Julbord i Clintondale or Honey is there a zebra in the closet?

We try to mix the best of both worlds (Swedish and American) around Christmas. We open presents on Christmas day morning according to American traditions (in Sweden we do it Christmas eve) but the food is Swedish ALL THE WAY. Julbord means Christmas buffet and here are a few highlights. Missing are things like 7 different kinds of herring and julmust (christmas soda) but you take what you have. 

Gravlax - Cured Salmon

My dad is the gravlax master, it's consistently the consistency of BUTTER, so following that tradition I decided to go ahead and cure my own this christmas. Just mix 2 table spoons of salt with a little less sugar and 1 table spoon crushed white pepper. Rub it all over the meat side of the salmon, leaving the skin on. Cover with fresh cut dill. Cut the filet in half and place the meat sides together. Wrap in a foil packet and stick it in the fridge for about 30 hours, longer is better. My sister says people are doing it with pine tree branches these days and I 'm ready to experiment. We serve the salmon with Hovmästarsås:

9 tablespoons of light olive oil

3 tablespoons of white vinegar

2-3 tablespoons of sharp mustard

3/4 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon fresh ground pepper

1/4 sugar

fresh cut dill

Serve with lemon

Jansson's Frestelse - Jansson's Temptation

Slice potatoes in sticks and layer in a pan with chopped onions, sliced butter, minced anchovy filets (I ended up using about 5 small filets) and salt and pepper. Put in the oven at 450 degress for about 45 minutes. Cover if needed.

There have to be meatballs and prince sausages on the julbord, doesn't matter if they are dad's old trusties or from a bag from IKEA.

James' deviled eggs. 

And yes - food has EVERYTHING to do with it. Christmas that is. And then cartoons - lots of cartoons.

Our water issue turned out to be of a slightly different nature than we thought. In our state of denial we didn't see the big area by the cottage that was completely without snow. And also the fact that there was a small river flowing next to the cottage. All collecting in the puddle behind the house which we thought was directly from the leak. Scott figured it out and brought his digger. James and Scott then dug up the water line that feeds the cottage from the main house.

The pipe had not busted due to freezing, the pipes are buried well below the freezing line. Instead someone had done a crappy job of connecting 2 pipes a long time ago and it was that joint that finally gave out. A quick patch job and the cottage had water again. Scott says everything underneath the cottage should be well protected from the cold. Some insulation on a few pipes and good as new. He also pointed out a few ways for us to save a buck this winter... We are now hard at work weather proofing doors and windows. Foam edges on doors and plastic wrap over the basement windows for instance. And of course the little oxygen tent for Furnace Von Frankenstein. We want to turn into energy and money saving fools!!! 

And here is the next step:

En ny kaminman är född. A wood junkie is born. This is a 5th of a cord and should last us a good while but James already wants more... We are very interested in putting an insert into our fireplace to actually make it generate heat. Right now it's just for that special romantic atmosphere but if you want to use it for warmth you pretty much have to sit inside of it.


Other house plans during this vacation is to finish painting the living room to get ready for a floor sand and a couch. I made myself a little desk in the bay window and I think that's where I will spend most of my days finishing 3 screenplays and watching Hulu... James is hard at work in the upstairs bedroom which has become his temporary studio, figuring out new software and playing music. And then we take breaks and watch lots and lots of awesome movies. It's all very very very good.


James gave me little planters for christmas, and me - normally such a patient person, just ask my mom and dad... CAN'T WAIT for my herbs to grow. I have no idea what shade of green my thumb is so here we go, we'll soon find out.

And yes honey, there is a zebra in the closet.

So one last time - until next year - Merry Fishmas and a guppy new year.

Random Signs of Christmas

I found this beautiful drum at a vintage store in New Paltz and bought it for Rosemary but she let me keep it...

Ornaments from when James was a kid, a present from Rosemary.

Continuing the disco christmas tradition with discoball ornaments!

The wreath is from James' sister Susan in California. In Sweden we put christmas tree branches on the stoop to clean off your feet on. The outer door has new storm windows - a present from Rosemary, something we would never have gotten to - thank you thank you thank you!

One of the most important ingredients of christmas GlöGG! This one is from IKEA...

James' sister Donna sent this tree from California and Rosemary brought us Panettone (Italian christmas bread)

Little Santas who are falling over backwards. Memories of pyssel och knåp, arts and crafts galore... They are from Sweden along with the table cloth which I grew up with.

