Someone’s in the Kitchen with Dinah

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I’m sure most of my readers remember that song, but as a blog title, it’s rather misleading. There is no Dinah here, but there’s lots of stuff about kitchens.

In our house, when the holidays show up, Thanksgiving and Christmas both, and because my mother, Evie, was 100% Swedish, so does lefse. (By the way, my full-of-business Mr. Auto-Correct, decided to turn lefse into leaves. Obviously my spell-checker isn’t Scandinavian.)

I mentioned lefse in last week’s blog. One readers indicated that he had found a recipe and was threatening to try making some on his own. I wish him the best of luck, but making lefse isn’t easy. If you’ve never tasted lefse, it generally resembles a flour tortilla, but it’s made from mashed potatoes instead of flour, and what comes off the hot griddle is supposed to be round.

During our last Christmas in Phoenix before moving to Seattle, I decided to make lefse for Lil Jul Aften, Little Christmas Eve, another of my mother’s Swedish customs, which is usually celebrated the Sunday before Christmas. Due to scheduling constraints it’s now easier for our family to do so the Sunday after Christmas rather than the one before. But hey, Lil Jul Aften is a moveable feast.

That year I told my daughter, who was in the second grade at the time, that I was keeping her home from school the next day to make lefse. “But, Mom,” she said. “You can’t keep me home from school to do that.” “Yes, I can,” I told her. “For decades Mexican moms have kept kids home from school to help them make tamales. This is the same thing.”

She stayed home. We made lefse. Lefse dough is very sticky. Rolling it out requires LOTS of flour, and most of the pieces we made that day weren’t round at all. They came closer to resembling droopy elephant ears, but they still tasted good. A day later, when my African American cleaning lady showed up, she looked at the fine dusting of flour on the Saltillo tile throughout our house, glanced at me in dismay, and asked, “What happened?” Turns out she’d never heard of lefse, either.

This year our lefse comes to us from lefse.com, aka Countryside Lefse, located in Blair, Wisconsin. I will NOT be making it on my own. At this point, it’s too much work, and I gave up my last lefse stick about twenty years ago.

And now for the other piece of this kitchen-centric blog update. My father was Danish. My mother was Swedish, so I’m 100% Scandinavian, and Scandinavians run on coffee. My folks had breakfast coffee, forenoon coffee at mid-morning, and afternoon coffee around three in the afternoon. I felt really grown up when, on the first day of school when I was in the 8th Grade, there was a coffee cup of my very own waiting at my place at the breakfast table.

I do not drink lattes. I do not drink mochas. I do not use cream and/or sugar. I drink coffee—plain and black. That’s the fuel I need to write books. I met my first coffee-bean-grinding coffee maker in an automobile garage waiting room sometime back in the nineties. It was very small and had to be refilled with water after three or four cups, so we looked around until we found my dream machine, a Delonghi Magnifica. It takes up a good deal of counter space because the tank is large enough to hold eight or so cups of water.

We bought our first Magnifica in the early 2000s and placed it on the counter of our house in Tucson. Then when we moved from a Seattle condo into a much larger home here in Bellevue, we needed a second coffee machine because hauling one back and forth between Tucson and Seattle just wasn’t feasible. Then when we had to give up our second home in Tucson, the second Magnifica ended up in storage in the garage at this end of the road.

My preferred coffee cup is a thermal metal mug that holds what the Magnifica considers two cups of coffee. The mug can be clicked closed, so the coffee remains at a comfortable drinking temperature for a long time. I usually work my way through four mugs over the course of a day—breakfast, mid-morning, early afternoon and late afternoon. I stop drinking around five-thirty in the evening, and there’s usually some coffee remaining in the bottom of the cup when it goes into the dishwasher.

