Posted on Leave a comment

How Grateful? Very

More than 100 books were mailed last month for my customer-appreciation offer.

People who are overcome with gratitude will often say something like, “I am so thankful. I cannot express just how grateful I am.” And it’s true; gratitude cannot be quantified or magnified by adding words, in many cases. Don’t get me started on how a heartfelt “Thank you” cannot be topped by the gushing cliche of the times: “Thank you so much!” “So much” adds nothing and subtracts a bit of sincerity, IMHO. So please, leave off the “so much”, thank you.

But I digress. Last month I wanted to express just how grateful I was to my customers who allow this lefse train to keep on rolling. So free books were offered to anyone who emailed me. I did this last year and sent out a dozen or so free books, so I thought I’d do it again. I sent out the March enewsletter that included the free books offer.

I casually checked my email the night I sent out the offer, and there were scads of responses, like around 50. Yikes! I started adding up the shipping cost. Hmmm… . I have never done this before with my newsletter, but the next day my better-business self sent a follow-up “What was I thinking?” newsletter that said the free book offer would end at the end of the day.

So, after two days of checking emails and shaking my head—in gratitude—and then two more days of my grandson Zo and me stuffing envelopes, 105 books were lugged to the post office. I left my boxes overnight so that I not overwhelm the postal clerks.

When I returned the next morning to pay, I started to think that maybe you can quantify gratitude. I mean, shipping 105 books has to mean a ton of gratitude to my customers, even shipping at media rate, right? And certainly wasn’t I showing deep gratitude to my Canadian customers, since it is indeed a high price to pay for shipping anything to our northern neighbors?

After paying and as I folded up the 10-foot long receipt that listed all the tracking numbers, I reflected on what had happened. At the end of the day, I was glad for making the offer. I really was. I was grateful that there was so much interest in lefse and lutefisk books in this slow off season, and that people were expressing their gratitude for a chance to receive the books that I was glad to ship out. It was one grand gratitude fest, people thanking each other for thanking each other. I was especially gratified that most requests were for the book I have a special place in my heart for, my lefse novel, Final Rounds: On Love, Loss, Life, and Lefse. Very cool!

So I end with the only thing I can say, simply, to my customers in Lefse Land.

Thanks.

Posted on Leave a comment

Lefse Limerick Contest

Best lefse limerick writer wins this walnut-maple lefse turning stick.

At considerable risk, I run the first ever Lefse Limerick Contest throughout the rest of the month of April.

Let’s get right to the risk. Wikipedia defines a limerick as “a form of verse, usually humorous and frequently rude,” in five-lines. The first, second, and fifth lines rhyme, and the third and fourth lines, which are shorter, have a different rhyme.

The form originated in England in the 18th century and became popular in the 19th century. Wikipedia says, “Gershon Legman, who compiled the largest and most scholarly anthology, held that the true limerick as a folk form is always obscene … . From a folkloric point of view, the form is essentially transgressive; violation of taboo is part of its function.”

Wikipedia cites the following example is a limerick of unknown origin:

The limerick packs laughs anatomical
Into space that is quite economical.
But the good ones I’ve seen
So seldom are clean
And the clean ones so seldom are comical.

A Clean Lefse Limerick

So you see the risk of running a Lefse Limerick Contest. To be true to form, a lefse limerick, it appears, should be “obscene” and “frequently rude” and a “violation of taboo.” Oh, dear!

Well, following the exact form of a limerick will never do in here Lefse Land. We have our fun with lefse and certainly lutefisk, but we are never rude or obscene. No, no, no!

And yet, it is possible to dance along the borders of the true limerick to create an entertaining lefse limerick. Check this out:

There once was a Norsky named Niles
He endured a rough month with the piles
He ate lefse — was cured!
So please rest assured
On those who love lefse, God smiles.

There, that wasn’t so bad! I dance along the border of the true limerick with mention of “piles” in the second line, but I never cross the line. You must admit, the limerick could have gone decidedly south after that. But it didn’t, and we end up with smiles.

Ok, your turn. Write a lefse limerick—including lefse is a must—and enter the contest. Keep it clean, remember! Check out this site on how to write a limerick.

