Advent, glögg and then some

[Guest guest]

Thanksgiving is not a holiday in Sweden, but this past weekend was the first of Advent, marking the beginning of Christmas season, and usually celebrated by (apart from the candle lighting, of course) decorating the house for Christmas (although, not decorating, or taking in, the tree, that comes later), and by starting the indulgence in Christmas candy, and Christmas cookies, and Christmas beverages. And, in many families, by going to church. Sweden is not a very "churchy" country, a vast majority of the Swedes are members of the lutheran Church of Sweden, but will typically go to church only for weddings, baptisms, confirmations and funerals. And for the first Sunday of Advent. We were planning to do a "full" first of Advent, with glögg (a mulled wine traditionally served warm, and traditionally associated with Christmas), cookies, spicy nuts and fruits (not very traditional, but a favorite Advent snack of ours, and it does combine some traditional Christmas ingredients in a new way, it's almonds and cashew nuts roasted with butter, garam massala and salt, and then mixed with dried apricots), special Advent meal, etc, etc. Unfortunately I came down with the flu Saturday, and was not feeling too energetic either..., so it had to be turned into a "light version".We skipped the baking of cookies (had store bought cookies instead), and the nuts and fruits, and also didn't do the Christmas gift wrapping we had been planning to do. But we did decoration (not much, but we never do, our Christmas decoration is always the "light" or "moderate kind). And we did have a nice and Advent-ish dinner, with meat and onions cooked in glögg, served with boiled potatoes and parsley butter (don't know how its sounds, but it was delicious, we tried it for the first time, have never used glögg in cooking before). The beverage was of course Christmas beer. For desert a white chocolate cream (melted white choclate mixed with Crème fraiche), flavored with saffron (a Christmas spice in Swedish cuisine), and served with fresh berries.And then, of course, coffee, glögg and cookies (two kinds of ginger bread). Part of our own tradition is to try new versions of glögg, and we did that this year too. One coffee version (wich was this years "special" from one of Sweden's biggest glögg makers). That was a bit of a disappointment actually, they usually do very well with their yearly specials. It didn't taste bad, it did taste of coffee (and a good coffee), and it did have a touch of spice. But it did not taste like glögg at all. The other one, was the one we expected to be the truly bizarre one, a raspberry and liquorice flavored one. But it turned out, that the only thing really bizarre about it was how very glögg-y it was. The first taste impression was just raspberry and liquorice, but the aftertaste was definitely glögg. Truly strange, but truly tasty (and glögg-y)!All in all, a good Advent weekend. love/Reb