Webb Family Blog

Ever since our trip to Solvang, I’ve been looking forward to making æbelskivers here at the house. This weekend, Terri & Rachel came down, followed by Patrick. This morning, I decided to try making some for the first time. I did a bit of searching for the right recipe, as there are many out there, and I finally found one that looked just right for me to try.

RECIPE INGREDIENTS

2 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 tablespoon ground cardamom

¹⁄₂ teaspoon salt

²⁄₃ cup sugar

3 large eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 cups buttermilk

butter (for frying)

Powdered sugar

Raspberry preserves

DIRECTIONS

Preheat cast-iron æbleskiver pan over medium-low heat. Whisk flour, baking powder, baking soda, cardamom and salt into medium bowl to blend. Using electric hand-held mixer, beat sugar, egg yolks and vanilla in large bowl until light. Mix in dry ingredients alternately with buttermilk, beginning and ending with dry ingredients.

Using clean dry beater, beat egg whites in clean medium bowl until firm peaks form. Fold egg whites into batter. Working in batches, melt small amount of butter in each pan indentation. Using 2 tablespoons batter for each, fill pan indentations. Cook until sides are set and golden brown, about 3 minutes. Using wooden skewer, carefully turn æbleskivers over. Bake until bottom is golden brown, about 2 minutes.

(Recipe from Cooking.com)

I started off making the batter by myself, but Kellie came in and helped. As Kellie started working on beating the egg whites, I went outside to start heating up the æbelskiver pan. One problem I have with our stove top is that the lowest flame I can get is too hot for the job. The knob allows me to have a smaller flame, but unfortunately the flame goes out. Since my barbeque has a side-stove, which allows for a small flame, I set it up out there. Once Kellie was finished with the batter, I started the cooking process. I started off with the pan a bit too hot and not enough batter per cup. My second batch I put too much batter in each cup and it was again too hot. The third, fourth and final batches got increasingly better. I popped a few æbelskivers directly in my mouth after cooking (quality control), and Katie and Terri started having theirs from the earlier batches. I did not have raspberry preserves, but I did have some lingonberry jam. After the last of the æbelskivers were finished cooking, I plated some for Kellie, Patrick and myself from the last two batches. Everyone enjoyed this treat. I don’t recall ever having the spice cardamom before, but it really made them much better. It would be tough to have a better tasting breakfast from a restaurant. As I’m writing this, Patrick tells me that the sign of a good meal is when after eating, you burp and it still tastes good. We will definitely need to try this again.

My grandmother, Evelyn Alverna Sturm Christiansen, was born on Friday, May 24, 1912 in Sacramento, CA. On Sunday, May 24, 2009, my Uncle David Christiansen hosted a 97^th birthday party for her at his home in Modesto. Unfortunately, neither Kellie or I could attend, but my father has created a PowerPoint presentation of attendees and their comments to grandma. You may view or download it below.

Download as a Microsoft PowerPoint 2007 file or as an older Microsoft PowerPoint 2003 or earlier file format.

I was off of work yesterday and Kellie made a change in her schedule, giving her yesterday off as well. We had talked about going up to Angwin and Lake Berryessa on a weekday we had off, so we decided to go yesterday. As we were preparing to go, I got this crazy idea of taking Bear with us. We have not taken him on any long trip, so this was bound to be an adventure. Bear was so excited to go somewhere. He wouldn’t sit still all the way to Napa. When we arrived in Napa, we stopped by Kennedy Park, the site of our wedding on July 10, 2005. After a little stroll through the park, we headed on up to Angwin. We first stopped at the College Market. I wanted to get a case of Loma Linda Big Franks and Linketts, their prices are cheaper than most places I can find these products due to volume of sales. We also bought some sandwiches and ate lunch at the market.

