A Danish American Christmas

We hosted Christmas Yesterday with my in-laws for the first time, at our apartment. There were several wonderful things about that; I love to entertain/cook, and I don't have to leave my home and get on the road for the first holiday ever.

When I started my meal planning, I was going to do a completely Danish Christmas menu, but then thought there might be items on the menu that not all American's would appreciate. The dessert was the biggest shift from Danish to American, I was going to make a traditional rice pudding with a hidden almond, but made a tiramisu instead. The menu I ended up with was about 50% Danish and 50% American.

The Menu

Appetizers
 Caramelized leek and goat cheese dip with crudite
Assorted cheeses with bread
Goat cheese stuffed dates wrapped in bacon

Dinner
Molasses, oatmeal rolls with salted butter
Brussel sprouts in bacon, shallots and sherry
Mashed Potatoes (from my mother in law)
Braised wintery red cabbage
Roasted baby potatoes with herbs to provence
Pork roasted with rosemary, thyme and garlic
Red currant jelly gravy

Dessert
Tiramisu

Below are a couple of snapshots from my phone, I didnt take enough of the food while making it, but oh well.

Scoring the pork and filling it with delicious herbs

My first roast pork ready for the oven

The table set, before anyone has arrived

Set and ready to go

The finished pork

A simple centerpiece

Glædelig Jul/ Merry Christmas from my little reindeer and I

Simple Decorations

After a great Thanksgiving weekend, we are now fully into the Christmas season. We picked up our tree and a wreath on Sunday and put them up last night. I remembered a few weeks ago, that when I was little my mom would stick whole cloves in oranges and hang them during the month of December. The smell that comes out of the orange is heavenly and it's an easy holiday decoration.

On Sunday night when we got home from New Hampshire we lit our Kubus 4 candle holder, it works as the perfect advent. Below are a few very simple decorations we have in our home to make it feel festive. It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas.

Our simple wreath on the door

A Small table arrangement

Our little Reindeer

A Citrus fruit stuck with whole cloves and hanging from kitchen twine

Advent Calendar

December is right around the corner, and I don't know how that happened. When I was little my mother hung a cloth advent calendar in my room with small gifts in each pocket for every day leading up to Christmas. That advent calendar made the entire holiday month feel special, and every dark morning exciting. As an adult, I want to have the same holiday feel every day in December, but with a more age appropriate advent calendar; the presents are no longer an important part of the season. Here are some advent calendars, some for every sunday and some for every day of December that I liked.

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140 hour advent candle

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This is the exact same one, that I grew up with, that
we lit every sunday as a family.

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Office to Guest Room Transformation

The guest room is officially usable, and a space that people would actually want to stay in. For two years I made little adjustments to make the office a space I wanted spend time in, but it never was. It was the room that we closed the door to, so that I didn't have to look at it. Now, this second bedroom is a room I could actually see myself spending time in. I found plenty of inspiration out there to try to work a very small room into a room that functions as both a guest room and office. Once the wall sconce comes in and is installed, this room will be done. Here are some pictures
from one weekend of updates.

We used all White bedding, including the knitted pillow cover I made to make the room feel bigger. We also decided on white shelves so that they would blend in to the walls and not be a statement piece themselves. The shelves were a DIY home depot project, nothing fancy. We took a round rug we had had in a closet and put it mostly under the bed to add a little dimension to the room.  Can't wait to see this room in the daylight.

Before

Before

 After: New Shelving above the bed. The lamp we
ordered will go in the right hand corner when facing
the bed, for our guests to have a little extra light.

New linen curtains

We took the bookcase out and put the desk
in its place and added a few more shelves for the
remainder of our books.

Trying to balance the books with other items like plants,
photos ,and a couple other odds and ends to make it feel more open

Ailsa thinks this is her new room

Round Jute rug details

We added shelves to our bedroom as well,
which I love.

My favorite time of year

Fall in NYC is the best time of year. The air is crisp; the leaves in the park have changed color and are starting to fall, and you can walk around the city without breaking a sweat.

I love everything fall, from knit sweaters, to the smells of freshly baked pumpkin bread. Here are a few pictures of some cozy fall activities that have kept me busy. What are your favorite fall activities?

Cinnamon and Nutmeg yumminess
Recipe

Kanelbuller (Cardamom heaven)
made by me and my Mor, recipe

Hiking in  Cold spring, NY

Vineyards in the Hamptons on a sunny afternoon

Walking Ailsa in Central park, this past weekend.

A Sweater Jacket I started on a flight to India two weeks ago,
 2/3 of the way done

A cozy guest room

When we first moved into our apartment we decided that the second bedroom would be best used as an office, because Tim was in grad school.  He no longer needs it to study, so now we have an extra room in Manhattan that is unused.

Over the past few months we have had several guests who have had to sleep either on the sofa or the aero bed in the office.  We realized that this room would be better served as a guest room for those handful of times a year when our friends and family want to visit us.

For the past few months I have been pinning inspirational images for this space. Here are some pictures of what I am hoping this room will turn out to look like.

The bed arrives on Friday, which is step one of the transition.I am using a chunky ivory yarn to knit a cozy pillow cover to throw on the bed. Ive already ordered my white sheets and a simple california frame for the mattress to rest on. The reindeer hide has been in our bedroom for a little while, but will move back into this space. Photos to come when it's ready.

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A simple Garter stitch in a chunky yarn

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Inge Vincents Ceramics

Spring is here in New York and flowers are in bloom.  I can not wait for coffee on the balcony in the morning, and for fresh flowers from the farmers market all over the apartment. 

Inge Vincents' a Danish Ceramist whose pieces are modern, detailed and simple. Her focus is on the lines and the shapes instead of focusing on color. Her vases are beautiful pieces of art that can stand alone without feeling the need to compete with those fresh farmers market flowers.

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Bit and pieces from the weekend

This weekend was absolutely gorgeous, and I took full advantage of it by running the dog in the woods, taking runs on the water and just walking around the city. We finally replaced our old coffee table and could not be happier. The new table fits in with the rest of our pieces and opens the room up, which is important for small city living.

One of my favorite foods is in season, rhubard, and I have been adding it to quinoa for dinner, salads for lunch and today in my baking. I spent this afternoon making rhubarb and marzipan muffins, a recipe a friend in Denmark gave me when I was there last May.

Elderflower Syrup

I grew up on Saft which is a delicious flavored syrup that you add water to in sweden, the end result being a somewhat watered down juice. One of the flavors that I loved was elderflower, so for this spring I decided to attempt to make my own elderflower syrup. Elderflower syrup can be combined with water for a refreshing drink or to cocktails or champagne for something a little more sophisticated.

The first problem I ran in to was that elderflowers are not grown locally, so I had to order them online (thank you amazon). Once you have the flowers, it seems relatively easy to make the syrup with a few ingredients, water, sugar and lemon. I mixed a few recipes up, so we will see how this turns out, however here is one that sounds simple. More to come in a week when said syrup is ready.

Tikau Shop

Tikau is a Finnish company that combines Scandinavian design with Indian craftsmanship. All of the images below are from their site directly unless otherwise mentioned.

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