Send your lefse limerick or limericks to glegwold@lutefisk.com before the first of May. The winner of the Lefse Limerick Contest wins the above Best Handle Ever Lefse Stick-Walnut Handle.

Second place winner gets Keep On Rollin’: A Lefse Song for Voice and Piano

Second place winner gets the score for this song, still at the top of this month’s Best Lefse Song list.

Third place gets the ultimate in comfort when on your feet rolling lefse: Burlix Graduated Compression Socks—Black.

Third place winner gets graduated compression socks that help you keep on rolling when you’re standing a long time yet on a roll making lefse.

Again, send your lefse limericks to glegwold@lutefisk.com before May 1, 2021. Good luck!

Posted on Leave a comment

Making Coffeehouse Lefse

I’ve started making lefse for Sparrow Cafe, a coffeehouse in Minneapolis. Sparrow serves lefse the traditional way, with butter and cinnamon sugar, and then gets creative with this: Nutella and bananas on lefse.

When the pandemic hit, Sparrow Cafe went down. This coffeehouse had thrived at the corner of 50th and South Penn Avenue in south Minneapolis. I liked that they were nearby and weren’t a chain. They were locally owned by Jasper and Sheila Rajendren, who knew, I would think, that they had to be better than the chains in order to to be as good. And they were.

Sure, I like Starbucks and Caribou and Dunn Bros as much as the next coffee lover, but I like to support fellow hard working, do-all-jobs small business owners when I can. By the huge windows at Sparrow, I wrote sections of my last two books, Keep On Rolling! Life on the Lefse Trail and Learning to Get a Round and Final Rounds: On Love, Loss, Life, and Lefse. What kept me coming back was a rich, chewy gluten-free brownie muffin, espresso, and rooibos tea. The brownie muffin was served on colorful non-paper plates (probably earthenware), the expresso with a small, charming non-paper cup and a tiny spoon, and the tea steeped in a small glass pot that filled with a non-paper cup twice.

Sparrow went that extra mile to satisfy customers, but it still wasn’t enough to prevent closing last spring. The neighborhood mourned, but then we all delighted when Sparrow re-opened in a limited fashion for carry-out customers late last fall.

Sheila and Jasper Rajendren, owners of Sparrow Cafe, a bright and cozy coffeehouse in south Minneapolis.

Shortly after the re-opening, I approached Jasper and Sheila about providing lefse they could sell, thus setting Sparrow apart from other coffeehouses. I don’t know of a Minneapolis coffeehouse, and only one St. Paul coffeehouse, that sells lefse. I said I would provide the lefse free and deliver it every Saturday morning at 7:30. It was my small way of helping small businesses that have been hammered by the shutdown. They said sure, why not? Nothing to lose.

The deal meant making lefse dough on Friday evenings and getting up around 5 a.m. to make 15 rounds of fresh lefse. When I felt sorry for myself for having to get up so early on a normally sleep-in Saturday, I remembered that Jasper and Sheila get up at 2:30 a.m. every day but one to open the store by 7 a.m.

I’ve been making lefse for Sparrow Cafe since December, and now that customers have taken to lefse — not much doubt about that — Sparrow pays me. I’ve made lefse in a lot of places and in front of a lot of people, but making lefse to sell to customers who may not know about our favorite food is exciting. I press myself to make my best lefse, and it gives me a chance to do my weekly lefse-making meditation in the still, wee hours of the morn.

And then there is the joy and satisfaction of a job well done and of being a successful lefse ambassador. Of carrying a steamed-up bag of pretty dang good lefse into a warm Sparrow Cafe, ordering a cup of dark roast to go, and hearing about how customers are taking to the traditional lefse with butter and cinnamon sugar. But hand it to Sparrow for getting creative. They’ve rolled out lefse with cream cheese and lingonberry jam, which I have heard of but not tried, as well as lefse with Nutella and bananas, which is new to me. I’m going to try that, and I hope you do as well.

Posted on Leave a comment

Need Lefse Inspiration? See Monica

Monica Olsson hit the lefse floor running, learning to make lefse and then freeing her creative juices by creating lefse wraps.

Every once in a while I get a note or an email reminding me why I write books and teach lefse making. This email came late last Saturday evening from Monica Olsson, who gave permission to let you enjoy it. It reads:

Thank you so much for writing your book, Keep On Rolling!