A few years ago, Magnifica # 1 came back from Arizona and went to work here, while Magnifica # 2, the one originally based in Seattle, went into storage in the garage. A year or so later, Magnifica # 1 suffered a hiccup and quit working. To avert a caffeine-deprivation crisis, Magnifica # 2 came in from the garage and started grinding. It’s a lot noisier than the other one and sounds like a machine gun firing when it starts up. Then our go-to-guy had a bright idea. He took an air hose to Magnifica # 1 and blew out all the crud. Magically, it went back to work, and worked just fine until two weeks ago. Then it quit, seemingly like Grandfather’s clock—never to go again. This time the air-hose treatment didn’t do a bit of good.

So the Machine-gun-Kelly,Magnifica came out of the garage and back into the kitchen. Noisy, yes, but at least it gets the job done. Then one night it occurred to me that, since these coffee makers are relatively expensive, maybe there’s someone around here who fixes them. Sure enough a company called Bellevue Small Appliance Repair, now located in Redmond, magically filled the bill.

Our coffee machine situation is now fixed and for far less money than it would have taken to purchase a replacement. The quiet one is back on the kitchen counter while the noisy one is once again relegated to a shelf in the garage. It turns out not only is Magnifica # 1 quiet, it’s also something of an undercover spy. According to the repairman, there’s a cup-counter inside. Over the course of the last twenty-five years, it’s made more than 10,000 cups of coffee, most of them consumed by yours truly.

And even though purchasing a new Delonghi Magnifica may seem like an enormous investment, I can tell you for sure that I’ve saved a ton of money by drinking my freshly ground coffee at home rather than visiting one of our neighborhood coffee stands.

I’m just not buying what they’re selling!

Happy Thanksgiving one day late.

32 thoughts on “Someone’s in the Kitchen with Dinah”

  1. Thank you, Judy, for this blog! I could almost hear the Magnifica # 1 grinding, and taste the lefse. 10,000 cups, eh? One day’s steps equals a cup a day! Keep drinking and walking!

  2. You are a girl after my own heart. I too drink coffee. Lots of it–as an ER physician I made so many pots of coffee, poured so many cups—sometimes as a means of taking some time to think about a problem, sometimes to keep awake.
    I drink mine black. I see no reason to spoil it with creamers or sweeteners although I do have my own honey. I think it should come when I call it, and a spoon stand up in it.
    I grind coffee beans each morning for that day’s offering. There are few things more satisfying than a fresh cup of coffee—maybe yeast bread from the oven–but then you would need coffee to go with it/.

    • I’m a Scandinavian too. We’ve made lefse (yum yum) every year for more than 50 years. Every year, my girls and I have “baking extravaganza day “. This year my younger daughter found a contraption made out of cast-iron that is used for making tortillas. She decided that lefse was a potato tortilla so it should work. So we’re gonna try it this year. So instead of using a rolling pin to roll out the dough we will just roll the dough into a ball and put it in this contraption and hopefully they’ll come out circular instead of who knows what. That will cut out a lot of the work. We’ll see how it works. Looking forward to it.

  6. You just make my day when I read your blog….it’s like I’m there with you! I think I need to haul out my expesso machine, my coffee grinder, and a great mug. I’m so lazy that I have just been using my Keurig, but it’s nothing like fresh ground beans. I have lived in Bellevue, and now live in Yuma so I enjoy all of your characters! Happy Holidays. Helen Tennent

  7. I have to admit I’ve never had lefse. I had plenty of potato pancakes when I was just a kid but they are probably not that similar.
    And, oh my, that’s an impressive amount of coffee, Judith. Reminds me of some of the navy guys I served with. If there was a Chief Petty Officer around, there was certain to be a coffee cup in his hand. I have an Ember cup for my hot chocolate. I can change the temperature as I want and it stays there till I change it again.
    Thanks for today’s blog, Judith. I’ll be the first to admit I’m a Fb (Friday blog) junkie and a DT reader. Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday and I wish the very best to you and Bill and everyone else in this wonderful country of ours.

  8. Hi Judith,
    I’m too 100% Scandinavian , only Icelandic. My mother also made dark black coffee that brewed all day long.
    Enjoyed this story always fun to hear folks daily life tails.
    Ever think to take Magnifica #2 to the repair shop and have him fixed so he isn’t so loud? Just an idea.
    Can’t wait for the next JP novel.
    Long time fan

  9. Your espresso maker is on black friday sale on Amazon for $999.
    Gasp. It’s an espresso maker not a coffee maker. We have a Cuisinart grind and brew that makes 12 cups. I think it sells for about $250. My husband will consume all of the cups everyday.

