Each year the Smiths get together in December and make a whole lotta lefse before Christmas. It's the ultimate in family time, with amazing pot luck food, and a healthy complement of beer & wine! The family on the BC coast has grown to the point where they rent out a community hall in order to include everyone in the extended family. Those of us in Alberta can easily still fit in a home, and we have extended our reach to part of my husband Doug's family, as they are also Scandinavian and make lefse as a Christmas tradition.
An earlier blog post about our Calgary lefse experience with the Skavberg family can be found in the archive of this blog (on the right sidebar) from December, 2011.
I remember going to visit my Grandma Smith when I was a young adult, and feeling so relaxed and at ease with her. She always seemed to be baking or cooking, while we chatted, and it seemed I had not a care in the world when I went to visit her. One time I asked her about her lefse recipe, as my dad and his brothers always raved about how she made the best lefse ever. Although everyone tried to duplicate it, apparently they could never get it quite as good as hers. She claimed it was partly because she made it on an old wood stove "in the day," and now we all used electric pans that did not get as hot. Perhaps that was part of it, but I think she simply had a good feel for the dough, and had a knack for just how much flour should be mixed in.
How lovely to have that original scrap of paper! I'm sure you are right about your Grandma having 'a knack for just how much flour should be mixed in'. My Mum was a great cook, and sometimes when I asked her 'How much of Ingredient.X do I add?' she would say 'Keep adding more until the mixture looks right'. She was the only one who knew what the 'right look' was!
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