I bought it on a whim at a Scandinavian store near where I live. My dad’s family is Swedish and my mom’s Norwegian, but I didn’t grow up eating lefse, and certainly not making it. I have enjoyed eating it occasionally, but never thought about making it myself. Then I read your book, and grew fascinated. I tried to make a small batch of the one-hour lefse without any of the equipment — no potato ricer, no fabric-covered board, etc. It did not turn out very well. (I think the main fault was that I didn’t cook/mash the potatoes properly. Now that I have a little more experience, I think I would do better.)

My boyfriend’s mom is Norwegian, and she bought me ALL the lefse-making supplies for Christmas! So I tried again. I’ve made it five times so far, and just tried your recipe (from the Keep On Rolling book). It was my first time making lefse from real potatoes instead of flakes. They turned out SO well, and I am so happy about it!! My boyfriend and I spent the day making lefse and just ate dinner: folded lefse wraps with cream cheese, smoked salmon, capers, red onions, and arugula (see photo above). Delicious.

Thank you again for your book! Without it, I doubt I ever would have gotten so excited about lefse-making, and I am so happy I can do it now!

Monica Olsson
Think Monica Olsson loves making lefse?

I have to praise the mom of Monica’s boyfriend, who bought all the lefse equipment. What support!! And then what impressed me about Monica’s newfound passion for lefse making is she is young and therefore going to be a lefse ambassador for decades to come, presumably. She cares enough to keep trying to make good lefse after making lefse that was not so good. Reminds me of my lefse beginnings. And then she’s pleased when she makes a round round, making her a lefse maker after my own heart.

Many lefse makers, including me, have a quest of rolling a round round that’s thin. I like that Monica has that drive.

The other thing that makes my day is she is creative with lefse and willing to have fun with this Norwegian flatbread. She could have stopped with rolling a round round and serving it with butter and sugar. Nope, she got wrapped up making creative wraps using ingredients like those below.

So what kind of lefse wrap shall me make? That was the question and here are some of Monica’s answers: salmon, tomatoes, onions, peppers, arugula, and egg.

As I said, I read Monica’s email late Saturday evening. So, inspired by Monica, I had the best time making this Sunday morning lefse wrap made of a spread of sour cream (I didn’t have cream cheese), capers, arugula, red onions, and salmon with lemon juice, dill, salt, and pepper. Served with grapefruit juice and black coffee … bring on the day!

Grapefruit juice, coffee, and a lefse wrap of salmon, capers, arugula, sour cream, and red onions. Oh, yeah!

It’s my turn to express gratitude. Thanks, Monica, for infusing energy and creativity into Lefse Land. Keep on rolling!

Posted on Leave a comment

A Wonderful Walnut Christmas Story

Oh to be a walnut tree

Give food and shade for years

And when I’d go, I’d surely know

My wood would still bring cheers

Gary Legwold
The walnut tree that stood for decades on the farm of Diane Tott near Roland, Iowa.

When a derecho roared through central Iowa last summer, folks scrambled for shelter and for a definition of a term they had not heard. This windstorm was monstrous and menacing, like nothing they had seen, and they were reminded of the true meaning of the word awesome.

A walnut tree on Diane Tott’s farm near Roland, Iowa, went down in the storm. It was part of the family, a calming constant on this land that is a few years shy of being a centennial farm (in one family for 100 years).

Diane contacted me in late August to see if I could help her pull off an ambitious project: to have five lefse rolling pins made from the wood of this walnut tree. Diane wanted to give the rolling pins as Christmas gifts.

I sell Heirloom Lefse Rolling Pins, so this was a project of interest to me. There were many challenges, such as cutting the tree into manageable logs and then getting the wood to Minnesota, where my master woodturning friends would create the five lefse rolling pins.

Beautiful walnut logs from the Iowa farm of Diane Tott.

Diane arranged for the tree to come down and the trunk be sawed into 20-inch lengths. Bob Tott, Diane’s husband, loaded four of these sawed logs into his pickup and drove them to my house in Minneapolis. The plan was I would put the logs into my Prius and drive them to a kiln in Hastings, Minnesota, where the logs would be sawed into 4-in. x 4-in. lengths and then vacuum kiln dried. These 4x4x20 blanks, once dried, would be used to make the barrel and the handles of the lefse rolling pins.