    • When we bought it twenty years ago, I believe it was under five hundred. Magnifica number two was over.

  10. I’m pretty sure that coffee maker is out of my price range. But I do share your love for ground bean coffee. I would love to have a fresh ground cup (or two) in the morning. I cut myself off at Noon so I can get to sleep at night (which has been a struggle – another story indeed). I make a 12-cup pot in my trusty old automatic coffee maker every few days and just reheat the other cups. I too have a 2-cup insulated mug which keeps the coffee nice. Caffeine is my last vice, I will not give it up. And I share your love for my coffee black. Which is surprising given my having spent 4 years in the Marines where their field coffee is brutal.
    I hope you and everyone had a great Thanksgiving. As we begin our countdown to the rest of the Holiday Season.

  11. A couple of years ago,my oldest daughter and my sister and her best childhood friend got together to make lefse. We all have some Norwegian Swedish heritage. I can remember many many years ago, my Norwegian grandmother making lefse on a wood burning stove. She made it look easy. (Guess it was all the years spent doing it) Anyway, we did Not have all that experience, so it was downright Hard! And the results much less than perfect. But it was a truly memorable time for us. And you mentioned the lefse stick. My sister’s friend brought along her cherished lefse stick she inherited from her mother. Great lefse memories!

  12. Sorry today’s blog was late in posting. Somehow actually being in the kitchen and cooking Thanksgiving dinner isn’t compatible with my IT Gal’s tech skills. Happy Thanksgiving wishes a day late and a dollar short.

    • Son did cooking and we decided to make the day a picnic, imagine the original dinner was a picnic too.
      Hope everyones day was about LOVE and filling the hungry.

  13. The old saying, “Better late than never” applies here I think. I was thinking you were out shopping for Black Friday deals. LOL
    I hope your Thanksgiving was great!

  14. Norwegian Dane with Scots Irish thrown in for a little extra spice here. Lefse – a wonderful treat hopefully at least once a year – taught by years of making it with my Norwegian mother. It’s a production but worth the time and trouble. Behind time this year so maybe by New Year’s Day.

  15. I hope you had a nice Thanksgiving, J.A. My wife and I are with my oldest son, his wife, and our grandson.

  16. Over the last nine weeks I listened to each of your series, in order. I’ve read through the Joanna Brady series at least ten times, before then reading the newest book, but this was the first time for JP and for Ali, and only the second time for most of the Walker Family series.
    I spoke to you in Tucson a few years ago and claimed you were why I moved to Cochise County. Perhaps it is fairer to say Joanna Brady is why I moved here.
    What amazes me about locale is how many we have in common. I only lived in Seattle 3 years, but have had family from Olympia to Edmunds, and friends from Belllingham for six decades. I’ve also lived from Snoqualmie Pass to Ellensburg.
    So many of the places you write about take me right there!
    I deeply appreciate the work you have done, and the sensitivity you show for the victims as well as the difficulty for first responders and the families of all of the above.
    Your check ins about 10000 steps a day are inspiring, and I appreciate the blog explaining why you started.
    Keep on writing and walking!

    • All the books in order in each series in nine weeks? That’s impressive. I’ve never done that. I only know the books the way I’ve written them—one at a time over the course of more than forty years. I’m sure you discovered a few dropped stitches here and there. But thank you for being such a devoted reader!

      • Yes, listening allowed me to complete many tasks, and also to notice the contradictions between books.
        Joanna started at 5’2”, shrank to 5’1” and grew to 5’4”. Of course most readers don’t notice, and it doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things.
        I think you need a Beta reader who knows all your books and threads well, or someone who could use AI to pull together the “facts” from each series. (I would be honored to be a Beta reader, and have no clue how to achieve that goal with AI.)

