Bunden i vejret eller resten i håret**

Holy smokes did I knock out some recipes over the weekend. Good thing, because I am not cooking at all for the rest of this week. At aaaaaaall. Seriously. I made Dan make the toast this morning.

BA#38: Seared short-rib tacos with BA#39 Quick pickled onions. After several beef dishes this summer, I finally got around to filling out page four of my Self-Discovery Journal: "I am terrible at cooking beef." I guess I can't blame BA for that exactly, but they did nothing to remedy the situation. So these were kind of chewy and blah-tasting.

I'm sorry to do you this way, cow.

Fortunately I am very good at cooking salsa, as evidenced by BA#40 Toasted guajillo chile salsa.

Thus concludes the Tacos! Tacos! Tacos! section of the magazine. I'm sad to see it go. I mean, I realize that I could always repeat the recipes that I liked, but I feel like the chances of me recreating anything from this issue in the future are slim, don't you?

Anna, sensing that I needed a little extra support this week, made a temporary headwear switch.

Solidarity.

Okay, here we go. *Cracks knuckles.* "How to throw a wildly hip Scandinavian sandwich party." Oh, dear. I'll shorthand it for you: gather as much fish and dill as your table will hold. Find some liquor that tastes like rye bread that has gone bad and dissolved into liquid. Sucker some folks into coming over. Party!

BA#s 41-43: New potatoes with dill butter, carrot and yogurt sauce, shrimp and cucumber salad with horseradish mayo. I...liked the potatoes. And I like the idea of having open-faced sandwiches and coffee all day long. (I think I read about that in a book once?) Especially when hard-boiled eggs are a topping option. But the overall effect was quite...fishy. And mayonnaisey. Look, it's easy to be judgmental when you still have a mostly-full jar of pickled herring making you feel queasy every time you open your refrigerator, but I think it's important to note that Denmark is in that area of the world where the sun is up for 18 hours in the summer and like 4 hours in the winter and that's bound to make people a little bit crazy.

Of course there was no recipe for a traditional Danish dessert, which I can only imagine as some delightful combination of lingonberries and caraway seeds with dill sprinkled on top. Fortunately for my guests, I instead returned to the Unnecessarily Messing With Ice Cream section and threw together a BA#44 Peach-blueberry ice cream pie.

No complaints, although it amuses me that there is crystalized ginger on top because obviously ice cream is NOT for children, you guys.

And, ah yes, BA#45: Aquavit spritzers. Like I mentioned above, aquavit has a strange and unpleasant flavor that will not be taken down by lingonberry preserves or cranberry juice or even, I imagine, the marinade from the herring jar. Apparently "tradition" dictates drinking it very cold and very quickly because "tradition" probably noticed how disgusting it is. It is also "popularly quipped that the akavit helps the fish swim down to the stomach," which is the grossest thing I have ever heard.

Yeesh.

Plus side: if you can get enough of it down, it can really help you step up your interpretive dance game.

Some things are just worth a bit of sacrifice.

I really do want to thank everyone who came over and threw themselves on this dill grenade for me, and I understand if you will be declining all future dinner invitations. I actually also want to thank Bon Appetit for making me throw a party, even if it was a pretty ridiculous wildly hip one. Even the children enjoyed themselves, probably because I made them a stack of PB&Js. I noticed that Anna can't resist a man who knows his way around an airplane.

Especially when he is also rocking a robot muscle shirt.

And Ivy...seems a little more anxious than Scarlett to get on board the BEST FRIENDS train.

She'll come around.

**This translates to "Bottoms up or the rest in your hair," which is kind of abusive and delightful.