I had underestimated the size and weight of the walnut logs, which turned out to be way too big for my Prius.

Bob arrived at my house, and my jaw dropped when I saw the size of the four logs. If he were to have rolled them off the truck bed onto the ground, they probably would sink all the way to the center of the earth they were so heavy. No way I could fit them into my Prius, even if I could lift them. So after some head scratching, Bob volunteered to take the logs to the kiln in Hastings.

Fast forward a month, and I had 71 dried walnut 4x4x20 blanks in my Prius and was driving home. Bob Puetz had agreed to make the five rolling pins on his lathe, and he came to my house to pick up 11 blanks. He wanted extra in case there were any surprises inside the blanks. That’s part of attraction with woodturning, that the beauty of the wood is hidden—or not there at all—and only reveals itself once you start turning and slowly removing wood.

Uh-oh. The drying in the kiln produced cracks in the walnut blanks, meaning the project was in jeopardy.

Bob started working on the blanks immediately, but stopped soon after he began. Talk about surprises! The kiln drying had produced cracks that ran the full length of the pieces he had worked with, which meant he could not use these pieces to make the barrel of the turning pins. He tried piece after piece, and decided to use the five blanks that had the fewest number of cracks.

Right around Thanksgiving, Bob had managed to pull off the creation of five beautiful walnut rolling pins that, according to Diane wishes, had crosshatching, not just grooves going one way around the barrel. I met Bob at a Menards parking lot and would have wholeheartedly shaken his hand—maybe even hugged him—had not the pandemic interfered.

Bob Puetz pulled a few rabbits out of the hat to turn on his lathe these five walnut rolling pins for Diane Tott.

The first week of December, I met Diane at Love’s Travel Stop along I35 near Albert Lea, Minnesota. Turns out we had met a few years ago when I spoke at the Sons of Norway meeting in Story City, Iowa. I had wrapped the pins, and there was no small amount of anticipation as she unwrapped each of the five pins. As she did, I explained the drama with the drying of the wood, and gave her some of the bad blanks that Bob rejected. She was thrilled with the result, and I was relieved. She had her very special Christmas presents for some very special lefse makers in her life.

Diane Tott was overburdened with walnut lefse rolling pins and overjoyed with what will be five very special gifts this Christmas.

Coming full circle, I asked more about the walnut tree and what it had meant to her, her lefse tradition, and her Christmas celebrations through the years. So I leave you with Diane’s reflections:

Growing up on the farm near Roland, I remember this tree and a second tree placed near a very busy part of the farm, which was owned and operated by my dad and his brother. Our families lived on the farm and spent many hours playing near these trees, which held a tire swing and a bag swing. Later, I remember routinely harvesting the walnuts. We used an antique corn sheller to remove the husks, washed the walnuts, and let them dry. During cold, winter nights, my dad often sat and shelled the walnuts, which my mom would later use in her baking. Mom and Dad’s grandchildren and great grandchildren have helped with harvesting. Granddaughter Janel (my daughter) did a purple-ribbon Iowa State Fair 4-H project detailing the harvesting process. During that project, we learned we could flood the husked walnuts with water, keep the nuts that sank, and then discard the “floaters.”

I would also note that my side of the family has Norwegian and Dutch heritage. Lefse has been a big part of our family Christmas traditions. We make “hard” lefse [no potatoes]. Our lefse is traditionally served with cod, riced potatoes, just the right amount of salt and pepper, and a hard boiled egg and butter mixture. We roll them into a beta and hold it in two hands when eating. (It just doesn’t taste right if you have to eat it with a fork. Ha!). My husband, Bob, is responsible for having added salsa to the beta “recipe,” and there are now several family members who use salsa as well. We all remember my grandmother’s wide eyes the first time she saw Bob bring a jar of salsa to the Christmas table, but she became accepting of this crazy new twist. Our Christmas meal is often topped off with a lefse with butter and sugar. 

Diane Tott

Posted on Leave a comment

5 Tips for Making “Perfect” Lefse

Stuck lefse? Save it with sawing.

Now is the time for all good lefse makers to come to the aid of their culture. It is the pre-Christmas crunch time when demands for lefse—and unmerciful expectations of excellence—are high. Time to step up your lefse game and get on a roll!

