OOO #8: Outfits, Ohio, and Other Things I Like

My pop star doppelgänger, a card game, and the Art of the Swedish Coffee Break.

Outfits

“You look like Taylor Swift… except you’re not her because you don’t have a Rolex.”

Ohio

Last weekend, I went over to a friend’s house for dinner and a game of euchre. I had not played euchre in about 20 years, and remember it as a game with arcane rules using only a few cards that no one else from home had heard of.

Euchre (pronounced YOO-kur) is a four person card game primarily played in the midwest (although, the internet told me it’s popular in parts of Canada and the UK too). You play with the same cards as you do pinochle: A K Q J 10 9. Additionally, you keep score (up to 10) using a 6 and 4 card, in which you cover one card with the other to keep score (it looks as odd as it sounds).

At the beginning of each hand, a trump suit is called, and the cards in the trump suit become ranked as J A K Q 10 9 (the other suits stay ranked normally with the A on top). BUT the J in the other suit of the same color (hearts and diamonds, spades and clubs) becomes second in rank just below the J in the trump suit, and acts as a member of the trump suit. See below for the ranking of cards if the trump suit were spades.

Cards ranked from highest to lowest if the trump suit is spades. The J of clubs is second, after the J of spades. Also, no one is surprised by my deck of cards.

Your goal is to win as many tricks as possible (3 out of 5 gives you one point, 5 out of 5 gives you two), which happens when you have the highest ranked card in whichever suit is played in each trick (or by using a trump card). There are at least a dozen other rules and game-specific terminology that would be confusing to describe (I’m sure what I’ve already presented is confusing); euchre is best explained by warm Ohioans at their kitchen table after a nice home-cooked meal.

A pretty good hand… but only if the trump suit is diamonds

Euchre is fun because, like most beloved card games, it is a true mix of strategy and luck, and it is as much fun trying to block other players when you have a bad hand as it is trying to win all five tricks with a great hand.

My husband said after our game night that even though so many regional cultural traditions in the US have faded since our grandparents’ generation, euchre is one tradition that seems to have been kept alive by young midwesterners. And that, I think, is lovely.

Other Things I Like

My contribution to my pre-euchre dinner was one of my favorite thing to bake: syltgrottor, which translates from Swedish to “jam caves.” Syltgrottor are the Swedish spin on jam thumbprint cookies, and they are always a hit (I think it’s because they are mostly butter, and there are few things better than butter).

I learned the recipe from my favorite (and only) Swedish recipe book called “Fika: the Art of the Swedish Coffee Break” by Anna Brones and Johanna Kindvall. I bought it at the American Swedish Institute when I visited friends in Minneapolis in 2015. This cookbook inspired a newfound love of baking and all things Swedish (I’m still trying to learn svenska on Duolingo. I’m not very good, but I do recognize a lot of the words at Ikea, so that’s something).

Fika is the Swedish practice of taking a deliberate coffee break with a pastry or other baked good, usually with other people. In everything I’ve read about fika, it is used both as a noun and a verb, and according to visitsweden.com, it is so important to the culture that “some companies add a clause to contracts stating that employees are entitled to fika breaks.”

Brones and Kindvall’s “Fika” book includes recipes for all sorts of baked goods to pair with coffee for fika, including the aforementioned syltgrottor, blackberry almond cake (another beloved recipe I’ve returned to many times), saffron buns (I’m still working up the courage to attempt them), ginger meringues, fig squares, and vetebullar (cinnamon and cardamom buns). There is a recipe for a caramel cake with lingonberries on top (it’s based on a Finnish recipe) that looks delicious that I will attempt in the near future. If you know where I can find fresh lingonberries in central Ohio, lmk.

Syltgrottor with raspberry jam. Jam is my second favorite food: below pizza and above butter. If you are looking for a gift for me, jam is always a good way to go.

What I appreciate most about Swedish baking is the prevalence of spices like cinnamon, cardamom, anise, and ginger, as well as a heavy use of almonds. I have used Fika for recipes for almost 8 years now, and I don’t see that stopping anytime soon. Jag älskar sverige och jag älskar fika!

That’s it… have a great rest of your week! Ha det bra!