After eating, I drove over to the fire house… just to see if anyone on the slightest chance was there, but unfortunately for me, there wasn’t anyone there. We then continued out to Las Posades Road. At the big bend in the road, we parked and got out to hike in PUC’s “Back 40″ (much more than 40 acres!). It had been quite a long time since I’d been out in the college’s forestland, so we made a couple wrong turns before finally choosing the correct path. After walking a ways with Bear on the leash, he seemed as though he was getting impatient with us. He wanted to run and smell all there was along the way and we were going too slow for him and the leash limited his movements. I took a chance and took him off the leash. Thankfully, Bear made us proud. He kept fairly close to us and always came back when we called. When we arrived to Inspiration Point, we put the leash back on for just a bit, as he was interested in checking out the edge of the cliff a little too much. Once we left that area, I took the leash off again. We continued our hike until we got to Redwood Flats Camp, a dilapidated camp for the Howell Mountain Pathfinder Club. They have a spring there, where Bear got plenty of water to drink. The hike back to the car was tiring, but we felt like we had accomplished something. Bear seemed to have a lot of fun on the hike and was behaving himself nicely. Kellie and I were both pleasantly surprised. All along our hike, we saw many pretty plants, including the local favorite, Diogenes Lantern. As Kellie and I both had muscle and joint aches and we had not brought ibuprofen with us, we returned to the College Market for some pain medication. Prior to leaving, I ran into Lois Sherman, a good friend of my mother. We talked a short bit before taking off.

By this time, it was about 4:45 PM and we headed out to Lake Berryessa. We drove to Oak Shores, a day-park along the western shores of the lake. We went to my favorite spot, Acorn Beach. Unfortunately, the water is at least 10 feet lower than normal… lower than I’ve ever seen before. We had to hike a ways to the water’s edge. Once we got there, I went in the water. Bear tried a little swimming too, but it kind of scared him too. We left the lake around 6:30 PM. All-in-all, it was a great day for both Kellie and I, as well as our dog Bear.

Well, all good things unfortunately must come to an end. We woke up Sunday morning to sun brightly illuminating our hotel room at 7 AM, despite the curtains drawn tightly. I was wanting more æbleskivers, so we returned to Arne’s Famous Æbleskiver for breakfast. We have also returned home with a cast iron æbleskiver pan, recipes and instructions to make these at home. For those that may not understand this treat, it is kind of like pancakes, only a 3D pancake in the shape of a ball, instead of the 2D flat pancake. The pan has large dimples where you deposit the batter. As the batter hardens against the hot cup, you take a skewer stick and rotate the cooking batter a bit… the uncooked batter will now spill onto the cup surface and harden itself. This is done until a ball is created. With the leavening agent in the batter, essentially the whole ball may become solid. One can do some cool tricks, such as put a dollop of jam inside the ball before it is finished. Anyway, I am looking forward to experimenting with a food-style of my ancient ancestry (my great-grandfather, Frederik Christiansen, was born in Haldagermagle… Sjælland region of Denmark.)

After breakfast, we loaded up the car. We left Solvang around 9:15 AM. I was debating which route I wished to take home. I ultimately decided to get out to Interstate 5, where I could maintain a higher speed… to get home earlier. We took Highway 101 to Paso Robles, then headed east on Highway 46. As an interesting historical note, we made a turn onto Highway 41 at the infamous James Dean Memorial Intersection, the spot where James Dean crashed and died. We made a few pit-stops to exchange fluids, including a stop at the other Andersen’s Pea Soup in Santa Nella. I found it interesting that prices are not the same between Santa Nella and Buellton… Santa Nella is marginally cheaper. The Traveler’s Special in Buellton was $8.95 (I believe) while in Santa Nella, it was $8.50. If you wished to have add-ins, the add-ins in Buellton were $2.50, while in Santa Nella they were $1.95. Another difference is the bread… Buellton had both rye and pumpernickel, while Santa Nella had one type, poppy seed & onion rolls. Both were equally as good, just slightly different.

We finally made it home a little before 4 PM. It was HOT in Roseville, it was over 100° upon return. We turned the air conditioning to a cooler temperature immediately. Bear was happy to see us again.

