Sunday, June 15, 2008

Birthday Fika

JoeSome weeks seem to just fly by, despite the fact that looking back at them it's hard to identify why they seemed so crazy. By way of excusing the fact that neither of us managed to get a single post written this week, I will submit that this past week was just such a week. No time to write a post, despite the fact that we didn't really do all that much worth reporting.



Not that we did nothing, mind you. This week was Jennifer's birthday, so she wanted to take in a special treat for fika on Friday. People often supply something special for fika to mark significant occasions, like a birthday or graduation. The trick is that you really need to bring in something homemade. For her birthday week fika, Jennifer wanted a treat both rare and exotic here in Scandinavia: chocolate chip cookies. They don't have chocolate chips here, you see. So, armed with a bag of chocolate chips and a bottle of vanilla extract sent by Jennifer's parents, I spent a chunk of Thursday afternoon making a huge batch of chocolate chip cookies. On Friday Jennifer took them, along with two liters of milk and some decaf, to work. She had a really big turnout for afternoon fika, especially considering it was a Friday a week before midsummers and the boss was gone for the day.

I have to admit, I was dubious that chocolate chip cookies would be viewed as esoterica, but they really were. There was a period of a few minutes when people just stared at them, but once they got started they plowed right through the whole batch. They were equally fascinated by the idea of dipping the cookies in milk. I honestly don't think anyone there had ever had one before. There were even prolonged discussions on the melting properties of chocolate chips and the etiquette of dunking in milk. It was enough of a hit that there was still a bit of a crowd after an hour, and a handful left after 90 minutes, which is a pretty long fika even by Swedish standards.

And with that, I declare blog hiatus officially ended!

1 comment:

  1. My favorite cookies are chocolate chip. Nothing else even comes close. I'm surprised at a culture that has cookies, but not chocolate chips.

    To further damage your reputation at work:

    A sign in the grocery store:
    Notice! Take lettuce from top of stack, or heads will roll!

    and

    A guy goes into a second hand shop to buy one for his watch.

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