Well, time flies and we’re already past the winter solstice. We hope you will have a wonderful holiday season with your families, and that the new year will be a very prosperous one.
Merry Christmas!
Fog
November is here and has been unusually warm so far. Today we have dense fog and around zero degrees, a perfect day to stay indoors if you ask Adam… This time last year, we had the first snow, which did not melt until April. But hopes are still up for the proverbial white Christmas.
Life in the Misty Mountains (?)
This week, Adam has had a new hang-up: he IS “Lightning McQueen” (of Pixar fame), daddy is “Mack” and mum is either “Sally” or “Mater”. Hugo was initially “Mr The King”, but after lots of negotiation, he was let go from this fantasy and can remain Hugo… three year olds… ;-)
September sailing
I had the distinct pleasure to sail on a legendary yacht last weekend. The SK150 Beatrice Aurore is a 22 m yacht from 1919 that is extremely well kept and in great condition.
Beatrice Aurore
The weekend offered splendid weather and just the right amount of wind, which made for great sailing at the tail end of the summer. The temperature was in the low twenties, and very few clouds. Thanks to our chef Kalle, we had a culinary experience to match the scenery.
A perfect way to spend a Friday afternoon
Wormwood
One of our favorite aquavit spices is wormwood, which makes for a rather bitter taste perfect for fatty dishes like pickled herring. The resulting aquavit is called ‘bäsk’ (literary ‘ bitter’ in Swedish).
In the garden, we have some wormwood that we user to spice the aquavit with, but last years batch was not successful at all. This year, a slightly different recipe was used, and we’ll soon know if it was better or not. The first bottle will be tested this weekend…
Of course, we have labels for the bäsk!
Harvest time
As you may have noticed in pictures and such, we have a hedge of chokeberry by the road.
Good enough to eat!
The name is slightly misleading, as the berries are edible. Now, being descended from vikings, I decided to use them to spice some aquavit instead…
So after picking a liter or so of berries, I put them in jars together with aquavit where they will stay for about a month. That will result in an essence that can be used to blend more bottles of ‘nubbe’ later on. If all works as expected, we’ll have homegrown aquavit for the Christmas lunch.
Not quite whiskey in these jars...
And now, onto the wormwood!