We even gift wrapped the furnace.

 Our present to the furnace is this little room made of plastic so that he can be more efficient and cost us less in oil. It also helps to further the illusion that a serial killer lives in our basement. Merry ax-mas.

Merry Christmas - God Jul!

Christmas Trees and Plumbing Lessons

It was going to be a short weekend, we knew that, so all the more reason to get to relaxing FAST! GO GO GO – RELAX! James had spent the better part of the week outside, first in pouring rain then in bonechillin cold. I was inside most of the week but caught up on his misery on Friday night in Long Island City where I spent 6 hours shooting an exterior with the wind howlin around my ears. 

So so cold on 30Rock. You just accept it and keep watching the clock. By 3 am it was wrap time and Keanu gave us a bottle of vodka to warm up and thank us for the first 2 weeks.

So we got up to Clintondale Saturday morning. James had some errands to run so I took a little dozer. He got stuck in crazy holiday traffic and I got stuck with a text from Chris the tenant. 

Before I go any further I would like to introduce you to our water system. When James and I moved in the previous owner took us through the process a little bit and we said “sure sure we get it…”

We so do not get it.

The water comes from the well and goes in to the blue tank which is the pressure tank. Then it mixes with the water from the little white tank in the back which is 35 gallons of water mixed with 3 gallons of bleach. It then passes through the yellowish tank which is the filter and THEN it goes through the little stubby white tank which is the water softener. The tall one behind it also belongs to the softening system. We often question if we need all this crap. Especially the softening system, since it takes a good half hour to wash soap off your hands. But we need a person in the know to tell us that and that seems like a down the line thing. SOOO…when we first moved in we filled the tank that holds the bleach solution and have since then been watching it like hawks. Has it gone down yet? I don’t think so? How is that possible? Nothing yet? Nope, still the same.

We show up on Saturday morning and the water pressure seems a bit low. Hmmm,  that causes a trip to the basement where we find said tank EMPTY. We get in the car and go to Loews to buy bleach not really thinking WHY it is suddenly empty.

Welcome to the world of being a homeowner.

Back to the text message… Chris seems to think a pipe has burst, his toilet won’t refill and his water pressure is way down…

Welcome to the world of being a landlord…

I call a plumber, he is going to charge us $105/hour to come out on an emergency call, oh, and plus 50 as a trip charge. We decide to hold off, thanking Chris for his patience.

We spend the evening coming up with GREAT theories why this is happening and why the pump on the chlorine tank won’t stop. Finally James gets out of bed to turn it off.

We wake up to no water.

It’s time to call Scott. It all makes sense, the pipe that is feeding water to the cottage toilet has busted because of the cold and now the pump is going going going trying to fill it but all it is doing is causing a big puddle in the yard. I guess we just didn’t want to believe it.

James has decided to stay the week at the house and deal with the problem. I on the other hand am going to Buffalo. I just didn’t think it was cold enough in New York City… My movie is flying us up there to shoot on location for 4 days and there is just no preparing for how brutally frigid it is going to be. But by this weekend I am Clintondale bound for 2 1/2 weeks. Best present ever!

I am 35 years old and I’ve never had my own Christmas tree. I guess I never had a good place to put it and I never used to spend the holidays in the States. So this one – we are going ALL OUT! 

We got the tree and I got the xmas made EZ by IKEA kit. No really they just had nice cheap ornaments and for the Casey-Slaters that’ll do just fine… 

My new hobby is figuring out new uses for the bailer (the not machine that puts the tree in the net) it's just so clever.

Bagged and done. 

James  is liking Christmas more and more cause today he got to break out the power tools to get our tree to fit in the tree holder. After that he used the Mora kniv, a knife he got as a present from Gizmo, to wittle the top to fit the Christmas star. He is also just now realizing why every dad on his childhood block dreaded the time of christmas trees. They are hard to get in the house and they are hard to put in the holder.

All kinds of class in one picture. Disco Christmas star from the 99 cent store. Peeling wall paper. Insulating foam in the window. One sweet-ass drop ceiling.

Fat and lovely and ready for ornaments. Next weekend it’s glögg and julpynt and Elvis’ holiday album while fighting about where and how the lights should go on the tree. Bringing back lovely childhood memories.

