David Hammond wrote:Santa Lucia located at Caputo's. Will bring some (along with SP) tonight.

Turns out, no Santa Lucia, but got a few other varieties of Italian sparkling water at Caputo's.

Turns out the water I like from Family Fruit Market is Romanian.

What a great evening.

Sensationally good glög, fabulous and interesting food (including reindeer), great company, charming servers, fun gift raffle -- a truly splendid evening.

Everything was memorable, but I'll be dreaming about the Jansson's frestelse. And maybe the glög too -- I do think it's the best I've ever had.

Thanks to everyone who contributed, but especially to David and Cathy for their hard work in putting it together. Simply wonderful.

Wonderful party, fun convivial crowd, terrific food, who can resist 8-types of herring, plenty of booze and some amazing raffle prizes. While I plan on posting additional pictures and text the following nutshells the LTHforum 2010 Holiday Party, and I save 1000-words.

D Hammond w/Frankie the Fish, brought by Steve and Chowpoodle Z

G Wiv wrote:who can resist 8-types of herring

Not me. I had the herring for dessert, and it was the perfect way to end, and begin, the meal.

The Chow Poodle and I had a great time last night. Thanks to Cathy & David for doing all the hard work to organize another great LTH Holiday Party. I'd never been to Tre Kronor for anything other than breakfast, and I was very impressed with the Julbord and especially the staff, who were gracious and willing to answer questions about the food and the Swedish traditions. When the lovely waitresses donned their white robes and candle crown and sang Santa Lucia to us, it really made the evening.

Cabbagehead and I had a terrific evening and really enjoyed our first Julbord. Naturally, the company was wonderful--great conversation and everyone happily making many trips to the buffet for additional helpings of herring. We are big fans of Tre Kronor, but this meal took them to a new high in our opinion. The multiple varieties of herring were terrific. My favorite was the matjes herring, which I love.* Other great dishes were the Jansson's Temptation and the two reindeer preparations--the paté and the dried. And we have now tried lutefisk. Cabbagehead kind of liked it.

Thanks to Cathy and David for once again organizing such a brilliant event and to Tre Kronor's staff for their hard work.

*And speaking of herring love, see the pair of songs (in two consecutive posts) on that subject in the Food Music thread for all you long-time and new herring fans.

We had a wonderful time. The environs were fantastic and the offerings allowed me to experience a Julbord, much like the famed one in Fanny & Alexander (yes rosebud also mentioned it last night)

EvA wrote: And we have now tried lutefisk. Cabbagehead kind of liked it.

Those who revile lutefish (and they are legion) must be reacting to the yucky-sounding preparation with lye and the gelatinous quality of the final product. The flavor of the stuff is very neutral, not even a hint fishy, and would benefit from a dash of GWiv's chile oil.

Thanks LTH for a lovely evening of great company, a picturesque setting and unique food.

David and Cathy--you pulled off a terrific event which I can only imagine gets more difficult every year (finding new places, bigger and bigger crowds, an audience of tough critics ). I can't thank you enough! This was a wonderful way to kick off the holiday season.

And I'd NEVER know that lutefisk was something to be feared--while not something for which I would scour the city in search of variations, the taste I had was pretty good! As were the potatoes, the ham, the meatballs, the herbed herring, the oysters and much more.

Skål!!

We three really had a great time, but thanks mostly for making a 16 year old's night extremely special and the pleasure in seeing your kid so happy. And not just because it turned out she liked the heering. Thanks especially to the person who leaked me the information that enabled her to come in the first place. We very much look forward to the picture. David and Cathy2, you exceeded our expectations this year.

Many thanks to our intrepid organizers! We had a lovely time and are already enjoying our raffle goodies.

I do have one request: does anyone know who gave the Hello Kitty bag full of fascinating noodles? We'd like to thank them properly, but failed to get the name when we received it.

The staff at Tre Kronor, Cathy and David did a masterful job putting last night together. The herring alone made it a special culinary experience for me but the rest of the spread was just about as impressive.

mamagotcha wrote:Many thanks to our intrepid organizers! We had a lovely time and are already enjoying our raffle goodies.

I do have one request: does anyone know who gave the Hello Kitty bag full of fascinating noodles? We'd like to thank them properly, but failed to get the name when we received it.

she's my friend, i'll pm you her contact info

Fantastic food, atmosphere and good company made the evening perfect in every way. I'd never been to Tre Kronor before but this won't be my last visit. Have to try the brunch. The outdoor area looks like a great spot. Thank you to Lucantonio (Antonius and Amata's son) for the gorgeous box of chocolates that was our prize. Saturated as we were, when we got home and opened it up, we HAD to split one. Now, I need to hide the box so I don't have to share any more!

