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Posts tagged ‘Denmark’

Apr 2

24 Comments

Party All The Time

Thanks to everyone who came out to the blog party yesterday. You don’t know how much you picked up my spirits, and it came at just the right time. I needed the distraction. Thank you.

Some pictures from the shin-dig.

Some of the brod.

Me and Eugene. (imabug on the blog)

Cooooooooooookies by Alison Dailey.

Pernille, our actual Danish person in attendance, and me.

Kenneth Andrews……….which one is he?

Lou holding court, with Miss TK and Amanda.

Me and Leigh Anne. I’ve known her since kindergarten.

Eugene and Kenneth explain MTM’s flow chart diagram of a smorrebrod.

So, we made smorrebrod with pretzels. So what?

Me and Lou. And a Mermaid.

Danish toothpick flags.

Best things about a smorrebrod party:

  1. I bought chips, and since I can’t eat much bread, I ate as many chips as I wanted.
  2. Lunch meat is a novelty for me. I know. I know. I acted like Anthony Hopkins in The Silence of the Lambs when I saw it.
  3. An entire plate of bacon. Cheryl, did I really eat the whole plate by myself?
  4. The pronunciation of ‘smorrebrod’ contest, judged by Pernille, who’s Danish. Her friend Julia (Swedish) won, followed by Amanda, who’s English. We Americans just can’t say anything right.
  5. The laughs and the hugs. I needed every one of them. Thank you all.

Mar 31

37 Comments

Reminder – Burning Down the House Party

 

Burning Down the House Blog Party Reminder. April Fool’s Day. Sunday, April 1. It isn’t my birthday, or even my birthday month, but who cares? One last throw down at 11 Marion Street before we vacate to less student-occupied pastures.

The food will be smorrebrod, open-faced Danish sandwiches. You can bring a condiment, a meat, a cheese, a fish, a veg, a fruit. Heck, we can probably even make smorrebrod with potato chips and dip piled on a slice of white. Please list what you will bring in the comments to avoid duplication. We will supply various breads and drinks, as well as cute toothpicks with Danish flags attached to the tops.

When: Sunday, April 1, 2012
What: Burning Down the House Smorrebrod Party
Time: 11:30am – 3pm
Where: 11 Marion Street 29403

Please RSVP in a comment, along with what food item you will bring. If anyone would like to attend virtually, we can arrange a Google hangout. Indicate your interest in a comment, and we will coordinate from there.

Here’s what we’ve got coming so far:

Miss TK and Lou Mello: Danish Havarti cheese
Cheryl and Bill Smithem: Bacon
Katy and James Moffitt: Carrot Cake or similar dessert
Eugene Mah: Prosciutto from Ted’s
Nancy and Carnell: He said he was bringing something cilantro. I will be wearing my chain of garlic, Carnell.
Judy Burnstein: Smoked salmon with capers and mustard
Krista Moyer and Kenneth Andrews: Spreadable things

Several other people told me they are coming, but I don’t know what they’re bringing. We have sodas, Coronas, water, breads, chips and some cheeses already on hand. Oh, and peanut butter and jelly.

Kate, if you and the family are still up for hanging out on Google+, we will have it up and ready at around noon our time (EST.) If anyone else reads this and wants to jump into the hangout, just look me up on Google+, install a little bit of software, and show up. We’d love to see you!

Mar 23

27 Comments

Something Is Rotten in the State of Denmark

One of the coolest things about Rotary is the opportunity to meet and mingle with people from other countries. Last night, we hosted a Danish Youth Exchange Student, and I hope we did not frighten her to death.

Pernille has been studying at Wando, one of our local high schools, since August. She’s visited New York City, Atlanta and Disney World while she’s been in America. Before she leaves in July, she will take a cruise to the Bahamas and will visit the Grand Canyon.

Oh, and she will be at the smorrebrod party at our house on April 1. If you have not RVSp’d, please click this link to do so. (Even though she had NO IDEA what we were talking about when we pronounced smorrebrod. We had to describe it for her to understand how much we were butchering the Danish language.)

