Ben Svensson's Blog: My time now - Posts Tagged "thanksgiving"

Thanksgiving is almost here and, once again, the Swede is in charge of handling the potato regiment of the Thanksgiving meal battlefield. Pealing, carving, cutting, slicing, dicing and mashing the fabulous spuds will be my treasured responsibility. I am, of course, a grandchild of one of the most famous local potato kings in my home area of Blekinge, Sweden. I spent a lot of hours in my childhood working the family potato fields. Our entire family would come together and we would plant, pull weeds, irrigate, harvest, and sort the potatoes. My fondest memories though are from when we would take a much deserved break from our labor and my parents, sister, uncles, aunties, and cousins would all sit down for a few minutes and enjoy some coffee, sandwiches and cinnamon buns. Ahh…sweet childhood memories.

Perhaps my wife understands that with all my accumulated experience with the potatoes that I am, without a doubt, the best person to handle the tubers for our feast. Or could it be that I am not trusted with star of the Thanksgiving meal, the golden succulent turkey? Whatever the reason, I will faithfully deliver potatoes au gratin and homemade mashed potatoes to our thanksgiving table again this year. Another thing on our thanksgiving table will be lingonberry jam - which, if you ask me and my kids is a must to go with the mashed potatoes. For you poor souls out there that do not know what lingonberry jam is… well, you could say it is the smaller, rounder and sweeter cousin of cranberry jam. If you ask me, it is absolutely the better of the two jams. Any well stocked IKEA store should have them if you are interested in trying them. But I have to warn you, your thanksgiving table might never be the same once you try lingonberries…cranberry jam just won’t cut it anymore.

For those of you that have been waiting impatiently for news about the outcome of the Svensson’s Thanksgiving table extravaganza…your wait is over, here it is. It was a magical night, one that will be remembered for many years to come. We did have some problems early in the day with some misbehaving spuds that had to be ejected from the theater due to unusual growths and bruising, but other than that the potato dishes delivered a rock solid performance. Both of the potato dishes came out on stage right on cue –looked great and were piping hot. The mash was sensational and the creamy au gratin outdid itself with its thin-sliced potatoes and not just two cheese layers but… ((gasp))…three layers of suave sharp cheddar. They were followed by a surprise performance of a devilish gang of deviled eggs that had some of our guests standing up and applauding da capo. But what is a good performance without some drama? The drama queen of the night was none other than the star of the show… the king of the table himself - the majestic Turkey Pavarotti. Pavarotti took his time in his well-heated dressing room before the performance began. The chef reported that he was stuffed with goodies and showered with spices and rare herbs from the moment he arrived at the kitchen dressing room. It didn’t seem to placate him though as he only asked for more time and just gave us a cold wing every time we checked in to see if he was ready to make an appearance. To keep our guests entertained we asked the flaky biscuits to delight them with their melted butter and sweet honey number. Just as they disappeared from sight, Pavarotti was finally ready to take his place on the table stage. He came out piping hot, his skin was an amazing golden brown and he did a fantastic well-rehearsed number together with all the other actors on the table. What a performance! It was truly a night to remember!
I just want to say “thank you” to all my family members for a memorable night. I love you all!