Ale and Maple Butter Redux

Favorite foods at Midsommarsdag on Upper St Croix Lake in NW Wisconsin included some Tina Nordstrom( of the PBS cooking series) recipes, one for gravlax, which included concentrated elderberry juice as well as the usual salt, pepper, sugar, and plenty of dill with a 2 - 4 hr marinating time which is much shorter than the usual 24 - 48 hr cure. It is like Swedish sushi. Tina's recipes are available online - google her.

Strawberry cake was another if you like your sweets. A layered cake w/ custard and cumulus clouds of whipped cream, and strawberries, of course. Wonnerful, wonnerful as Ed Sullivan( remember?) would say.

Tina's Swedish meatballs were plain Jane w/ nary a spice - we watched a few videos of her series - but hostess and cousin Beth used the Ingebritsons( sp) meatball mixture, which includes allspice. Browned in butter is traditional and that may account for the satisfyingly richness of the famous round ones. I am going to check out Beatrice Ojakangas' recipe. Texture is most important in a meatball of any type. Beth's were dead on.

Maple butter by a Duluth area maple syrup maker friend of Beth's was exceptional on pancakes doubled up w/ pure maple syrup. Maple butter is an in between stage just after maple honey and before maple sugar. If you could ever buy it, it would be very expensive but worth it. I have never seen it in a store. Thank God for friends, huh.

Nils Oscar craft ales from Sweden are everything an ale should be - deep, rich, nutty, balanced, clean (and expensive) at $4.85 a bottle( found in Mpls in Burnsville?), but worth it for once a year. Lake Superior Ale is in the same league and is affordable, but not widely available outside of the Duluth area.Perfect ale, really.