Lobster love

We are only 7 days into the new year, and it has already passed, the most wonderful day of the year!

It all started with my friend Mats knowing of this lobster soup that needed one day to cook, way too long time for being only a single family thing. This soup needed company! This was back in 1994 when Mats and I were both working at Sveriges Radio, The Swedish National Radio, and my reply was: “Well, if you’ve got the soup I will get the company!”

That’s how it all began. And we had no idea we started a tradition that would be one of the most cherished. Christmas in Sweden is a two-week thing, and we picked a day that’s a little bit forgotten, the twelfth evening after Christmas, Trettondagsafton. We made it a very special evening, and that’s how Hummerklubben (The Lobster Club) was born.

Eight people is a good number at the table, and so I gathered eight people who I liked a lot and whom I thought would have a good time together. Some knew each other, some didn’t, and I was the only one who new them all. It was a very interesting way to make a party, and it worked out wonderfully!

So did the lobster soup! There is no way I can describe this soup, express the sensation of it. Let’s just say it’s so delicious it makes us speechless and it is still the lead character in the story of this evening, the story of Hummerklubben.

1995 was our first Trettondagsafton’s dinner. And as soup normally is a starter we needed an entrée and a desert too. So we threw in something that would work. Because the starter was the main thing.

And it still is! Although, over the years the menu has turned more ambitious, and the entrée is now an important part of the evening too, I think Maria B's ecological lamb made a benchmark on that subject some years ago. Also the wine for the different dishes has changed from “we need both white and red” to more or less a contest between wineries, grapes and vintage as the very same Maria is also a cupbearer (I‘m not quite sure about the vocabulary here), and the main part of the Lobster Club are connoisseurs when it comes to wine.

So, what’s on the table Trettondagsafton is a big thing. But who is around the table is as important as the lobster soup. The Lobster Club has come to be a tight knit group of dear friends who only meet once a year in that specific setting. Life can be a bumpy and winding road, a ride where we suddenly find ourselves dropped off at stops we didn’t know of. And sometimes it feels like we didn’t even buy the ticket to this journey ourselves. But whatever happens, every Trettondagsafton we are gathered around a beautifully set table in a cozy home escaping the late Christmas cold outside. Sharing our stories, having neither to way thoughts nor measure words, knowing that we are completely safe together. 

For me, Trettondagsafton is truly the happiest day of the year. A lot of difficult life changes has happened right at Christmas time and made the Holidays something I have come to dread instead of looking forward to. Some years I have been dragging myself through those weeks, minute by minute by the light of Trettondagsafton at the end of the tunnel. Finally in the arms of a friendly lobster, out of harm’s way.

It is Monday today, and my body is still filled with energy; warm and calm after Saturday, the 2013 gathering of Hummerklubben. Through those life changes our group has been smaller for quite some time, but this year we were enriched by people who were new to our little community. We got to know each other over Mats’ soup (was it the most delicious ever?), the tasty meet from the moose that Boa shot during the hunt (possibly the best entrée this far?), and the exquisite 3 piece dessert symphony that Agneta composed for us (I think 2013 will mark when stopped just throwing in a dessert, from now on that one has to be absolutely fantastic too).

My yellow kitchen got to be the host this year, and it was filled with pots and pans, dressed up men and women, stories, laughter, thoughtful silence, curiosity, interesting discussions and through it all a warmth that’s very rare and special. For a Swede the word love is a big word. It’s a word we use with great care. But I would say what’s happening around that table, over that soup, is love. Year after year. And I am so grateful. And I can’t wait for it to happen again.