, Following Good Food Around the World, with its 180 wonderful recipes, my newest novel, Do Lutheran Hunks Eat Mushrooms, a hilarious apocalyptic thriller, and all my other books, are available on amazon.com.
Swedish Dessert
INGREDIENTS
1 cup (2 sticks) butter*
⅔ cup sugar
3 egg yolks
2½ cups flour
1 tsp almond extract (optional)
SPECIAL UTENSILS
electric beater**
cookie gun, aka cookie press
2 cookie pans
* = This was also made with NucoaTM. It’s hard to imagine how fiercely devoted some people were to this margarine.
** = Grandma didn’t use an electric beater. She used a hand-held one. However, those beaters are mighty hard to find these days.
Makes 80 cookies. Takes 50 minutes.
PREPARATION
Preheat oven to 360 degrees. Add butter to large mixing bowl. Use beater set on high until butter is light and fluffy. Add sugar. Mix with beater until butter and sugar are well blended. Add 1 egg yolk at a time, blending each instance. Gradually add flour, mixing all the time. Add almond extract, if desired, and mix briefly with electric beater.
Grease cookie pan lightly with paper from butter. Choose a disk for the cookie gun. Add dough to cookie gun. (Follow instructions that come with cookie gun.) Use cookie gun to press out dough onto cookie pan. Be creative. Make whatever shape you want. (My grandma favored the letter s.) Bake at 360 degrees for 10 minutes or until cookies start to brown. You might have to cook in batches. Gently remove cookies from cookie pans using fork. Gently, gently, as some cookie shapes crumble easier than others.
TIDBITS
1) Why are there so many towns in the western America named after Sweden? Culinary historians hold it is because of the wondrously sturdy wheels the immigrant Swedes used in their covered wagons. While others used wooden spokes in their wagon wheels, the Swedes made theirs from spritz cookie dough. Egg yolks were much stronger back then, making for more durable spokes than ones made from wood. Indeed, chickens were buffer in the 1800s, being able to bench press a 200-pound man.
– Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef
My cookbook, Following Good Food Around the World, with its 180 wonderful recipes, my newest novel, Do Lutheran Hunks Eat Mushrooms, a hilarious apocalyptic thriller, and all my other books, are available on amazon.com.
Paul De Lancey's Blog 
What I Did While I Was Awake
Swedish meatballs
1) Woke up. I inhaled and exhaled. Repeated.
2) Got out of bed. Dragged a comb across my head.
3) Shuffled off to the kitchen.
4) Made egg nog. Mixed breadcrumbs with milk. Put both in fridge. Go me.
5) Cleaned the kitchen.
6) Spelled kitchen correctly
7) Stopped a range war.
8) Stopped a microwave war. Geez, people, chill out.
9) Wrapped presents.
10) Pondered the imponderable. Still don’t know how I did that. Just lucky, I guess.
11) Watched Number One Son and Number Two Son play video games for a while. Good to have the both of them home.
12) Decided not to write up a Christmas letter. Didn’t know how to explain why my great-great-great grandfather tried to conquer Europe.
12b) Took a nice relaxing bath. Read from my bath book, Mary’s Land.
13) Number One Son made a salad and helped a bit with making Swedish meatballs.
14) Cleaned the kitchen which had gotten messy again.
15) Ate dinner with the natives.
16) Contemplated Kepler’s Law of Planetary Motion.
17) Number One Son made reservations for us for Tuesday at a cat cafe.
18) Wrote this blog.
Behave yourselves.
– Paul De Lancey, The Comic Chef, Ph.D.
My cookbook, Following Good Food Around the World, with its 180 wonderful recipes, my newest novel, Do Lutheran Hunks Eat Mushrooms, a hilarious apocalyptic thriller, and all my other books, are available on amazon.com.
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