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.