Hello there ~ long time no see. ;-) Today I picked a half shady, half sunny, place for our picnic spot. Throw down your blanket (which, by the way, is not the same as throwing down your towel - hehe!), rest for a while, and allow your senses to fully take in your surroundings.
My last post was written last night, when I was having myself a glass of Muscadet. I was posting it this morning, due to me trying to figure out the photo attachment thingy, but that is not when I was drinking my Muscadet. Just sayin'... ;-)
My father, "morfar" to my girls, called this morning. Morfar means maternal grandfather in Swedish. He got me thinking of "fika" today when he mentioned that he was sitting on his balcony and drinking his afternoon coffee and eating coffeecake (vetebröd in Swedish) in the sun with his wife. He was also looking forward to having "fika" with us later on in August, which is not surprisingly my girls' favorite thing to do with morfar when they are in Sweden. They do not get served coffee, however, on the balcony when they have "fika", but "saft och bullar" (saft is kind of like juice concentrate diluted with water and bullar are delicious Swedish sweet buns). When I told the kids that morfar was looking forward to fika with his little girls, they immediately gave loud cheers and wanted to fika right away. As I am unprepared for fika and have no fika stuffs in my house I suggested that we have a picnic fika (surprise!) in the park instead with cherries, carrots and cheese sandwiches, which is as far away from saft och bullar as you can come. (Carrots, mom. Really?) Poor kids... ;-)
"What is this fika you speak of?"
Well, it is a distinctly Scandi thing. I'd go so far as to say it is a distinctly Swedish thing. I am actually not sure if the Norwegians and the Danes do fika - or they do it, but don't have a name for it? You could translate it to "having coffee" with someone, but that doesn't quite do it. Yes, fika is a social activity and you often drink coffee during your fika, but yet it is something else as well. My older daughter suggested to compare it with English "afternoon tea time", and that is also an astute comparison as fika is a "thing" you do, an event, a way to slow down and enjoy yourself for a moment. But fika does not have the same ritualistic element as the English afternooon tea, and fika is not limited to a certain time of day. You can have morning fika and evening fika, and everything in between fika.
You can fika at home with friends, you can fika at a "konditori" (bakery, for lack of a better word), or a coffee shop. You can also have a fika picnic. People have "fika paus" or "fika rast" at their work. It's built in to the psyche of the Swede. It is a state of mind as well as an activity. Fika is when you take time out with friends or coworkers to enjoy a moment, before you go back in to the grind. And yes, it typically involves a whole lotta coffee, as Swedes drink an almost insane amount daily. They drink it like others drink water.
So we managed to have an midday fika picnic today (which lasted over two hours while the kids were also biking in the park), in preparation of the time we will have with morfar and our family when we go to Sweden.
My neighbor Linda (also a transplanted Swede in Brooklyn) told me she wrote a paper on the topic of the Swedish fika in her anthropology class a few years back. I'd like to read that paper!
Thanks for stopping by for a fika on my picnic spot today. It was nice to see you. Don't forget to take some time out and enjoy the moment, enjoy the day and the people around you.
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