Rotary offers high school students the opportunity to spend a year in other countries, living with host families, attending school, and studying the language and culture of another place. Rotary 7770 Eastern South Carolina is currently hosting students from Argentina, Brazil, China, France, Belgium, Sweden, Denmark, Taiwan, Germany and several others. For every student we accept, we send a student from South Carolina to another country to attend school, live in local homes, learn the languages and study the cultures on offer.

If you have Rotary where you are, and you know a student age 14 – 18, look into Youth Exchange. It is an extraordinary opportunity for a young person to make new friends, learn another language, and have experiences that will follow them for life.

It’s rotten that I didn’t know about it when I was sixteen…………

Mar 18

57 Comments

Burning Down the House Party

Our Internet is down, so Sunday’s post is a tap-tap-tap on my iPhone. Please excuse anything that does not measure up to my usual standard.

Smorrebrod is a Danish culinary concoction, an open-faced sandwich served on a sliver of brown bread. Other countries have their variants (Italy = bruschetta; Spain = pinxtos), but the Danes claim the one slice wonder as a matter of national identity. They pile their single slices with everything from sliced boiled egg to pickled herring, from Nutella to hot mustard, odd combinations that somehow wed when the magic wand of smorrebrod is waved over the mess on the plate. It is my birthday month, with my birthday falling on Saturday the 24. I have to be in Hilton Head that weekend, drinking from a fire hose of Rotary kool-aid, and nobody there will throw me a birthday party.

No delectable smorrebrod will be on the menu…..

So.

MTM and I have decided to have one on April Fool’s Day. Sunday, April 1. It isn’t my birthday, or even my birthday month, but who cares? One last throw down at 11 Marion Street before we vacate to less student-occupied pastures.

The food will be smorrebrod, open-faced Danish sandwiches. You can bring a condiment, a meat, a cheese, a fish, a veg, a fruit. Heck, we can probably even make smorrebrod with potato chips and dip piled on a slice of white. Please list what you will bring in the comments to avoid duplication. We will supply various breads and drinks, as well as cute toothpicks with Danish flags attached to the tops.

When: Sunday, April 1, 2012
What: Burning Down the House Smorrebrod Party
Time: 11:30am – 3pm
Where: 11 Marion Street 29403

Please RSVP in a comment, along with what food item you will bring. If anyone would like to attend virtually, we can arrange a Google hangout. Indicate your interest in a comment, and we will coordinate from there.

 

Nov 23

20 Comments

Like a Pig in a Blanket

Few items of clothing make me happier than my winter coat, one of the things that makes it perverse that I live where I do. Maybe five times a year, I can get out my heavy black wool coat and wear it around my home town with pride, with a couple of those instances causing me to sweat buckets. I will insist upon wearing it even when it’s too hot, until I am reminded, yet again, why it is stupid to walk around in my own personal sauna.

I bought this coat several years ago. I was wandering around on a random side street in a foreign city at dusk, and I looked to my left and saw my coat in the window. I. Stopped. Dead. An invisible mind control beam captured me in its clutches and propelled me – helpless – into the establishment. I was deaf to any of MTM’s objections, if he had them.

The kind ladies helped me into my size, and I squealed. It was the most exquisitely perfect coat ever created. Without even peering at the price tag, I wanted to just hand the lady my purse and tell her to charge whatever she had to so that I could walk out with it there and then.

And, let me clarify, I’m not rich, or even well off. I buy everything on sale, when I buy anything. I’m telling you, mind control beam. Had to be.

The astute lady must’ve glimpsed MTM’s harried face, because she smiled and said the coat would be on sale the next day. If I returned between 1 and 6pm, I could have it for a quarter off the price. IF it was still there when we came back.

I don’t think I slept that night, obsessing about the possibility of my coat going home with some other owner. Normally lazy in the morning, I was up and ready to go to breakfast in plenty of time to walk back over there and buy my coat. Nothing and no one was going to stop me.

Every time I see it hanging in the closet or have the opportunity to wear it, something I will do lots in the coming days, I remember that grey, chilly afternoon. A leisurely walk in the rain on cobbled streets. The celebratory coffee and pastry afterward in a window seat overlooking a square full of bicycles in all the colors of the rainbow.

I’m thankful that I sometimes helplessly fall victim to mind control beams, especially when they keep me warm and stylish at the same time.

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