Then, an hour after leaving The Modern I went to book club, where I ate a slice of homemade apple pie and a few of my Swedish almond/chocolate bars (made from a book I found at Goodwill: The Great Scandinavian Baking Book by Beatrice Ojakangas. I love this introduction to the cookie section: "A little table covered with a creamy white, embroidered, lace-edged linen cloth. Coffee cups, a little larger than demitasses, set on saucers; the saucers set on plates with coffee spoons nestled next to the cups and pretty napkins pulled through the handles. A plate of three kinds of buttery cookies in the middle of the table. This scene was set for a simple afternoon coffee during our visit in Norway." I'd love to be in that scene now, eating mandelflarn, kniplingskager, and mazarinkakor, sipping espresso, wearing my blue and white Nordic sweater with the silver frogs, and looking out over snow-capped mountains....).
Seriously, what do you recommend for a sugar addiction? I'm really not addicted to anything else, and I suppose everyone needs a vice, but this is getting ridiculous.
After book club I met up with old college friends Elaine (of Seattle) and Jen (of NYC) at the Caribou Coffee in the Graviidae Commons in downtown Minneapolis. I had never been there before, but from the second floor of the coffee shop you look down onto Nicollet mall from a large picture window. It's one of the best people-watching places I've been. For a few minutes I watched this woman smoking a cigarette as she sat on a bench. She had wild, wind-blown red hair, was 50-something, wore a long gray cable-knit sweater with short sleeves, jeans, and silver bangles and several rings. I watched her watching other people, then pointing down the street-- giving directions to two teenage girls wearing head scarves, and then talking to someone across the street--someone unseen to me, so it looked like this woman was acting in a play. Then she crossed the street to talk to this person and was gone from sight for a few seconds until she reappeared, stubbed out her cigarette, and walked into Marshall's. It was all very Rear Window.