A memorable evening. Great food and great atmosphere all enhanced by the company of wonderful LTHers.

Thank you David and Cathy for all your hard work.

I echo everyone's sentiments, what a charming and cosy Christmas bash.
Much thanks and appreciation all around:
To the staff, who were very sweet and accomodating, particularly the Santa Lucia performance;
To the chefs for the lovely feast;
To Cathy and Hammond for organizing and the name tags;
To MBH for providing safe transport of the Templeton and us;
To the raffle team, making sure all the prizes were fairly doled out.

Speaking of prizes, boy, did I score, coming home with Gary's hot sauce line up and a jar of MBH's homemade blueberry lime jam:



I took some pictures upon requests for some folks, PM me and I will forward them on.

HI,

One person absent last night was GAF who provided the idea of Tre Kronor for the party. My initial reaction was it may be too small, though I called Tre Kronor to learn they could accomodate 85. This set the ball into action for this year's party.

I attended Julbord two or three times before. On one occasion, we had Studs Terkel seated next to our table. I learned when Studs died, they had a Julbord made special for his post funeral meal. From this prior experience, it was clear they knew how to provide a meal of high quality to a large discerning crowd.

David Hammond is very good in getting a restaurant to stretch their creativity for our events. He is always encouraging them to serve us something not on the menu that they always wanted to try. His prodding got them to serve us the glogg in the backyard around a fire. When I came to deliver our deposit in June, I told them how much I was looking forward to drinking glogg around the fire. The owners were surprised we really expected it. The onset of cold and the year's first snowfall added magic to our opening glogg toast.

Leading up to this event, Gary secured donations of Templeton Rye and Three Floyd's beer. What a nice holiday gift to the LTHforum community. Thanks to mbh for collecting the Templeton Rye and supplying her homemade brandied cherries. Thanks to irisarbor for mixing Manhattans to quench a large crowd.

The raffle had many hands helping out. Ms. Wiv, Chowpoodle, irisarbor were tracking people down who brought raffle items and getting them their tickets. MBH, Giovanna and Hammond worked to keep the prizes moving. The human chain of announcers to alert people upstairs to their raffle numbers, my thanks!

All the raffle gifts embodied generosity, creativity and humor. Not surprising given the day-to-day interactions witnessed on the board.

Thanks to Tre Kronor for the best Christmas party outside of Scandinavia. It was a privilege to have Larry, Patty and their staff transport us to a different place and time for our party.

Anyone who was forgotten, accept my apologies and send me a PM, so I can edit you in.

And yes, the bar has been raised higher for next year's party. Who knows where we will be on December 3rd next year.

Regards,

We had a terrific time at the party too -- many thanks to David and Cathy and the Tre Kronor crew. The pre-dinner gathering outside by the fire was lovely, as was the performance by Santa Lucia and her attendants (Lucia's ability to endure the hot wax dripping on her was truly saintly!). The food was excellent and it was great to be able to try a little bit of dishes that I'd heard of but never sampled. Especially the lutefisk! (which wasn't bad at all!) And, to echo VI, thanks for the heads-up that made the evening an especially cool one for our young defenseman.

One question, though. In the commotion during the gift exchange we missed hearing who provided two of the gifts that we were lucky enough to win: the beautiful jar of marrons glaces and the bottle of verjus. We would love to know who to thank for these great gifts! (Antonius was absolutely the right person to win a bottle of a medieval ingredient...)

Jean Blanchard wrote:...Thank you to Lucantonio (Antonius and Amata's son) for the gorgeous box of chocolates that was our prize. Saturated as we were, when we got home and opened it up, we HAD to split one. Now, I need to hide the box so I don't have to share any more!

Jean, Lucantonio was delighted to read that you all are enjoying the chocolates!

Hi,

The marrons glaces were from Josephine.

Regards,

I was thrilled to receive the indian crockpot cookbook (which I assume came from Spice House crew?) but we also got a lovely pop-corn set and Vosge (!!) marshmallow treats, and I don't know who to thank. All the above will be treasured and enjoyed tremendously. I have a pop corn popper, but we had no corn, and now we do!

I forgot to thank mbh for my brandied peaches that she preserved. What a bonus! I haven't gotten up the energy to preserve anything in years so I know how much work and love goes into this kind of project. The generosity of this group is very impressive and much appreciated.