So, I will give five tips for making “perfect” lefse. Specifically, I’m talking about making round rounds, as opposed to rounds that look like amoebas. Tip to geography teachers: Use lefse making to help kids learn the states of the US and the continents of the world. It is common for lefse makers to roll rounds that look like Texas, Ohio, Australia, and Africa.

I make a point to discuss the quest of making perfect lefse in my lefse class (only five more Zoom classes before Christmas). I even sing a song to this poem I wrote for in The Last Word on Lefse: Heartwarming Stories—and Recipes Too!

“ISS CALLED LEFSE FOR A PURPOSE”

O Lord it iss hard to make lefse

Dat iss perfect in every vay.

To roll dem so round and so tin

Ha, ha, ha, ho, ho—dat vill be da day!

To know lefse, ya sure, iss to love it

No matter how tick, tough, or dead

And if lefse vas s’pose to be yust right

Ve’d call lefse “yust rigthse” instead.

My point to perfectionists such as myself is to ease up. Yes, go for lefse ecstasy of the round round, but if you don’t get to the promised land, oh well. Keep on rolling.

Given that, if you enjoy the quest for a round round as I do, here are five tips:

  1. 1. Use King Arthur’s Flour. Or use a high-quality, high-protein flour for making dough and for rolling. It makes for a velvety soft dough, and the edges of the round are much less jagged than when using a cheaper flour. When your edges aren’t jagged, your chances of round rounds go way up.
Can switching to King Arthur Flour make much of a difference with lefse?
  1. 2. Start round, stay round. I spend a lot of time making lefse dough patties that are round and that also do not have cracks at the edges. A little crack in the patty gets to be a big crack in the round. So start with a round round and then take your time to keep it that way as you roll, especially as the round rolls out to be 6 to 8 inches in diameter. That’s the critical time. If the round stays round in these early inches, you have a good shot for a round round when you finish rolling.
  2. 3. Light on the pin. Do not be a banger or a squisher. Gently place the pin on the patty and let the pin do the work without any help from you. You start squishing that poor round, and suddenly a part of the patty squirts out of whack and you can’t get it back. Easy does it, and rotate the pin often to keep your round round.
  3. 4. Saw your round free (see opening image). Once you get a round round, you are not home free. You have to get it to the grill without incident. That incident is often sticking. You get drawn into the rapture of rolling a perfect round, and you fail to detect that sticky spot that will become a tear—bringing on tearing and gnashing of teeth. It’s always a good idea to run your turning stick under the finished round and “saw” your way through any sticky spots before lifting the round to the grill.
  4. 5. Use a pizza cutter.
Chuck Ihlen from Pipestone, Minnesota, demonstrates a winning way to get lefse perfectly round.

When all else fails, do what Chuck Ihlen from Pipestone, Minnesota, does to get a round round. He places a grease splatter screen on his finished round and uses a pizza cutter to trim away whatever dough is not in the round area under the screen. And if you turn up your nose at this, consider that Chuck did this in full view of the public and still won the National Lefse Cookoff, which is part of the Potato Days in Barnsville, Minnesota.

Maybe the best tip for making perfect lefse came from Bonnie Jacobs of Jacobs Lefse Bakeri and Gifts in Osakis, Minnesota. I interviewed her for Keep On Rolling: Life on the Lefse Trail and Learning to Get a Round, and she said this: “Here’s my best advice on trying to make perfectly round lefse: Do it more than once a year.”

Posted on Leave a comment

Make Lefse w/o Lefse Making Equipment?

Karen Torjesen (top center) used my lefse class to organize a holiday family lefse fest. She’s in Minnesota, while others are in North Carolina, New York, Maryland and even Singapore and Afghanistan! There was not much of the standard lefse-making equipment but a lot of moxie and make-do in using what was in house to make lefse.

So what do you do when you desperately want to make lefse but are desperate for lefse making-equipment?

