Help needed with "All things Swedish" day

[Globules]

We're off to Abba Voyage next month. We cannot wait.

We're going on the Sunday, so have decided to make a weekend of it by making Saturday an "all things Swedish" day.

My first thoughts are IKEA meatballs, gravalax, lots of Swedish house Mafia and roxette on the playlist.

I'm stuck there! What would you include as part of the day?

TIA

Make a mental note to smile a lot and be really easy going. Wear wool with style. Take joy in small outside activities. Don't be British about anything!!
Talk a lot about the cost of alcohol , but also don't rely on it so much. Complain about snow whilst also wanting to ski.
Cinnamon on everything- get a strong candle .
For this one day get everything exactly correct and not like the rest or europe.
If a man- wear a baby- everywhere.

Pretend it’s Thursday and have pea soup followed by pancakes and punch.

Strong agree from DH. Specifically yellow split pea soup.

Go for a sauna and then jump into a freezing lake?

Thanks for the reminder - I had to purchase ice fishing equipment for a Friluftsdag (fresh air day) once as well

The picnic was also a requirement at pre-school when they had "forest mornings" where they learned important things, such as what to do if chased by a bear. (As it turned out not entirely stupid)

With mustard and caraway seeds and sliced sausage!

Watch ether of my favourite film (both directed by Lukas Moodysson): Together or We Are The Best!

Ask your DH if he's even eaten pasta and ketchup? I've heard a lot of Swedes talk about it.

@Globules you need Swedish gravy for the meat balls! I make mine with a cartoon of single cream, and beef gravy mixed together. Lingonberry jam should also go with them, but I often use cranberry.

Oh yes the creamy gravy - a must with meatballs. Although mushroom (especially Chanterelle) sauce is good too.

I love "raw stirred" Lingonberry jam where you mix frozen lingonberries with sugar and let them defrost in the sugar, stiring every now and again.

I think you’re supposed to have a red wooden horse on a windowsill somewhere.

Does everything you eat on a Thursday have to start with a P then? 🤣

Bacon, chicken, bananas and peanut curry @Lunde ? Really? Really really??? Now there's a combination of flavours 🤮

Off now to look for frozen ice lakes in Herts @CheeseWisely and to browse the yellow pages for an instructor for a bear survival course.

See, I was going to suggest Dime bars but now I'm a bit embarrassed to do so. Voyage is amazing, totally amazing. Not a lot of choice of food at the venue though, hot dogs or burgers when we went, plenty of champagne though

You could always eat Plopp to go with your Thursday food?

@VenusClapTrap a Dala Horse

Yes to the pea soup and pancakes and lingonberry jam, and the really big round crispbreads

You could always learn the midsummer song about frogs

And candles everywhere

Recipe for the chicken, bacon, peanut and banana "Flying Jacob"
https://www.lembitloungecuisine.com/2021/05/04/swedish-flying-jacob-casserole/

The bear thing I thought was a joke on the part of the preschool but one was spotted around 500m from my house. My neighbour's cat was also killed by a Lynx.

Love a good Plopp bar ...

Could also get some Dubbelkräpp toilet paper 😀

This is very true. Although they come in many colours as different towns and villages have their own colours (and not all will fit on your widowsill)

The horses are regional now so it depends on how specific you want your immersion to be!

I really enjoyed @BruceAndNosh suggestions 😂

@Lunde is spot on of course for a very good alternative. Porridge is important but I have been told that sandwiches for breakfast is exotic in a country that thinks sandwiches are lunch food. Fun fact: in Girl With The Dragon Tatoo Daniel Craig and Rooney Mara munch on cheese sandwiches for breakfast, as I described, but some absolutely eejit has but the cucumber UNDER the cheese. This is not Swedish. OVER the cheese. It makes less sense logistically but is more aesthetic.

@Notthatcatagain Dime bars is a very good suggestion. Genuinely popular. They made a liquorice version a few years ago that I practically snorted down.

I’ve never had Flygande Jakob, but then I grew up with a foreign parent so was spared. Have never tried it since because my foreign born husband won’t entertain the idea.

Where I live they’ve knuckled down on the fact that school is free so schools have to provide equipment and picnic foods. But when I was young and v poor with kids this was not the case and looking for second hand skates was a part time job I swear.

And yes, a zip merge is surely the best way to handle two tills - one queue two tills. Ffs. These bloody people.

I came on to say crispbreads.

I stayed with a couple of Swedish families in the 80s on an exchange. Sooo many crispbreads.

Also (and I can't believe nobody has said this) you must take a sauna during the day!

Part Swedish family so license to bring the tone down - they are currently selling dime bar mini eggs!

Eat them while cheerfully repressing all traumatic memories / overly emotional events in way that makes classic british stiff upper lip look like rank amateurism. Greet suggestions that traumatic life events might have been… well, traumatic? with benign perplexed air before cheerfully ploughing on.

Genuinely have a place for everything and everything in its place and punish messy transgressors by helpful, logical but very lengthy explanations on how transgression is not efficient or correct.*

• this could just be my family?

@Lunde No pasta and ketchup. But he does eat tinned mackerel in tomato sauce on toast as often as he can (which isn't often these days, as I have to be out of the house, he has to eat it standing over the sink and then immediately do the dishes and take the bins out 🤮🤮).

I don't know if that's a Swedish thing or a DH thing though specifically.

@banivani I also found the concept of (cold) sandwiches for breakfast very odd to start with, although I couldn't explain why since obviously hot sandwiches are fine and legitimate breakfast food. I'm slowly coming round to it. I can manage an open sandwich now. A closed sandwich is still too 'lunch' for me.

Don't forget to pay double the tax at the weekend that you normally would.

And don't buy any alcohol from the supermarket. You must find a liquor store and purchase from there, but only from 3:30pm -4 pm. Or pop over to Denmark.

Watch Solsidan

Oooh, I'm already a little bit Swedish then @CheeseWisely I love tinned mackerel in tomato sauce on toast. I even add in raw onion for that extra stink!