That time of year again!

We have promised ourselves that some year we will celebrate the Swedish Summer Crawfish Festival properly, by which I mean in Sweden.

Meanwhile the next best thing is to catch the festival yearly at Ikea.
Friday night was the night; two seating times were offered, and an all you can eat meal was priced out at $9.99 per adult.

I forget how much they charged for a child's meal.  If I had a four or five year old kid in my life I would gladly pay for their meal just to watch their first encounter with crawfish.

Until then, my adult date for the evening  (and the past three decades) was the one cheerfully donned the celebratory dining accessories.
The crawfish tasted just great, although we dined with a bit of consternation after having a brief conversation in line with a real Swede who voiced her dismay about the fact that these crawfish were much larger than Swedish crawfish due to the fact that they were from China.
I think it bother her more that they were from China than it did that they weren't from Sweden.

The usual yummies: Cold dilled crawfish, dilled hard cooked eggs with shrimp, salmon, boiled red potatoes and Swedish meat balls with lingonberries.

I didn't get a picture of the tasty breads, bubbly blackberry flavored sparking  apple juice served in wine glasses, cucumber salads, shrimp with sauce and the oh so delicious Swedish desserts.

The restaurant was decorated for the occasion, Swedish melodies were played live by a violinist, and each guest was treated to a gift bag of Swedish potato chips, coupons for Swedish foods and some lucky folks had their dinner ticket drawn for gift baskets.

The drawings for gift baskets was a new feature at the festival this year.

Also new: A Crawfish Party Song Book.
(Bet you didn't even know there was such a thing to be had! I didn't...)
Our Swedish friend Janitha sent me pictures of her family's real crawfish party, held in Sweden last summer.  She made a point of explaining that a key feature in the festival was singing silly songs and drinking...a lot.  She included a picture of the liquor bottles at the ready for their part in the festivities.
Beer bottles however were not to be found in the shot.

Only one table indulged in singing at "our" party.  I was highly amused to find this song book and its odes to all things beer.

Drinking songs in Draper Utah?
This is a deeply observant part of Utah, by which I mean most of the folks you meet in the area are Mormon.
Which of course means those folks don't drink beer or any other kind of alcoholic beverages either.

Ikea was not serving beer or schnapps or any other controlled beverage to their guests while we were there.  I don't suspect they broke out anything stronger than sparkling apple cider at any time during the night.

Bernie and I got quite a chuckle out the songs anyway.
We know at least one family member who will enjoy learning some new songs to sing as he enjoys his daily pilsners.

I made sure I got a photo of each page of the song book for you Hal.
I am suggesting Jeff and Laura bone up on the lyrics too.
The next family reunion should be a lot more fun if you two could join your grandfather in singing while the beer goes down.

(And maybe Barbara could play some of the tunes on her musical saw too?  Oh yeah...good times a'coming!)

Skoal to all: I lift my glass of Lingonberry soda to friends from Sweden and other friends both far and near!