Well, you learn from Karen Torjesen and a dozen others in her extended family. I know I learned a lot, and I was teaching a lefse class that served as a holiday family lefse fest for this spirited group. Three things I picked up from the class:

  1. Find time for family. A pandemic was not going to stop this family from getting together and having a good time making lefse. Zoom and Karen’s talent for herding cats from all over the world took care of that. Karen was in Kenyon, Minnesota, but most of the family was in North Carolina. Jenny Wright was in the Maryland, and John Ambrose was in New York. And then our far-flung lefse makers were Erik Torjesen in Singapore and Enrique Torjesen in Afghanistan.
  2. You can make lefse without lefse-making equipment. I have had people drop out of my Zoom lefse class because they didn’t have a lefse grill or turning stick or ricer. Not this group. No one whined about being without; they just made do and plunged into making lefse. Kristine Torjesen, perhaps knowing how I sing praises for my Blue Pastry Board Cover, slipped a black t-shirt over a cutting board and used that to roll her rounds without sticking. Erik said he once used a bottle for rolling lefse because he didn’t have a rolling pin. Skillets were also used as a substitute for a lefse grill, and spatulas for a turning stick. Jenny Wright used a panini press as a grill. And Jill and Catherine Wright ingeniously found a way of preventing sticking as well as lifting the rolled-out lefse round to the grill: They rolled the dough patty between two pieces of parchment paper and then carried the finished round to the grill using the bottom piece of parchment paper. Getting the round on the grill involved simply turning the parchment paper over and slapping the round on the grill. Brilliant!
  3. “It’s all in the wrist.” Karen’s husband, Hakon, reminded us all of the importance of the presence of the patriarch at these lefse fests. Judging by how Karen mumbled and rolled her eyes, this line—“It’s all in the wrist.”—was one Hakon used as a motto encapsulating the beliefs or ideals guiding the family through the trials of many decades. So lefse-making families, follow this example and come up with a motto!

Thanks Karen and family for reminding us what lefse-making is all about. Keep on rolling!

Posted on Leave a comment

4 Essentials for Making Lotsa Lefse

These are the times that try lefse makers’ souls … and feet and grills and countertops.

Thanksgiving and Christmas are when we make the most lefse. Many families and groups of friends do lefse fests, laughing and making memories as well as stacks and stacks of fresh lefse. There’ll be fewer lefse fests this year with the pandemic, but lefse makers will find a way to safely make lefse for the holidays. To help make the experience as joyful as possible, here are four essentials for the times when we make lotsa lefse.

These probe controls for the lefse grill can burn out with long use.
  1. Have a replacement probe control for your lefse grill. The manual on your grill says change out the probe control every 90 minutes of making lefse. Long use does not harm the grill but can burn out the plastic parts of the probe control and ruin your lefse fun.
Protect your countertop with something—such as this Royal Welcome Counter Protector—under your hot grill that keeps the heat away from your work surface.

2. Protect your counter from the intense heat of the grill. I have had two students in my lefse classes tell sad tales of their hot lefse grill cracking their granite countertop. Not good. Put something under your grill to keep the heat away— wood, a pizza tin, a cookie sheet, something. I offer a variety of colorful Lefse Grill Counter Protectors as well as a beautiful batch of Cozy-Counter Protection Combo products.

The Blue Pastry Board Cover helps avoid your lefse rounds from sticking.

3. Use the Blue Pastry Board Cover to help prevent sticking. The blue cover may seem like a cosmetic thing—blue adds color to lefse’s white world—but it’s much more. You can see potential sticking spots on the blue cover earlier than on a white cover because the blue will be darker where there’s less flour on the cover. It’s harder to see that with white flour on a white cover. So use the blue and keep on rolling as long as your heart desires.

Keep your feet and legs happy wearing graduated compression socks. Ah, yes!

4. Keep your feet happy. After making lefse for hours and hours, my dogs are barking and my calves are calling! I have always used shoes with good arch support, but this year I’ve started to wear Burlix Graduated Compression Socks. They are wonderful, and I’m not going back to plain old socks for lefse making. I also wear them when I do a lot of standing in the shop. And during the winter, they add a bit of warmth, which is always good.

Posted on Leave a comment

Lefse Unites … But Aquavit Lefse?

Just a wee bit of aquavit added to lefse dough?? Yikes! However …

I have made speeches all over the Midwest, in red states and blue. But no matter the location or the leanings of the audience, the unifying power of lefse took over. Respect, cordiality, and a lefse kinda of love were in the air. Let’s remember that as we move forward after the election.

