One of my mom’s health care providers, Sayonara, thought it would be fun to give me a housewarming party for the new house in Sweden!

She enlisted Mom and Sally’s help and they put together a wonderful party at Mom’s house.

Sy decorated the entry with the Swedish colors.

And the Swedish theme continued with the table settings, of course!

Sally has the perfect blue and yellow dishes for just such an occassion!

And she has table linens to match.

I was able to provide something Swedish for the center of the tables, like fold out Dala horses and…

…these charming little candle holders.

This is our dear, dear friend Peggy.

She sent a bouquet of flowers in the perfect colors!

Luckily, there are enough Scandinavians in the Northwest that it’s easy to find special Swedish foods…

…like this Leksands Knäckebröd, which is produced not far from our house in Sweden!

Mmm. Hard bread!

Sally did a perfect Swedish meal–meatballs, cream sauce, lingonberries, boiled potatoes with dill and Swedish cucumber salad.

Melissa made the trip from Bend, which was very special.

The gifts were beautifully wrapped.  How perfect is this for a Swedish party?

 

There was lots of red and white to reflect the theme of the kitchen in Sweden.

Everyone was sooooo generous.  I’ll have the best stocked kitchen in the neighborhood.

And I’ll be able to entertain with the traditional seven kinds of cookies!

I made traditional Swedish “cooked” coffee to go with dessert.  That’s boiled coffee for the uninitiated.

There’s a bakery in Kirkland that specializes in Princess Cakes!

And Karen Rollman made this adorable (and delicious) Dala horse cake.

Everyone went home with a goodie bag filled with Swedish candies.

It was such a fun afternoon, and so sweet of my friends to honor me in this way.  Thank you, all.

 

A few months ago, I decided it would be fun to have a garden party this summer.  We hadn’t done one in several years.  Then we went to Sweden for three and a half weeks, and when we got home, I had to scramble to get everything ready.  I always say I work best under pressure!  That, and help from family.

We put all the tables together, covered them with white cloths and topped them with vintage tablecloths from the forties.  In honor of our recent trip, we decided on a Swedish theme.

I loved the look of one long table.

Thanks to Melinda…

…and Kristine for the gorgeous flower arrangements.

We set up beverages and hors d’oeuvre under the pergola.

We had three kinds of Swedish cheese, Västerbotten, Präst (priest) and Fontina as well as a selection of hard bread.

We also did Toast Skagen, Västerbotten Cheese Bites and a Pickled Beet appetizer.

I got out my vintage ringed glasses and pitchers for the Lingon Drink.

Sally, super shopper that she is, found these great tubs for the wine, beer, apple and pear drink.

It was f fun mix of people.  There were 66 in all.

And while it wasn’t sunny, it was very pleasant.

Friends from near…

…and far.

We played the Swedish game, Kubb.  You can guess which team won!

We set up the Swedish smorgasbord in our garage.  Note: if you need to clean your garage but can’t get motivated, plan a party where you set the food up in there and you’ll get everything spanking clean!

The Swedish centerpiece.

Of course the featured food was Swedish Meatballs with Cream Sauce.

We also had Little Smokies with Lingon Sauce.

There were boiled potatoes with fresh dill.

Lingonberry Sauce and Pickled Herring.

This cabbage salad is called Pizza Salad in Sweden–as in it’s served in every pizza restaurant.

We also had a cucumber salad.

Mini Swedish flags adorned the Deviled Eggs with Shrimp.

Mom was first to the table!

I think everyone enjoyed their meal.

And we ended it with Strawberry Torte using Berit’s recipe.

Var så god!

Today I hosted my Mentor Study Group.  How fun to get to do it on Valentine’s Day!

I love to entertain, but I’ve been gone and didn’t get a very early start on my preparation.  I was expecting 15, so needed to use both tables.  This is the dining room, with some vintage china my mom bought me a few years ago.

In the living room, we have a drop leaf table that’s only 14″ deep when the leaves are down.  When we need more table space, we move a couple of chairs, pull up the leaves and have a 60″ round table.  Works great!  Another set of vintage china.

I decided I wanted to make something called a Smörgåstårta–literal translation from the Swedish is sandwich cake.  It’s usually done with a whole loaf of bread, then sliced and served, but I decided to do individual ones.

I started by cutting rounds of bread–lot’s of rounds of bread, as these are triple decker sandwiches!  Then I spread some softened cream cheese on them.

That was followed by Swiss cheese.

More bread and cream cheese, very thinly spread.

Then there’s turkey.

Finally, the last piece of bread.  I used a yummy oat bread.

I made a mousse of shrimp, lemon and cream cheese and spread it on the sides and top.

Then I wrapped the whole thing with a thinly sliced cucumber and topped it with a cherry tomato and some sliced radishes.

I may have gotten carried away with slicing radishes, and I think Bob will be eating radishes with every meal for awhile!

Here are the first eight ready to go into the refrigerator.

All plated up.

I served grapes and an asparagus salad with them.

The ladies dug right in, which I always take as a compliment.  There’s my friend, Karen, helping serve.  Thank you, Karen!

I had three no shows.  Argh!  But, we just pulled off a couple of table settings and it all worked out.

We had a great meeting, then a little dessert.  Last night I baked a double batch of Chocolate Decadence in a sheet pan, then this morning I cut out hearts.

I borrowed these adorable heart shaped dishes and mugs from my sister.

A little raspberry puree and whipped cream along with the Chocolate Decadence was a perfect finish to a fun day.

I hope your Valentine’s Day was fun, too.