“What was it like? A one? A three?”
“Hmm, I’m going to say a three,” Sussi said, hunching a little in her chair. She didn’t know if Linn was going to get upset.
“I think it’s a five!” Linnea shouted and Liv nodded, but Linn just waved her off.
“Hmm, you guys like everything. Why just a three?” she asked while looking encouragingly at Sussi.
Sussi took another bite, carefully testing every single piece of the cookie.
“Well, they aren’t quite as vanilla-scented as Astrid’s. You could smell hers all over the community centre when she had baked,” Sussi said dreamingly.
Stina agreed. Emelie looked at her daughter.
“Do you want me to be completely honest?”
“Yes of course, if they aren’t perfect I have to change the recipe,” Linn said.
“Well, then I’ll say a three as well.”
Linn wrote something in a notebook and then ordered everyone to try out the cinnamon rolls. They also got threes from everyone. The caramel biscuits got a four for their creamy texture and the shortbread only got a two, they were too dry. The checkered cookies everyone loved and gave a full five.
“Okay, thank you for your grades, now I just have to update the recipes a little bit and try to improve them even more,” Linn said, as she was disappearing into the kitchen.
Emelie, Sussi and Stina dropped down on the sofa.
“Phew, that was tough”, Sussi laughed.
“Yes, she has high demands, and she really wants them to be as good as Astrid’s, but I don’t know if she can match them. Perhaps if we manage to find Astrid’s baking book… It’s supposed to be here somewhere, but we have looked everywhere,” Emelie said and shrugged her shoulders in despair.
Stina took another caramel biscuit.
“These ones were delicious. By the way, are we going to dance around the tree at the Christmas market?”
“I don’t know, I guess we should,” Emelie said. Or yes, I suppose we have to, for the kids.Vi Äro MusikanterandSmå Grodornaor is that just for Midsummer?”
Sussi shook her head.
“No, it’s the same as with the herring, you do the same dances for Christmas and Midsummer. Do you have someone to take care of that?”
“I imagine you guys will,” Emilie said, smiling.
Stina and Sussi nodded and immediately started listing more Christmas dances;Räven raskar, Ritsch, ratsch, Raketen…
“Can’t you do a bit of line dancing as well? It’s so incredibly fun and it’s nice to have something for the grown-ups as well,” Emelie pleaded.
Everyone thought that was an excellent idea, and then Linn came back, declaring that she had changed up the recipes a little bit, that she was off next Saturday and that she was planning on baking again then.
“Buy flour”, she commanded, but then changed her mind. “No wait, I can have Oskar bring it all over to me from the shop. I will just collect it all when I’m at work and he’ll get it over here on his moped. Great!”
“Super,” Emelie said, happy not to have carry loads of flour, butter and sugar home.
Two days later, Emilie was sitting in her garden, planning for the Christmas market. On the little garden table in front of her, she had lists of what to do, and on the very top it said: “Write note and hang on the notice board in the shop.” That was how she was planning on inviting people to book a table for the market to sell their goods. She had heard that there was a silver smith on the island and someone making art out of driftwood. And there was probably a countless number of old ladies knitting mittens and making embroidery.
“Yoo-hoo!”
Birgitta came trotting through the garden, dressed in the same, slightly too tight lilac blouse matched with stained, beige shorts. Emelie was familiar with the routine by now and got up to fetch a Christmas cup and some of Linn’s homemade cinnamon rolls and some cookies.
“Well, they aren’t quite like Astrid’s, but they taste nice,” Birgitta said, taking another bite of her roll.