After all elections, it seems, most of us are weary of politics—whether we win or lose. Especially this year. So it’s a relief to get back to rolling lefse and connecting to the fun of this grand old tradition. Elections come and go. Lefse lasts.

So for fun, I decided to try—against the wishes of every lefse lover I know—making lefse with aquavit. Just a small batch. See what happens. Who knows, maybe it’ll be good. Or not…

I refer to my blog called “One-Potato Lefse—40 Minutes”. The idea is sometimes you want lefse but don’t want a big production. With this quick-and-easy lefse, it’s a perfect time to try new techniques or ingredients. I’ve tried lefse with sour cream, and it was excellent. Why not lefse with aquavit? Hey, if it’s good, it makes for great conversation in a long winter. If it’s bad, I can work on the rest of the bottle of aquavit as consolation.

Gee, aquavit lefse looks like lefse …

The question, of course, is: How much aquavit do I add to the dough? As a guide, I thought of vanilla, which is about 35% alcohol. A little bit goes a long way. My one-potato lefse makes for about 1 cup of lefse dough, which includes 2-3 tablespoons butter, 1/8 teaspoon salt, 1 teaspoon powdered sugar, 1/8 cup cream, and ½ cup flour, extra for rolling pin and rolling surface.

With a nervous hand, I added 1/2 teaspoon of aquavit. I have three different aquavits, but went with my favorite specialty brand (the white frosted bottle in above photo) made in a bathtub by an acquaintance in Texas (another story). I mixed the dough, added flour, and within 10 minutes rolled three beautiful rounds, if I say so myself.

So how did the aquavit lefse turn out? In a word, wonderful! Frankly, I wish I would have added slightly more aquavit to enhance the subtle sweet, woody, slightly caramel and anise taste that really popped with added butter. The aquavit should not be so obvious that someone would exclaim, “Who added aquavit to this lefse?” But it should be enough to make the taster pause in appreciation and ask, “What’s in your lefse recipe? This is unique!”

Give it a try with aquavit or whatever ingredient you have a hunch about. Be bold but be subtle.

The verdict on aquavit lefse? Wonderful. I celebrate my experiment’s success with a splash of aquavit.

Posted on Leave a comment

A Moment to Remember Mary

Mary (Marit) Nyre’s story as a 12-year-immigrant girl is that of a novel.

When I sent the first edition of The Lefse & Lutefisk News to 66 recipients three years ago, I had the conviction that there is a strong community of lefse and lutefisk lovers out there eager to hear all the news that’s fit to print about their favorite food and their favorite love/hate food. Well, the community is indeed strong. There has been a ten-fold increase in the audience, mostly word of mouth, and I am rewarded with funny yarns, lovely notes, and heartwarming stories. Everyone, it seems, has a lefse tale — and a lutefisk joke — to tell.

For example, lefse maker Barbara (she didn’t want her last name used) wrote a nice thank you note after receiving my books Keep On Rolling! Life on the Lefse Trail and Learning to Get a Round as well as my novel Final Rounds: On Love, Loss, Life, and Lefse. I wrote back, and the exchange led to this heartbreaking story about her grandmother Marit Nyre, who went by Mary. The story is well known in the family and is as follows:

Mary was from the hills and mountains of Norway, the story begins. Her father left for America, and Mary, her mother, and three siblings remained in Norway. The plan was for the father to cross the ocean, build a home, and send for the family. Weeks became months, and months became years. Then around 1880, the message came. Mary’s mother packed up the family so they all could be together again in America. They severed connections to relatives and friends and to Norway.

They boarded the sailing ship to America. Mary was 12 at the time, the oldest of the children. The ship was over-loaded, and the North Sea rough. Marit’s mother became sick and died. She was buried in Liverpool, England.

It was up to Marit, who could not speak English, to make the crossing with her three siblings. Her only possessions were a few bundles, a trunk, and a ticket to New York City.

Marit and the children made it to New York and indeed were re-united with her father. She went on to live in North Dakota and is buried in Carpio, ND. But this part of the crossing story ends with the following, which was published in Marit’s obituary: “The hardest part of the whole trip was when her father asked where Mary’s mother was when they reached New York!”