A Swedish dinner in Italy

Yesterday I spent the whole day with my Swedish roomate, Lovisa. Lovisa has been tutoring an Italian friend named Roberto in Swedish for the past couple months and they had made the mutual decision to throw a dinner party made up of all Swedish plates. The problem was, up until 3pm Lovisa still had no idea what she wanted to make. So with only the apples and potatoes we had bought at the Saturday market, we set off for Roberto's apartment to brainstorm, google search, and make an official grocery list. Once at Roberto's, we added up the guest list and found that the number of invitees had climbed to 14 people. Between our roomates and Roberto's Italian roomates and friends, we had a big, hungry group of people heading our way around 9pm. Needless to say, we were going to need a few more potatoes. After many urgent promptings from Roberto, slight decision making resistence from Lovisa ("We can just decide when we are in the store.."), a long distance call to a Swedish mother, and a few adorable squinty grins, Lovisa finally settled on a dinner of Swedish potatoes on the side of a fish and vegetable broth main course with cinnamon rolls and apple crumble for dessert. A trip to the nearby grocery store led us right back to the apartment where Roberto's roomates and I began peeling potatoes. (Side note: An Italian expression, "go peel potatoes," started as a military exression but outside of that means just twiddle your thumbs, ie. don't do anything.) We peeled, sliced, diced, chopped, mixed, sprinkled, and stirred under the direction of our Swedish chef for the next few hours. As people began showing up around 9:15 pm the potatoes were almost ready, the fish was cooking with the vegetables, the cinammon roles were in the oven and the apples were chopped for the apple crumble. Despite the fact that the rolls were a little soggy, (stupid oven) the dinner was a big success and all credit went to Lovisa. During the informal dinner party we filled the kitchen and most of us stood with our plastic plates having conversations in Italian, English, German, and the occasional Swedish lesson from Lovisa. Around midnight we parted ways, most of the group heading off to a party some Spanish students were putting on (no doubt there was food being cooked there too) and the rest of us headed home.