        • If a 3″ height change is the only edit you found after a marathon reading sess of 40 years of J. A. Jance’s writing, I think she doesn’t need any beta readers or AI. She’s hitting on all cylinders without them. Too bad you didn’t notice all the things she’s kept consistent across her entire career…

  17. What fun to read about your coffee adventures! I, too, come from a coffee-drinking family. At the age of 16, my uncle asked my cousin and me to remain at the dining room table after dinner. Uh-Oh, I thought, what had we 16-year-olds done now? Turns out, my uncle shared with us that we were now old enough to drink coffee, but if we were going to drink coffee-we were not to put anything in the mug but coffee! Some 60 years later, I am still drinking it that way-just coffee! Thanks for my chance to reminisce, my uncle is long gone, but missed.

  19. And this right here, folks, is why J.A. Jance is a best-selling author. Even her coffee pot holds an intriguing story! The plot twist at the end regarding the secret presence of a (10,000!) cup-counter is the spin on the ending only a gifted detective/mystery writer could tell.

  20. We had a three-generation Thanksgiving gathering with my sister, her daughter my niece, and my grandniece..
    I tried to send you “Java Jive,” a video from Manhattan Transfer, a favorite group. I guess WordPress doesn’t like URLs. I’m as big a tea drinker as you are a coffee drinker.

  21. What an enjoyable blog. Traditional recipes and food are what make the holidays so special. In our family (Irish Father, Irish/German Mother) it’s Gramma’s Date Nut Bread (baked in cans) always around for the holidays and her stuffing recipe at Thanksgiving. After my Mom passed away the stuffing fell to me as I had been co-making it with her for years. Most years I get it right. I am not the baker my Mom was. Along with the above mentioned recipes, her chocolate frosting is legendary as well as her German Spritz Cookies. I tried making the date bread with my Daughter and Niece the first year after she left us. It was fun but the end result lacked something and my kitchen looked like a scene out of I Love Lucy.
    I finished the Girl from Devils Lake in 4 days and loved every page. I didn’t realize how much I’d missed the Brady’s and Bisbee. Thank you for another wonderful read. I hope your Thanksgiving day was as special as you are.

  22. Evie, my mother, used to make date nut bread, and she, too, made it in cans. I’ve never tried it, but until you mentioned it, I didn’t remember how much I miss it.

  23. I also demand black coffee, no frills, but it has to be dark roast. I also stick to organic & fair trade as much as possible, since I am one of those snowflakes. I make it by the drip method. I cannot have any after 11:30 am or I stay awake until about 4 am; since I am not an author, 4 am is not a desirable time to fall asleep. The doggos want breakfast no later than 9:15 real time and start fussing loudly right outside my bedroom door because they know where I sleep. Newfies are really loud fussers.

  24. This week I didn’t read your blog Friday morning as soon as I woke up as I didn’t get home until late Saturday night, but read it at midnight when I got in.

    As close as I can relate to lefse is potato latkes [also hard to make], and I like a little coffee in my cream, but boy, do I love reading [and have] everything by J.A. Jance.

    Next year, lentil soup. Hope your Thanksgiving was wonderful.

    Blessing to you and Bill.

  25. Your Friday Blogs are such a joy, or just plain refreshing….I too, love to have things fixed rather than throwing away and buying new ones. 10 years ago I bought the most beautiful fake Christmas tree I have ever had. I scoped them out before Christmas at Furney’s Nursery in De Moines. Instead of $700.00 I got it the day after Christmas for $70.00 and it’s a beauty with tiny pinecones here and there. The last five years, my husband and I have a system to fix the branches where the lights are out, due to one dead light. It is such a joy every year to find that one, put a new one in. We love our beautiful Christmas tree!

  26. Uff da. From a Swede. (I know, I know)

    In Nebraska we used to tell Polish jokes. Moved to Montana; same jokes now North Dakota jokes.

    Now we’re woke and socially and politically correct. Are those jokes just going to disappear from our society?? We must maintain our culture and mores! Who to replace as those admired by those jokes?

    A conundrum. Please help.

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