Submitted by Linda Isaacs Jamestown, ND
Growing up in Minnesota in a Norwegian community, we’re connoisseurs of lefse. And our whole family agrees that the best lefse in the world is made by my mother-in-law Evalyn. So we were thrilled when she was able to join much of the family at a ‘mini family reunion’ in Washington in 1997.
We came from Oklahoma , our daughter’s husband was stationed there in the Navy, and two of my husband’s brothers and their families live in the Seattle/Portland area, so we had several big family parties. Evalyn, at 92, flew from Minnesota all by herself and was the center of the family festivities. Our Norwegian menu included lutefisk, and we required everyone to taste it, even the little kids and some of them actually came back for seconds!
We not only watched her making lefse, but we video taped it, along with her comments on how to do it. And we wrote down all the tips we could get, which now are a permanent part of our cookbooks. It helped sometimes my daughter and I make lefse which gets the highest compliment from my husband, ‘It’s almost as good as Mother’s!’
She’s now almost 102 and still lives in her own apartment. She doesn’t make lefse any more, but when any of us need advice on how to do it, she’s our authority!