Say Hello to 2007

(click on the image for the full size version) 

Eeek! Full frontal fridge shot!

Welcome back to my kitchen, boys and girls. This is a picture of my refrigerator. On this New Year’s Day in the bright shining new year of 2007, once again I’m back to babble on and on about stuff nobody ever heard of or cared about, all accompanied by stunning indoor photographs of Chez Tild (as I mentioned a couple of posts ago, I recently needed to finish off the remaining exposures on a disposable camera, so I took some pictures of my kitchen and family room. Wow; a historical document!)

So anyway, one day recently the spouse said to me : “All I want for Christmas is…”

Oh, ick. Fattigmand.
Among the 8 dozen cookies I brought home from the annual office Cookie Exchange this year were a dozen of the lethal Norwegian artery-cloggers known as fattigmand. As soon as the spouse tasted one he began begging and pleading with me to make a batch for him. He hadn’t had fattigmand in more than 30 years! His grandma used to make them! Oh please please please! It’s all I want for Christmas! Just this once willya willya willya huh huh huh?! …You get the idea.

OK, here begins the heresy: I may be Norwegian and I may live in Minnesota, but honestly, I have never had fattigmand in my entire life. My Norwegian Grandma Dallelie never made them as far as I know. My mother only made them once, and that was before I was born. I think that we as a family are just not particularly fond of food that’s deep fat fried. That’s not to say that nobody in my family on my mother’s side is overweight. On the contrary, quite a few of us are fat and always have been, but we got that way via a combination of genetics, sedentary habits and eating the standard late-20th century corn sweeteners-laden American diet, not by living entirely on hunks of white flour and refined sugar deep fried in lard.

Slightly OT: A couple of weeks ago I went in for my annual physical. As always, I had to fast for 12 hours beforehand for the fasting glucose levels blood test. When the lab results came back it was the boring same-old same-old: I’m fat (duh); I’m post-menopausal (double duh); my bad-cholesterol numbers are low (which is good); my good cholesterol numbers are high (which is also good); my fasting blood sugar numbers are rock-steady in the middle of the normal range. The only prescription I take is for mildly elevated blood pressure, and as my doc told me again this year, it wouldn’t take much in the way of additional exercise and dietary adjustment to get me to the point where I wouldn’t need that anymore.
Shorter version: I am a fat old woman, but I am a healthy fat old woman. Yay me!

Of course I can’t take all the credit for my inexplicably healthy fatness; my genes have a lot to do with that, but still I have to think it hasn’t hurt that deep fat fried foods tend to make me gag.

Which brings us back to fattigmand. I finally agreed to make a batch. This is the recipe I used:

Fattigmand

(for the Norse-illiterate: it’s pronounced “Fotty Monn”)

Means “Poor Man”. Technically these things are called Fattigmand Bakkelse or Poor Man’s Cookies.
Also known as Fattigmann, Fattigmandbakkelse, Futtiman, Fattigmanskakor and Poor Men, these are crispy delicate deep-fried cookies. A Fattigmand cutter may be used to cut these out but a knife or pastry wheel works just as well.

type: rolled
make: 4 dozen

3 egg yolks
3 tablespoons whipping cream
1 teaspoon brandy or vanilla
3 tablespoons granulated sugar
1-1/2 cups all-purpose flour
vegetable oil for deep-frying
powdered sugar

In a large bowl, beat eggs, whipping cream, and brandy or vanilla until blended.
Beat in sugar.
Gradually add flour, making a stiff dough.
On a lightly floured surface, roll out half of the dough, 1/16″ thick.
Cut dough into 4″ x 2″ diamonds.
Cut a slit, lengthwise, in center of each diamond.
Pull one end through the slit to make a “twist” or “bow” out of the dough.
Heat oil to 375°F in a deep pan.
Fry twists about 2 minutes on each side or until golden brown.
Drain on paper towel s.
When cool, dust with powdered sugar.

(Alright children, all together now : UFF DA!)

That’s a lotta grease. Never again. I don’t care how much begging and scraping and grovelling goes on, as god is my witness I’ll never make fattigmand again!

~