brunch

This is my brunch cake.

inside the house

outside the house

I've been low key obsessed about smörgåstårta since seeing it in Instagram some years ago.

And true to form, it took me about a year to finally make it.

Swedish rye bread "cake"

filled with egg salad and cucumbers

smothered in dill cream cheese "frosting"

It really began with the cured salmon though. And my attempt to break down an entire fish.
Four filets to eat and enjoy.
Meat scooped off the bone for poke tacos.
Bones for stock.
Skin for chips.
And two filets to cure with gin, dill, and beet powder.

And we had brunch in the sun in the backyard I'm going to miss dearly.
I just want a pergola wherever I end up. 

Appendix
I
Swedish rye bread from here.

Attempted the first time when I got some persimmons from David's tree way back when I basically first started work. That's probably why we became office buds.

II

In an ideal world, I would've fried these up at around the same time the cake was assembled.

So I could anchor this big beautiful half cone of crispy salmon skin on top of the brunch cake I was too proud of. But I ate it on its own as soon as it was cool enough to not burn my tongue, and it shattered in my mouth, and I didn't regret it.

III
More backyard brunch.
From the time I wanted to do something like a benedict bar with the rest of my cured salmon.
And the watermelon leftover after a work bbq.

I frequently have leftovers from my leftovers parties because isn't it kind of the curse of leftovers that you need to grocery shop to pull all the leftovers together.

Leftover fried green tomato sandwiched in biscuits made with leftover cream cheese with leftover salmon and a salad of leftover tomatoes dressed in leftover basil vinaigrette.
For dessert, leftover biscuits filled with leftover jammy blackberry sauce with leftover cream cheese.