Picked elderflowers to make cordial.

I’ve been wanting to use the flowers of my own elder bush/tree, but last time I looked, it was so badly infested with aphids that that wasn’t an option.

This year the situation was much, much better. A minority of the clusters of flowers (which, as I learned today, is called an umbel) had a small number of aphids, but most were clear. I picked a whole bunch of them. Not enough to make the amount of cordial I wanted, so I supplemented with white ones from bushes in nearby parks – in fact the whites were in majority – but enough to make it feel like “mine” and hopefully also enough to give it a nice pink colour.

Speaking of amounts and “enough”, the recipes for elderflower cordial are annoyingly vague. “25 to 30 large clusters of flowers”. How large is a large one? If I have small ones – which was the case for most of what I picked – then how many should I take instead? Why can’t they just provide the amount in grams, please.

Now I’m taking notes with proper measurements, and next year life will be easier. 120 clusters of mixed sizes tending towards small rather than large, weighing 500 grams in total. 6 lemons of, on average, 130 grams each. 4 litres of simple syrup (made with equal volumes of water and sugar).

Midsummer, with herring, new potatoes, and strawberry cake. No devilled eggs this year, since I’ve had quite enough of them with all the leftovers from Ingrid’s graduation party.

Strawberries are always kind of expensive this early in the summer, but the price this year was truly eye-watering. 90 kronor per litre in our local supermarket; 100 kr in Uppsala where my mum bought hers. That’s about 5 kr a bite. And I used to think that 50 kr a litre was expensive.

According to media, frost nights in May killed a lot of strawberry blossoms, and the cold weather after that delayed the harvest. There just aren’t enough strawberries.

Ingrid shared a Tiktok video joking about strawberry prices. 35 kr in 2015, 70 kr in 2025, and then 700 kr in 2030 with “we can set up a loan for you with automatic wage garnishment for the next three months to pay for these”.

We overestimated how much people would eat at the party, by a factor of three for some bits, so now the fridge is stuffed with leftovers. My meals are sorted for the next several days, and I’ve got champagne for several New Years’ celebrations.

On the other hand, some platters were completely emptied. In the warm weather, strawberries and grapes disappeared quickly, and so did non-alcoholic cider.

Best snack (apart from devilled eggs): flatbread canapés with smoked salmon, cream cheese, apple and a touch of horseradish.

We celebrated the end of the school year – today for Adrian, tomorrow for Ingrid – with a dinner at Sushi Sukai. Both of them finish their years with excellent grades.

Sushi Sukai was also excellent, with interesting and delicious food. Everything from crab tacos to spicy fried popcorn shrimp, salmon tartar to tuna tataki.

National day cake by Ingrid.

The Monday after the kids leave for their week elsewhere, I always feel a bit empty. The Sunday evening just after they go, I’m breathing out and relaxing. But on the Monday I miss them a bit extra. It’s like a slight hangover.

When I’m alone in the house, I can feel a temptation to lower my standards. Is it really worth cooking a full meal if it’s just me eating? Setting the table and everything?

Yes. Yes it is. If my family deserves an appetizing meal nicely presented, then so do I. So what if the meal is just porridge? I wouldn’t dump the fruit on the table on a cutting board if I was serving this to Ingrid and Adrian; I can serve it in a nice bowl even if it is just for me.

(Mixed-grain porridge with orange zest, served with honey, sliced orange, chopped almonds and fresh mint.)

The many-hours hand-crafted pasha mould liner did its job well. Didn’t wrinkle or sag, drained well, and made the relief pattern stand out nicely.

The household needed buttery poppy seed rolls. After the bun fiasco I didn’t have high expectations but they came out absolutely perfect – fluffy and delicious. So there’s nothing wrong with my general ability to bake bread and buns.

Easter in Uppsala with my mum, as per tradition. She and the kids all like traditions and doing things the way they have always been done; makes me kind of restless to change something but I don’t really mind.

Herring and devilled eggs for lunch.

Pasha for dessert. We each have our own version, and while we all each both (because more pasha is always better) and like the other’s, we do think our own is just slightly better.

Lemon merengue pie after dinner.

And the painting of eggs, of course. Note which generation has been taught to straighten up and stop slouching, and which one hasn’t.

Ingrid, who’s the only one among us to regularly practise her craft, makes intricate little paintings.

Adrian focuses on fun designs. Body parts, and blue caterpillars.

My designs this year were inspired by the Desigual dress my mum was wearing, with black circular designs with eightfold symmetry.

It’s pasha season, but the cloth I used to line the pasha mould with went with Eric. (It was part of a juice strainer.) We can’t have Easter without pasha, so it is time to make a replacement.

Cordon Bleu, the kitchen goods store on Vasagatan, had not one but two kinds of muslin/cheesecloth. There is more of a market for this than I thought. I bought the smaller variety, 100% cotton, and my project for today was to sew a liner for the pasha mould.

It took forever. Literally hours and hours. It’s such a small thing – but that just means it has many small fiddly seams, and an awkward 3D shape. And all the seams needed to be enclosed, because we do not want bits of cotton thread in our food or between our teeth. And I must still be doing something wrong with my sewing machine because several times I did something that mucked up the tension on the bottom thread, and had to untangle it and re-do the seam.

But! Now I have a liner. I will be using it until the day that I die, to make it worth the effort. And then my children and my children’s children will be obliged use it until the end of their lives as well, until the cloth falls apart.

The pasha itself went much faster and easier.