Sweden screws with yet another holiday tradition

Easter Weekend was a four-day affair here in Vikingland since both Good Friday and Easter Monday are official holidays. Dr. Darling had it even better because Maundy Thursday is a holiday in Denmark, begging the question, "At what point does a long holiday weekend become just a week of vacation?"

We are usually invited up to my in-laws for some portion of the Easter break, but the holiday kind of snuck up on everyone. And given that we'd just spent the previous weekend in Edinburgh, neither one of us was really game for a roadtrip. Besides that, the weather forecast was crap, and I had accepted a freelance job proof-reading a doctoral thesis, so we were pretty much resigned to spending the time off holed up in The Penthouse-Nordic.

But as is typical for me, it wasn't going to feel like a holiday unless there were a lot of people around. So I cajoled Dr. Darling into hosting some friends for Easter Dinner, which...in a nod to the Swedish habit of celebrating all holidays on the eve of their actual date, was scheduled for Saturday night. 

My initial menu plan included lamb and roasted potatoes, because that's what my Mom always served when I was a kid. But by Saturday morning I realized I just didn't want to work that hard...especially since I was going to have to prepare something separate for the non-lamb eating Swede anyway. And since the meal wasn't even going to take place on Easter Sunday, it was a pretty easy leap to abandon all recognizable tradition and go with one of the "Specialities of the House", spaghetti with meat sauce.

We served it with a big green salad, garlic bread and copious amounts of red wine, which helped everyone forget that it was Easter, let alone the original menu plan.

I suspect I was the only one who missed the lamb, which gives me a good excuse to have Dr. Darling take me to Fagan's for it...possibly as soon as next weekend. It's a local Irish pub that serves surprisingly good food and they always have lamb on the menu. Then again, I may have to throw caution to the wind and try the kangaroo. (Yes, you read that right.) Because nothing says traditional Irish pub grub like grilled kangaroo filet served with Calvados Cream Sauce and Golden Delicious & Red Onion Chutney.

tags: easter  swedish holidays  

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