“Sometimes you will never know the value of a moment, until it becomes a memory.”
– Dr. Seuss
May is a beautiful month — the gateway to summer, when we celebrate warmth and blooming flowers. And May often creates fond memories.
In October 2006, we moved to New Jersey to start a new chapter. We ended up in a cozy cottage surrounded by woods, with a large yard and a clothesline. I was in love. It was perfect and private.
The following May was beautiful, and everything was green and in bloom. If I close my eyes, I can still see her standing on the lawn as I peered through the wooden screen door: a beautiful deer. She had a stoic demeanor and didn’t move an inch from her spot under the French lilac that was in full bloom outside our front door.
I carefully went outside with a cut-up apple and offered it to her. She ate it and allowed me to pet her. After a few minutes she walked away, but she came back every morning and evening for a treat. She was just stunning. When I was gardening, she would come by and hang out with me while I weeded.
The next month, she came by at sunset one evening and walked behind a large pine tree near the cottage. After a few minutes she emerged and started walking toward the woods. Behind her was a baby fawn, its legs so new that it kept stumbling and falling. She kept going forward and the little guy struggled to keep up. The two of them soon disappeared.
She returned in a few days, baby at her side, for her goodies. We were sometimes able to watch the baby nurse while the mother ate her fruit. Every year she would introduce her fawns to us, and sometimes she would return in the spring with twins. It was simply amazing. We felt blessed to have made such a friend.
After many adventures, our excursion ended and we returned to our home in Maine in 2017. The following year, I started volunteering for Harpswell Aging at Home. The feeling of coming home and giving back to the community was, and still is, rewarding. Many others agree, as Harpswell Aging at Home now has a lot of moving parts and hundreds of helpers to make them work. One of those volunteers is Rhonda Clark.
Rhonda was born in Minnesota and raised her family in Iowa. She and her husband moved to Harpswell in 2019 to be closer to their children, who are both out of college and working in Philadelphia. She has been a real estate agent for 27 years and she volunteers tirelessly for various organizations within the community.
Rhonda is a member of Cooking at 43° North. She is a fabulous baker and an outstanding cook, and she loves to make meals for HAH. May is the perfect month for her recipe, as her family is 100% Norwegian and May 17 is Syttende Mai, Norway’s independence day.
This recipe makes a cake-like cookie that is not terribly sweet and pairs well with coffee. Rhonda says the cookies are best with very strong Norwegian coffee!
Norwegian kringla
Ingredients:
- 1/2 cup butter, melted
- 1 cup sugar
- 1 egg
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1 cup buttermilk or eggnog
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 3 cups flour
Directions:
Cream together the melted butter and sugar, then add the remaining ingredients. Mix and chill dough thoroughly. (I covered the dough and chilled it overnight.)
On a floured surface, roll walnut-sized balls into ropes and shape into small pretzel or figure-8 shapes.
Bake at 350-375 degrees on parchment paper for 9-10 minutes, depending on your oven temperature, until light brown. I baked mine at 360 degrees for 10 minutes and they turned out perfectly.
Rhonda is right. Kringla truly is delicious with your morning cup of coffee. Enjoy!
Harpswell Aging at Home always needs cooks for its Meals in a Pinch program, which provides nutritious meals to older adults in need. For more information, contact Julie Moulton at 207-330-5416 or juliemoulton28@gmail.com.
