Skål!

Chris and I had a really productive weekend in terms of getting the house in shape, a breakthrough weekend, if you will. We got rugs, a TV/media center, a coffee table, a new bed frame, among other things. Of course, this involved renting a 10-foot moving truck and trekking out to the Ikea in Emeryville--not once, but twice. (We originally planned to only have "grown-up" furniture once we bought the condo, but, well, we bought a condo. So.)

To celebrate, I picked up two flavors of pickled herring (mustard and garlic) at Ikea's marketplace today on a whim. When we were vacationing in Barcelona this past July, the Swedish couple we were with, Pär and Lisa, prepared a traditional Swedish mid-summer festival meal: pickled herring, boiled new potatoes, hard-boiled eggs, bread, cheese, and many, many little bottles of aquavit. We were surprised to find that we actually enjoyed the herring, at least the non-traditional flavors. The traditional flavor is...strong, we'll say. Anyway, I replicated that meal tonight, in celebration of all the work we accomplished. Though, Ikea doesn't sell aquavit, so we substituted some vodka we had in the freezer. (And that vodka seems to be kicking in now, so apologies if I get a little loopy.) And I added broccoli to the mix, because it feels weird to eat just fish and potatoes.

Here's Chris and our Swedish-inspired spread:



Closeup on the fish (we added the lingonberry conserves just because I love it so):



Yum! The mustard-flavored herring is my favorite. Big thanks to Pär and Lisa for introducing us to their traditional meal! We'll be on the lookout for aquavit so we can do the meal right.

I'll have more picture soon, as we finish getting the house in order.