I echo the sentiments above ... this was a marvelous party, from the Winter Wonderland setting for the pre-dinner glogg, to the service, to the amazing array of foods, the Santa Lucia performance, and last but not least the excellent company at our table, even those of us who refused to don the horns. I also would like to thank Cinnamon Girl for her generous donation of her unused raffle tickets to me and Mrs. JiLS, which resulted in a fine set of sausages, preserves and macaroon cookies. Quite a little windfall, that. Kudos to David and Cathy and everyone else who made this possible. In years to come, I will remember this one fondly. It was, for me, a very special event.

Thanks to Cathy and David for an extreme amount of organization ,
and to all the staff at Tre Kronor for a delicious and beautiful evening-
The singing Lucias were very impressive and sounded angelic.

The gifts were fun and amazing-
A white Trash Cookbook and an intricate food-themed Illustration from Dicksond and the bride..
LynnB's delicious cardamom butter almond balls,
the bottle of dark lord, to be saved for a roaring fire...(the hubs will especially be liking that)
and a jar of Mary Beth's peach rosemary preserves which sound so enticing...
after making my very first jam ever this summer I know just how hard that is....
Thank you all.

I now know how to mix 50 Manhattans at once ...
a skill I am not sure how frequently I will need.

The company was delightful.
The evening was dreamlike.

Here are some pix I took that don't begin to capture the fun and deliciousness of the evening...
some of the herring..




The most beautiful smoked salmon with pretty piped cream cheese..


delicious gravad lax


creamy, cold oysters on the half shell


jewel-like colors of the citrus salad


a school of chilled cocktail shrimp


two kinds of pate, cornichons


yummy deviled eggs, my own guilty pleasure...


a variety of cheese to please


some chilled meat, the dark meat on the lower right was reindeer.


The casserole on the left was scrumtious, Janssens temtation, potato, onion, fish cheese, cream, chees, and then some more cream...yum yum... both of the sausages on the right I also enjoyed, I think the one in back was the potato sausage.


On the left was biff a la Lindstrom, in the center I think was meatballs, on the right swedish brown beans.


On the left red cabbage, in the center a very moist roast pork, on the right Christmas ham.


On the left a creamy and rich creamed spinach, in the center a delicous lamb stew made with cream and dill, and on the right the legendary Lutefisk, which I had never tried, cooked in butter, with bacon. I personally found it to be neither bad nor good, just flavorless- or rather tasting only of butter and bacon. It didn't even taste like fish- it was just kind of rubbery flaky and blah- I guess I expected worse LOL....


I didn't get any pix of the amazing desserts- the creme brulee was one of the best I've ever had...
here are some pix from the gift table- a mere fraction of the bounty.






And the highlight of the night- the singing Lucias

I wanted to chime in and add my thanks to Cathy & David for all the hard work you put in to organizing this event, also to all who helped out and to GAF for the idea, you were missed. I was lucky enough to take home some home pan au chocolate and meringue mushrooms made by chouxfly. The mushrooms are works of art, every stem & cap perfect and the pan au chocolate is just wonderful. I'm consistently amazed at the wonderful cooks in this group and the love that the food is made with.

Thanks for the pictures, irisharbor! It looks and sounds (reads?) like I missed yet another fantastic holiday LTH party.

It seems as if Tre Kronor really hit a homerun with this julbord! I'll be hard-pressed to even come close at home with ours this year. As great as the food looks, I'm positively thrilled to see/read that Tre Kronor truly managed to recreate the special feeling of Christmas and a julbord in Scandinavia.

One very minor correction for the following picture:

irisarbor wrote:On the left was biff a la Lindstrom, in the center I think was meatballs, on the right swedish brown beans.

I wasn't there but the pinkish tinge of the patties in the middle scream to me that they, in fact, are the Biff á la Lindström and not the meatballs.

Happy holidays!

could be, I'm not even sure what Biff a la Linstrom is, except there was a sign at the left....
It all tasted good...

irisarbor wrote:could be, I'm not even sure what Biff a la Linstrom is, except there was a sign at the left....
It all tasted good...

Swedish hamburgers - onion, ground beef, egg yolks, chopped pickled beets

Merry Christmas from Mr. & Mrs. Klaus:



Lovely mbh doing her Vanna thing:


Victorious Giovanna in all her glory:


Gorgeous Mrs. Hammond delighted with glass bowl, hand crafted by Mr. Leek (apologies for not getting your handle right) as Lemoneater smiles in envy:


Grand prize winner:


Will post more soon...

Keep the photos coming...and thanks!