“Absolutely! I have some good news of my own! You know the recipe that Astrid has for Swedish crispbread with ground sugar kelp?”
“Yes, right. It was something about the bread becoming extra fluffy and rising better with the help of the seaweed?”
“Exactly, nice one mum, you’re learning! Anyways, Oskar’s dad’s delivery guy was able to get a hold of sugar kelp too, so Oskar and I are going there this weekend to pick up the seaweed and everything else. The delivery guy has a flat in town, and he is letting us stay there.”
She smiled contently and Emelie thought about whether it would be a good time to talk to Linn about the danger of flirting with several men simultaneously in a small place like this. But before she had a chance to say anything, Linn stopped on the stairs to their house and looked at her.
“Do you know what day it is today?”
Emilie thought about it. Had she forgotten anything? It wasn’t anyone’s birthday, could it be some anniversary? There were official days for everything these days, from international women’s day to cinnamon rolls.
“The International Sardine Day?”
“Ha-ha, nope, but it’s the grand mulled wine tasting day! For you and me, that is, just so we can see if it’s coming along okay.”
They sat down at the kitchen table and Linn removed the plastic from the bucket, stirring the liquid. She frowned when she smelled it, but then poured one cup for herself and one for her mother. Linn looked ceremoniously at Emilie.
“One, two, three.”
Emelie put the cup to her lips, taking a sip. The drink was cold, and mulled wine is supposed to be served warm… maybe that’s why it didn’t taste quite as it was supposed to.
“No, bloody hell, that’s disgusting!”
Linn flew up, spitting the mulled wine out in the kitchen sink. She looked desperate.
“What are we going to do? We can’t possibly sell this. It’s way too sweet and the consistency is like syrup. Yuck!”
Emelie shook her head, while she was trying to figure out what had gone wrong.
“It’s thick and too sweet. I’m no professional, but I don’t think the fermentation process has started. You’ll have to add something in order to create alcohol, and that will make it less sweet, too.”
She put her nose into her cup and gave it a spin before carefully taking another sip.
“You look like a snobbish sommelier,” Linn laughed.
“You laugh, these are serious matters… but the flavour and the smell aren’t all bad. I think all we need is some more alcohol. Let’s look it up and then we’ll move the great tasting day until the end of November. And if we can’t serve it at the market, I guess that’s okay too?”
“Yes, you’re right. We have some alcohol-free mulled wine in the store, I’m sure Oskar’s dad can get us some extra bottles of that. But I’ll google how to get the fermentation started.”
Emelie looked at her watch.
“How about I’ll fix us a couple of sandwiches? Then we can take care of the boxes that are in the cellar and see what we can sell and what we should take straight to the dump?”
An hour later, they had carried up all the boxes from the cellar and started carrying out everything that was broken or hideous onto the porch before taking it to the dump.
“Hello, hello! What are you girls up to, moving in or out are you?”
“Hello Birgitta. We are just doing a little organising to see what we can sell at the market.”
“Oh, have you found…”
Birgitta got quiet and looked at Emelie with anticipation. Emelie shook her head and pointed at a box.
“But there are some papers and other things inside that, perhaps you can have a look inside it.”
Birgitta nodded and started to go through all the papers and little nick-knacks in the box with determination. Emelie sighed and started on box number five. She was more than fed up with all the Christmas stuff. In this particular box, there were vases in all shapes and sizes, and she picked up a large, heavy red and green glass vase, holding it up to the window. As the light shone through the glass, she could see the outlines of a parade of dancing little elves, pigs, gingerbread men and angels. She gasped.
“Look at this one, it’s incredibly pretty.”
