JUNE 16, 2016 // 31
BOOK SHELF // GLIMPSE // WILDLIFE // POP CULTURE // WORDS // Q&A // FOOD // FUN
RECIPE
Norwegian krumkake cookies
By MATT LOVE
Buoy Beer Co.
Not too long ago, I sat
on a stool at the back bar in
the Buoy Beer Co. in Astoria,
nursing a pilsner, staring
at the Columbia River. In
short order, I found myself
completely becalmed and
thankful for my eternal
role in the water cycle. This
always happens when I visit
Buoy and watch the river.
A few minutes later,
my mind drifted to a local
man who regularly sends
poisonous emails ripping my
columns and insulting me
personally. He seems utterly
bilious as a human being. A
rational person would simply
stop reading my work.
Simple — aggravation over.
Move on.
But no, many people pre-
fer to revel in anger and hate.
Sitting inside Buoy that
afternoon, I decided I would
write something to cheer up
the man. Cheering up angry
people is fun! It’s wonderful
imagining a smile cracking a
bitter face.
Thus, I present a little lark
of a tale called “Whales and
Bumblebees” that I whipped
out at the bar. Here it is, for
you, my vitriolic critic:
At a historic summit
that went unreported in
the press, the whales and
bumblebees decided by
unanimous acclaim — we’ve
had enough of humans. They
take. They destroy every-
thing. They’ve got to go.
It was quite the party at
the summit. Many attendees
cut a dashing, revolutionary
igure. Whales drank krill
from champagne lutes, and
bumblebees smoked hand-
rolled nectar cigarettes.
Raspberry berets were worn.
Speeches were iery. The
dancing got dirty.
The whales and bumble-
bees issued a manifesto at
the summit. It was written
in a big fat weird cursive
script that humans couldn’t
read on their tiny phones. It
said, in part: “We only want
to bumble among pretty
lowers and swim unfettered
through the seven seas. We
shall not go extinct. We shall
bumble in the meadows
and prowl the silent depths
forever.”
The whales knew a little
something about humans.
Call it inside information.
They once lived on land like
Matt Love is the author/editor of
14 books, including “A Nice Piece of
Astoria.” His books are available at
coastal bookstores or through his
website, nestuccaspitpress.com
Ingredients
2 cups sugar
2 cups butter
6 eggs
1 can of milk
2 teaspoons vanilla
3 cups lour
SUBMITTED PHOTO
Corleen Mathews, a second
generation Norwegian, pre-
pares 3,500 krumkake cook-
ies every year for the Scandi-
navian Midsummer Festival.
Directions:
Beat the eggs
well, then add the
sugar and mix.
Blend in the lour,
then add the rest
of the ingredients.
Bake in a krumkake
iron and roll.
SUBMITTED PHOTO
Krumkake cookies are baked in a special lat iron and rolled
when warm around a wooden form to resemble an old-fash-
ioned ice cream cone.
IO R
A G LIMPSE I NSIDE
humans, but they had the
good sense to return to the
oceans. That was their se-
cret weapon — this ancient
knowledge that humans
were too dumb to grasp
because they believed
they stood atop every-
thing. Bumblebees knew
something about humans,
too. They knew humans
raised children who were so
depraved that they enjoyed
killing bumblebees for sport
on warm summer days.
The summit didn’t ofer
any military strategy to
defeat humans. The whales
and bumblebees didn’t
need one. They didn’t have
to do anything but wait.
Humans were withering,
clocking out. Many were
very angry; it was in all the
papers.
In order to survive,
humans needed only to
pay better attention to
the whales and bumble-
bees. The answers were
staring them in their blank
faces. That was not going
to happen. The whales and
bumblebees merely had to
hang on a little while longer,
and they knew how to do
that.
KRUMKAKE
JU N
PHOTO BY MATT LOVE
Watching the river from the bar at Buoy Beer is calming.
Corleen Mathews is a
second-generation Norwe-
gian and well-known in the
local Scandinavian commu-
nity. Her husband, Loran,
is president of the Astoria
Scandinavian Heritage Asso-
ciation and past chair of the
Astoria Scandinavian Mid-
summer Festival. Corleen
and her friend Kathy Helm-
ersen have a booth at the
festival that sells only two
things: Norwegian krumka-
ke and Finnish prune tarts —
and coffee, of course.
Krumkake are delicate
Norwegian crumb cook-
ies baked in a special lat
iron and rolled when warm
around a wooden form to
resemble an old-fashioned
ice cream cone. Modernists
are tempted to ill them with
ice cream or whipped cream
and lingonberry jam, but
traditionalists eat them plain
with a cup of coffee.
Each spring, Corleen pre-
pares 3,500 of these cookies
in her home kitchen to sell
at the festival and always
hopes she’s made enough to
last the full three days.
As a vendor, Corleen
adds to the authenticity of
the experience by wearing
a bunad — a Norwegian
folk costume — that her
mother made and embroi-
dered for her 33 years ago.
Corleen’s daughter, Tara,
and granddaughters Helen
and Abbie have all repre-
sented the Sons of Norway
Lodge in past years as Miss
Norway at the festival, and
they wear their own bun-
dads that Corleen helped
embroider.
Here, Corleen shares her
recipe for krumkake and
hopes that local families
will continue to share ethnic
traditions with future gener-
ations.
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