Day 3

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After our evening tour of Hearst Castle, Kellie and I were exhausted. I started a fire in the fireplace, but quickly fell asleep once getting in bed. We woke to a beautiful morning. There were several people stand-up paddle surfing out in the water outside our hotel room. After a nice breakfast, we headed off for Solvang. The drive was fairly nice. We passed an accident, thankfully in the opposite direction on Highway 101 in Pismo Beach, which had traffic stopped back for at least five miles, but it was all smooth-sailing for us. We arrived in Solvang around noon. It was fairly hot in Solvang… it was around 95°F. Kellie and I walked around the town. I had some æbleskivers with raspberry jam and powdered sugar ala mode from Arne’s Famous Æbleskiver. We then got too hot and returned to the WorldMark Resort, where Kellie took a nap. We finally left the resort for dinner around 8PM, but alas, Solvang is closed by this time. It was a much more comfortable mid-70’s out at this time though. We drove over to Buellton and had the famous Traveler’s Special at Andersen’s Pea Soup. For those that have never been to an Andersen’s, the Traveler’s Special is all you can eat split pea soup, bread and drink. This really hit the spot.

Day 2

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Today has been a great day. Granted, I didn’t get to sleep until after 3 AM this morning, but once I was up, around 9:00 AM or so, we got going. It was very foggy in both the Watsonville and Monterey areas. We had breakfast at the Beach Street Diner… a greasy spoon down the street from our hotel; it was a good breakfast. We then headed off for Monterey. We parked near Cannery Row and perused through several shops. It was cold, misty and windy, so Kellie and I bought a couple sweaters, which was nice. We took a few pictures. After a couple hours, we got back in the car and drove along Ocean View Boulavard through Pacific Grove. We then took the trip along the 17-Mile Drive… through Pebble Beach. Once we reached Carmel, we got back on Highway 1 and headed south.

Weather varied between fairly calm to very strong winds and from misty fog to bright hot sun. It was, as expected, a very beautiful drive. There was a little road construction for a small bit, but it did not delay us too much… may 10 minutes or so. A portion of roadway was repaved, but was just finished as we drove past. It was warm and sunny in Big Sur, but once coming back down to the ocean, it cooled off again. Just before we arrived to San Simeon, we stopped at the Piedras Blancas Northern Elephant Seal rookery, to see the sun-bathing elephant seals. We then proceeded into town and checked into our hotel.

The Best Western Cavalier Oceanfront Resort is a VERY nice place to stay. We have our own private patio with chairs, overlooking the ocean. We also have our own wood-burning fireplace in the room. We are only planning on staying one night, but Kellie was (jokingly) asking if we had to only spend one night here. After check-in, we went out for dinner at the El Chorlito Mexican Restaurant near the hotel.

We will be taking a tour of Hearst Castle soon.

Many things have happened since finishing school. After working for American Medical Response full-time since August 2005, I dropped to part-time at the end of April. In addition to this, I have taken on a new part-time job with Sutter Auburn Faith Hospital in their emergency department. I am also a contract instructor for VeriHealth-REACH Training Institute, teaching Basic Life Support (BLS; also known as CPR), Advanced Cardiac Life Support (ACLS) and Pediatric Advanced Life Support (PALS). For the month of May, I have been very busy with orientation at Sutter Auburn Faith… the newest of my jobs.

While I could go on about things that have happened since finishing school, I’m happy to say that Kellie and I are on a mini-vacation right now. We left our house around 4:30 PM today… just to get away and get started earlier on our journey. We just checked into the Red Roof Inn in Watsonville, CA. Our plan is to take a leisurely drive down California Highway 1, the Cabrillo Highway, down to San Simeon tomorrow. We plan on paying a visit to Hearst Castle. Tomorrow night we will be staying at the Best Western Cavalier Oceanfront Resort in San Simeon.

Day 1

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This first part of the trip should be very beautiful. We plan to take our time and take in the sights.