My Swedish friends invited me up to their cabin for a Kraftskiva celebration. What, you may be wondering, is Kraftskiva? It’s a crawfish party, where everyone wears bibs and silly hats, eats massive amounts of crawfish, and drinks aquavit and beer while singing Swedish drinking songs. So pretty much the BEST PARTY EVER. While the centerpiece of the weekend was Kraftskiva, when a bunch of foodies go up to the mountains you can be sure there was lots of other eating to be done as well.

Homemade Pizza

We started with a lunch of homemade pizzas. I don’t usually go in for pineapple on my pizza, but I have to say I was pretty happy munching on this combo of pineapple and smoked mozzarella.

I always love a white pizza, and this alfredo sauce, garlic, and you choy pizza was no exception.

And you can never go wrong with the traditional tomato sauce and cheese pizza.

Oktoberfest

Between meals, we decided to head to Lake Arrowhead, where we stumbled upon their Oktoberfest celebration. There’s always fun to be had with an impromptu Oktoberfest!

And of course I had to get a bratwurst. Just a quick snack to tide me over until the crawfish festivities.

Kraftskiva

Finally… the main event! You can count on IKEA to deliver when it comes to Swedish celebrations. They have kits which include these awesome crawfish streamers, bibs, silly hats, napkins, placemats, and books with all the Swedish drinking songs you need.

They also sell boxes of crawfish already prepared in the traditional dill brine for your eating pleasure.

We started with the drinking song on the placemat, which required you to rotate the mat as you sang (best to do that early in the night while your coordination still allows), then worked our way through the book!

We’re all totally rocking our bibs and silly hats 🙂

Here’s how much damage I did to those crawfish! I can’t wait to do this again next summer.

French Toast

What better way to recover the next morning than some French Toast to absorb all that aquavit!?

Pineapple Fried Rice

Then a lazy morning of lounging on the deck. Breathing all that fresh mountain air makes you hungry, so we rolled right into a lunch of pineapple fried rice.

What a beautiful way to eat a meal and close out a super fun Kraftskiva weekend!