Something about salt

So I am not going to make a big deal out of this but in addition to adding a dog to the household we also added a father. James’ dad has moved in with us after finding out he has a heart condition and needs more care than his small cabin out-of-town could provide. He needs a lot of rest and a healthy diet without salt. So I find myself reading the labels of all the food items I buy to find out how much salt there actually is in all of it. Did you all know that bread has an extreme amount of salt in it? And canned tomatoes? And cereal? I guess I just haven’t really thought about the amount of salt that I eat very much. I am very aware of not eating too much sugar and I tend to get carried away with whatever new trends of “no-no’s” are going on. Why does salt never really come up as an issue until it is actually a very critical issue?

Anyway I am baking bread without salt to avoid all the store-bought salty stuff and this week I also decided to bake fastelavnsboller. The Danish tradition of Fastelavn is coming up this week and we all eat delicious Danish pastries to celebrate it. We also dress up (like Americans on Halloween) and all the kids beat the shit out of hanging barrels with candy inside (like Mexicans with the piñata). Fastelavn was originally a Catholic tradition initiating the 40-day period of fast leading up to Easter, but it is also described as a time where everything is turned on its head – nothing is as it usually is. As with many religious traditions, Danes have abandoned the religious aspect but held on to the “upside down moment” where everyone dress in disguise and abandon their normal selves for a day or a weekend. I decided to bake the pastries. However, as faith will have it, I mistakenly used salt instead of sugar for the recipe. I proudly served James’ father a pastry not knowing if was loaded with salt and then found myself wanting to rip it from his hands. The recipe didn’t ask for much sugar so the pastries were still quite delicious although salty. Oh well, he thought it was delicious.

Our little puppy (who is not so little anymore) loves salt. Her favorite chew treats so far are pigs ears, which are extremely salty and so greasy that the young girl in the food store did her best to avoid any skin contact with them.  

And last but not least: it is very dry here in Fairbanks. We live far from the ocean, everything has been frozen for months, and we heat the house with a wood stove. Daily I put new water on the stove just to see it vaporize within hours. I drink twice as much water as I would in Denmark and still my nose is all itchy and annoyed. So what do I do about this nose? I snort salt water. Snorting salt water up the nose and out the mouth is a luxury that we allow ourselves on especially dry days.

Something about salt indeed.