Christmas week. The week of julbord. The week the kitchen runs sixteen hours a day and I sleep four and I do not care because this is the week I am most fully myself.
The schedule is taped to the side of the refrigerator, written in my own handwriting, color-coded by day. Monday (Dec 20): pickled herring three ways (delivered by Russ Kendall). Brown beans (bruna bönor) soaked overnight, cooked all afternoon with bacon, syrup, vinegar, mustard. Tuesday (Dec 21): red cabbage (rödkål) — the shredded cabbage cooked low with apple, vinegar, butter, sugar, allspice, for two hours, until it surrenders. Cold-storage in the garage. Wednesday (Dec 22): meatballs (köttbullar) reheated in cream gravy. Jansson's temptation assembled (sliced potato, sprat, onion, cream — baked to bubbling on Christmas Eve). Limpa bread baked (four loaves). Thursday (Dec 23): saffron buns (the second batch — fresh for Christmas Eve). Pepparkakor inventory (I have been baking and freezing since November; the Christmas tin holds eight dozen). Cardamom coffee bread baked. Glögg from the basement, opened, tasted, deemed acceptable. Friday (Dec 24 — JULBORD DAY): 6 AM start. Boiled potatoes, gravlax sliced, rice pudding made (with the hidden almond). Limpa rolls baked fresh (the smell will hit guests at the door). Coffee on. Akvavit chilled. Table set by 4 PM. Dinner at 5 PM. The full julbord — twelve dishes — served buffet-style, Swedish-style, with three plates per person across the evening. Saturday (Dec 25): princess cake (prinsesstårta) — the green-marzipan-domed sponge cake with cream and raspberry — made fresh. Christmas Day open house for friends and neighbors who don't celebrate Christmas Eve.
The schedule is a fiction; reality always intervenes. But the schedule gives shape to the week and shape is what I need when the week is this big.
Peter called Tuesday. He said he is coming. He said he is taking the train from Chicago, arriving in the Twin Cities Friday morning, then the bus to Duluth, arriving by 3 PM. I said: "You don't have a car?" He said: "I sold it." I said: "You sold it?" He said: "Mom, I'll explain later." I did not push. He is coming. That is the news.
Elsa called Wednesday. She said she is coming, driving in from Voyageurs Friday morning, arriving by 2 PM. She said: "I'm bringing a casserole." I said: "Elsa, you don't have to bring food." She said: "Mom, I want to bring food." She always has. She is bringing wild rice and mushroom hotdish, made in her ranger cabin, in the smallest oven imaginable.
Anna called Thursday. She said the Minneapolis caravan — Anna, David, Jakob (under protest because finals), Lena, Sophie, Marcus, Mira — is arriving Thursday night to spend the night. The Kenwood house will hold thirteen people on Friday. I will not have time to think. I will not need to think.
Mamma is doing the rice pudding this year — she insisted, and I let her, because the rice pudding is sacred and Mamma has been making it for sixty-four years and I am not going to fight her on it. She will arrive at 2 PM with the pudding in her own pot, with the hidden almond, with her tiny ninety-year-old self in her good blue dress, looking like a queen.
The Damiano Center on Thursday (the 23rd, after my baking marathon): I served wild rice soup as usual, plus a tray of pepparkakor and a thermos of glögg. Gerald said: "Linda, the soup tastes like Christmas tonight." I said: "Gerald, the soup is the same soup." He said: "No, it's different. You taste different on Christmas Eve eve." Gerald is the most observant man I know. I gave him an extra bun.
The house is ready. The food is ready. The table is ready. Sven is asleep under the dining room table in advance, claiming his territory. Paul's chair is at the head, where it has always been, where no one will sit, where he is and is not present.
Thirteen people Friday. Plus three ghosts (Paul, Pappa, Lars). Plus a dog. Plus Mira.
The line continues. The kitchen is on fire. The schedule is taped to the fridge. The herring is in the garage cooler. The meatballs are in the cream.
It is enough. It is more than enough. It is julbord.
The julbord already has its twelve dishes — the herring, the meatballs, the red cabbage, the rice pudding — but somewhere between Thursday’s baking marathon and Friday morning’s 6 AM start, I always find room for one small thing that is just for the pleasure of it, not for tradition. This year it was these candied bacon-wrapped figs: sweet, a little smoky, gone in two bites, exactly the kind of thing Peter would reach for three times while pretending he only had one. The bacon in the brown beans is long and slow and workmanlike; the bacon here is a celebration. That distinction matters on julbord day.
Candied Bacon-Wrapped Figs
Prep Time: 15 min | Cook Time: 20 min | Total Time: 35 min | Servings: 12 (2 pieces each)
Ingredients
- 24 small fresh or semi-dried figs (or 12 large figs, halved through the stem)
- 12 strips thin-cut bacon, halved crosswise to make 24 short pieces
- 1/4 cup packed dark brown sugar
- 1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
- 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
- 1/4 teaspoon smoked paprika
- 24 wooden toothpicks, soaked in water 15 minutes
Instructions
- Preheat. Heat oven to 400°F. Set a wire rack inside a rimmed baking sheet and lightly coat the rack with cooking spray.
- Make the glaze. Stir together the brown sugar, balsamic vinegar, black pepper, and smoked paprika in a shallow bowl until the sugar is mostly dissolved and the mixture forms a loose paste.
- Wrap the figs. Press a piece of bacon firmly around the middle of each fig, overlapping the ends slightly. Secure with a soaked toothpick pushed through the bacon overlap and into the fig. The toothpick should hold the bacon snug without splitting the fig.
- Glaze. Roll each wrapped fig through the brown sugar mixture, turning to coat the bacon on all sides. Arrange on the prepared rack, seam-side down, spaced about 1 inch apart.
- Bake. Roast 18 to 22 minutes, turning the pan once at the halfway point, until the bacon is fully cooked and deeply caramelized at the edges and the glaze is set and glossy. Watch carefully in the last 3 minutes — the sugar can move from caramelized to burned quickly.
- Rest and serve. Let the figs rest on the rack for 5 minutes before serving — the caramel glaze needs a moment to firm up or it will pull off with the first bite. Serve warm or at room temperature. Remove toothpicks just before eating or advise guests to do so.
Nutrition (per serving)
Calories: 98 | Protein: 3g | Fat: 4g | Carbs: 14g | Fiber: 1g | Sodium: 185mg
About the cook who shared this
Linda Johansson
Week 299 of Linda’s 30-year story
· Duluth, Minnesota
Linda is a sixty-three-year-old retired nurse from Duluth, Minnesota, living alone in the house where she raised her children and said goodbye to her husband. She lost Paul to ALS in 2020 after two years of watching the kindest man she'd ever known lose everything but his dignity. She cooks Scandinavian comfort food and Minnesota hotdish and the pot roast Paul loved, and she sets two places at the table out of habit because it makes her feel less alone. Every recipe she writes is a person she's loved.
