semiswede

Äggakaka is a dish I would normally associate with breakfast or brunch, but it’s considered lunch or even dinner fare in Sweden. 

Your eyes are not deceiving you. Those are indeed some very rosy beef patties. Why? Because they’re mixed with chopped pickled beets. Not a beet lover? Perhaps it doesn’t matter. My kids have detested beets before now and they gobbled this up.

Imported from the U.S. where it originated in 1910, Father’s Day came to Scandinavian countries in 1931. It brings a bit more life to the darkness of fall and is celebrated on the second Sunday in November. It’s also a chance to boost sales before the Christmas rush begins.

Alla helgons dag in Sweden is a solemn day of remembrance when lighted candles are placed in cemeteries to remember friends and loved ones who have passed away. In my search for information about the day I found many online sources that referred to it as Sweden’s Halloween. From my perspective it is anything but.

What is Halloween like in Sweden? It was basically imported from the U.S. and started to catch on during the 1990s.

On my first trip to Sweden in 1998 I fell in love with prinsesstårta (PRIN-sess-TOHR-tuh). The spongy layers of cake alternating with jam, vanilla custard and whipped cream topped with a thin layer of bright green marzipan had me hooked from the first bite. But it wasn’t until recently that I really started to wonder about […]

For anyone following this blog, you are well aware that this summer in Sweden has been cold, wet, and well, pretty depressing. But a couple of weeks ago there was a beautiful, sunny day that even fit into the category of being hot. And fortunately for us it happened to be the day that we […]

In case you haven’t heard, crawfish are a big deal in Sweden, but only in August. There is a long-standing tradition of cracking open these bright red crustaceans at parties where paper crawfish decorations, goofy party hats, and smiling moons decorate festive outdoor parties. Masses of crawfish and aquavit (snaps) are consumed between the first Wednesday in August and the […]

Due to the near-death experience of my laptop, this post is much later than I had anticipated. But thanks to my husband it has been resurrected and I have access to the images just in time to post about Midsummer today. So…..in a country with long, dark winters, the summer solstice on June 21st is […]

It’s the height of the short Swedish strawberry season and the berries are out en masse. When the Lönnslätts Bär strawberry pods are plopped down around my city I know summer is officially here despite the fact it might only be 55°F (13°C) and raining. I love passing by my neighborhood pod where if the wind […]