We Are Only As Danish As Our Table Manners

So yesterday Grace and I went grocery shopping and bought 167 kr of groceries, which all still fit on my food stipend card which is a bit worrying because everyone else ran out of their food stipend like 3 weeks ago and it is only supposed to cover about 2/3 of the cost of your food. Which makes me wonder what I have been eating... I don't cook that much, but I do not eat out that much either. I think it is just because I am a fan of sandwiches and other cheap things, but still. Anyways, we made the most amazing dinner. We got frozen frikadeller (frikadeller are the traditional Danish meatball, think like the Ikea meatballs but more Danish and in your house), made baked beet and carrot sticks tossed in garlic with a spiced sour cream sauce, boiled potatoes (using only enough water to cover the potatoes so that we did not have to throw away any possible nutrients in the water so we were eating something besides starchy goodness, a la mommy) with a little pat of butter, and for dessert we made honey cinnamon baked apples with vanilla ice cream. It was delicious, and a very Danish thing to cook together, and then when we were done we tried to do the eating slowly and talking thing like the Danes, but we definitely ended up after 5 minutes watching Modern Family on my laptop while we ate. Not very Danish at all.

When I have a family of my own, we are going to eat like Danes. Food ritual is very important, and you always eat meals as a family. Everyone is the house takes turns cooking, and you have to eat whatever is made. It is amazing in my practicum class how the children seriously eat whatever we put in front of them with no complaints. If I tried to give 4 and 5 year old children in America falafel on rye bread or garden salad with tomatoes I am sure that things would not go well. Children also do not have sippy cups. You have a bottle until you have a glass. It blows my mind.

I am still sick. I felt a lot better yesterday and I think I took advantage of that a little too much. I did not go to practicum today. I am sad because not only do I miss my kids, but they went on a field trip today. However, the field trip was outside and I think avoiding 6 hours of exertion in 40º weather might have been a wise decision.

It is freezing. A polish scientist said that this is going to be the worst winter in the history of Denmark. There is already snow in Sweden, and it is supposed to snow in Jylland (the big main peninsula) this week. I am excited for snow, but then I remember that I have NO IDEA how one even deals with snow. The concept of frozen flake things falling from the sky seems fake, I always just imagine Disneyland bubble snow, but I have a good feeling it is nothing like that. It is going to be a long winter.