It's all about the aebleskivers
The steel knitting needles were twirling the round balls of batter as the line wrapped around the building at Redeemer Lutheran Church in Waukegan Saturday.
This was Aebleskiver Day, named after a Danish delicacy that has been a church fund-raiser ever since the late Martha Heath began cooking and serving Aebleskiver, pronounced able-skeever, in her home in 1957. When the event became too large to hold in her home, it was moved to the church at 620 Grove Avenue.
(Mark Ukena/Special to the News-Sun)
"Here we are a Lutheran Church with a Danish festival. Martha Heath was quite a lady," said Elizabeth Zwicke, who has worked the event since the beginning when Heath dressed in a Nordic folk costume.
At one time they served the delightful pastry from morning until 7 p.m., but that was too hard on the volunteers, said Janet Krueger. "Isn't this a unique event?" she said, directing people to the holiday craft and bake sale in an adjoining room.
"We had so many people lined up this morning that we opened at 8:45 instead of 9," she said.
Besides all the pastry you can eat you also get three pork sausages for $6. For many this has become quite a tradition for the first Saturday of November.
Jim Hessenthaler made his first trip with his father-in-law, Oriel Hansen, a pastor at a Baptist church.
"It's an old tradition. Now kids are bringing their kids," he said, referring to his son, Nathan, who was there with his wife, Ashley, their two children, Delsie, 3, Grace, 5, and niece Nikki, 12, and nephew Kevin, 9.
"We come every year for this," said Nathan. They also do it at Christmas time. His daughter Grace was asked what she liked best about the dish and she said she likes the grape jelly.
"She does it wrong according to her dad," said Ashley. He is a purist and will only put the homemade applesauce on his pastry, which is like a rich pancake batter that comes out like a ball after being fried in a monk pan. Powdered sugar, five kinds of jelly, syrup, or apple sauce finish it off.
Becky Davison, 58, of Beach Park, said her mother brought her to her first Aebleskiver Day. "It's fun and it's good too," she said as she looked over a table of embroidered hand towels. "I just love then because I love them," she said.
John Riley, 57, and his stepfather, Clifford Benham, 83, of Waukegan were waiting in line and joked. "I'm a Catholic and he's a Methodist and we are eating at the Lutheran Church," said Riley.
"Gourmet food knows no boundaries," he said.
Bruce Rasmussen, 72, of Winthrop Harbor, has been coming for three years after his friends at the church, Dick and Pat VanKampe, told him about it. "They cook up very light. Like a light pancake batter," he said. "After all that I think I'll go home and sleep a little," he said with a smile.
