Food and Spirits....including Lutefisk!

Food and Spirits...

The Tuesday after I returned from the NY Sheep and Wool Festival was another festival...this time, a celebration of the "birthday" of our local Dogfish Head Alehouse. There was a special dinner to celebrate - the food was fabulous...and the beer pairing phenomenal. Lothar (a German Master Butcher from Purcellville) provided luscious sausauges and pork - it was fantastic!!! Lothar's sausages are available at the Purcellville Community Market.




The highlight of the evening, however, was the visit with the founder and president of Dogfish Head Brewery - Sam Calagione. My friend Paula made a special "Fan" in honor of Sam's visit declaring that "Sam is a Hoppin' Rock Star".





Paula, DH, and I all posed for our photo op with Sam. He even took the time to autograph the books my DH brought - both written by Sam - "Brewing up a Business" (for my step-daughter) and "He Said Beer, She Said Wine" for DH and me.





















Just Food - Lutefisk!!!

Then, on Saturday, it was time for the annual Lutefisk Dinner sponsored by the Sons of Norway Lodge. This year, I helped before, during and after the dinner.










In addition to setting the tables and basic setup, I was responsible for mashing the rutabagas. Wow! What a job - I don't think I've ever seen so many rutabagas in one place before. My arms were SOOO tired! (I did all the mashing by hand).

There were several of us working on the various parts of the dinner. This included the primary "lutefisk chef". Debbie initially tutored him on the finer points of cooking Lutefisk. Then, he was left to his own devices to cut and cook the delectable fish from the large fillets.


It's definitely a team effort to get the food prepared and served. Ham....meatballs...and everything else!













And all this effort led to the buffet line - full of lutefisk, rutabagas, ham, Swedish meatballs, lefse, green bean, herring, and a variety of other tasty goodies! Mmmm.....lutefisk!!!

The dinner was from 4-6 pm - and everyone seemed to enjoy it. Lots of smiling faces!













I did take time out to eat though...doesn't this look delicious?






It was a long day...We didn't finish cleaning up until after 9 pm. We were all wiped out!!!


And now for some knitting updates...

Remember the lovely yarn that I purchased at the Bluemont Festival? (photo on left) It was gorgeous handspun in purples and mauves - all spun by my friend, Debbie. I started working on the "198 AYards of Heaven" shawl - which I thought was perfect for this yarn (I have about 238 yards, so no worries about running out of yarn.)

For some reason, I've had a hard time with the instructions. I've had several false starts because of the way the charts are written. I've used many charts from many different designers, but this one just doesn't "flow" the way I expected, so I kept having to re-work my knitting.

Another thing I noticed was that it's not symmetrical....the eyelets from the lace of the body are not in line with the eyelets in the edge. Some are, but some aren't. At first, I thought I'd screwed up, but it turns out that that's how the pattern was designed.

Anyhow, progress has been very slow....and I brought the shawl with me to work on when I went to the Wegman's knitting group. However, I once again found I was tearing it back and reworking. Sigh. I showed the charts to some of the other knitters...and yes...it IS different than the way most charts are done. I find it a bit confusing...and coupled with the fact that I really don't like charts, I'm think I'll let this "marinate" for a while. I definitely plan to finish it by the end of this month, but for now, it's in "time out"!