Making the rounds
Kam Bailey flips lefse on a skillet Tuesday for Trinity Lutheran Church's Christmas Bazaar on Nov. 2. Lefse is a traditional soft Norwegian flatbread that is served primarily around Thanksgiving and Christmas. (LOREN BENOIT/Press)
From left, Mert Barth, Ray Simmons, Richard Carlson and Ray Kincheloe peel potatoes for lefse for Trinity Lutheran Church's holiday bazaar on Nov. 2. The leftse has to be peeled, boiled, pressed through a potato ricer and cooled before flour, sugar, salt, butter and cream go in to make dough to be grilled. (LOREN BENOIT/Press)
Paul Hunt presses a potato through a ricer to make lefse Tuesday at Trinity Lutheran Church in preparation for the church's holiday bazar. (LOREN BENOIT/Press)
It’s a Norwegian thing — and a bit of a production.
For two days, 25 local Lutherans are laboring over lefse — pronounced “LEF-suh” — a type of grilled Norwegian flatbread traditionally made from potatoes. Making the Scandinavian holiday treat has been a tradition at Trinity Lutheran Church for at least the past three decades.
This year, a total of 1,516 lefse rounds will be made. And the odds are that every single one will sell at the Lutherans’ annual holiday bazaar — at least if previous years are anything to go by.
The process begins with a lot potatoes. Three hundred pounds of them, to be exact. They have to be peeled, boiled, pressed through a potato ricer and cooled before flour, sugar, salt, butter and cream go in to make dough to be grilled.
Once ready, lefse tastes like fried potatoes; people eat them with sweet and savory toppings. Butter and brown sugar works just fine. The production takes a large cast, a lot of time, and requires unique tools, including a grooved rolling pin and a special lefse stick that’s used to place them on a griddle to be cooked.
“My background is Swedish, we made it all the time,” said Barb Childs, a volunteer who oversees the lefse-making event, which carries on tradition as well as raise money.
The lefse are sold at the church’s annual holiday bazaar in packs of four. They go for $7 — and usually sell out — along with other homemade crafts, jams and quilts made by the Love Day Ladies.
These volunteers get together every Tuesday to make quilts, which they donate to the community, particularly to fire and police departments as well as at the Holidays and Heroes event hosted by the Post Falls Police Department in December.
More than 100 quilts are taken to the event, volunteer Sharon Alexander said. “It’s very heartwarming to see what we can do for the community.”
“For the church, I think it’s heritage and the friendship. It’s a lot of work for two days ... you get to meet church and community members outside the routine of churches. I think it’s just the fun camaraderie,” Childs said.
The holiday bazaar is scheduled for 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. Nov. 2 at the Trinity Lutheran Church gym, 812 N. Fifth St.