Really? 

 Oh I'm sorry Mr. Squirrel, are we out of nuts?

Hello Birdie: Thursday-Saturday

Thursday morning...Up with the rooster. Actually the rooster overslept and tried to make up for it by crowing like 25 times. YEA ALRIGHT WE CAN HEAR YOU.


So the corn bread is in the oven. I exchanged sugar for honey this time. 





Now I'm going to make the rub for the turkey and then he comes out of the bucket and again this is me entering enemy territories. I'm feeling like a special ops who's going rogue. 


TURKEY RUB


Put right in the blender: 


4 teaspoons chopped fresh rosemary
4 teaspoons thyme
4 teaspoons minced onion
4 teaspoons minced garlic
1/4 white wine
worcestershire sauce
2 teaspoons coarse kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
1/4 cup olive oil

I chilled it in the fridge until I was ready to go with a clean turkey and the stuffing. The turkey comes out of the brine and gets cleaned off. Use a lick-the-pot and a wooden spoon to get the rub under the skin. I  dumped the left over in the cavities, cause I have no idea how it's really done. Rosemary's trick is to soak a cheesecloth in melted butter and cover the bird.


ITALIAN SAUSAGE STUFFING

4 1/2 cups cubed white bread

1 lb Italian sausage meat

1 chopped onion

3/4 cup chopped celery 

2 tsp. dried sage leaves

1 tsp. dried rosemary leaves, minced or crumbled

1/2 tsp. dried thyme leaves

1 Granny Smith apple, cored and grated

1 cup dried cranberries

1/3 cup minced fresh parsley

3/4 cup turkey or chicken stock

1/4 cup melted butter

Toast the bread in the oven.
Fry the sausage, onion and celery. Add the sage, thyme and rosemary.
Put bread cubes and sausage mixture in a bowl and toss. Mix in grated apple, cranberries and parsley. Drizzle over melted butter and stock. 

The bird was in the oven for about 3 1/2 hours. After 1 hour there was not a single drip of liquid in the pan so I guess the brine really worked for sealing the pores. I dumped a whole bunch of turkey broth over the bird so there would be something to make gravy with in the end. I re-buttered the cheesecloth once and then left the cooking alone for the rest of the time. I did cover up the bird with tin foil to keep from burning around 2 1/2 hours. That was my only mistake, covering it a little too early, it could have used a little more color. But check it out, poking the drumstick you could tell how all the juices got sealed in there, there was a big bubble under the skin. Awesome, Operation Hello Birdie is complete.

The friends showed up at 12.30 and after the tour they jumped right into helping out in the kitchen. 

Lovisa helped with the gravy.

Elena made veggie sausage stuffing casserole and rum pecan yams.

Randy and James made mashed potatoes.

Craig helped by taking pictures and making room in the fridge by drinking beers.

We turned the living room into the dining room.

I decided to kick start christmas a little bit, very locally though on the mantle only. That's a Swedish advent candelabra. We put them in every window around christmas. And there is a little Lucia with candles in her hair. 

Dinner time in the living room with a man sized fire going. Randy, Lovisa, James, Craig and Elena. Coze factor 10.

After dinner we played Balderdash (Rappakalja)  and Craig has to get an honorable mention for his phony definition of the word GLABRESCENT. Which actually means "hairy when young, hairless when old". But Craig wrote "joyful upon the discovery of mushrooms". We also learned that in a town in Romania upon discovering a corpse, the police has two ask "are you dead?" three times. 

Then there was pie and more games and more wine.

Thanksgiving ended somewhere in the neighborhood of 2 am and it was a very successful one.

Friday-Saturday was French toast, mimosas, bloody marys and Working Girl. Visits by lovely neighbors, glögg and gingersnaps. Left over lunch and some sightseeing. Streets of Fire/naps. 

It's getting harder and harder to go back to the city. The christmas countdown has started. T minus 3 weeks. 

Things are going forward with the windows. Five more since last weekend. 

These are old news (living room) but I haven't shown them from the outside.

This is the south side and the window on the bottom left is new and the two top ones are these:

The lovely morning sun makes this room even greener. YIKES!

This is the east side of the green room.

And this is inside.


The bay window in the bedroom is next and there is a little more work to be done there than we thought. The foundation is slipping a little and Scott is going to have to jack it up to fit the windows in.