L-R Deanna Wells, Diane Pilat, Sandra Kingslien, Deb Hilton, and Jean Smith along with 8-year-old granddaughters Malia and Ava Smith hold up their lefse sticks, each with a personalized design. The original group started 30 years ago.
By LYNETTE HAALAND, Four Points News
Jean Smith, longtime resident of Grandview Hills, gathers with her friends each year to make a traditional holiday food — lefse. This year marks their 30th anniversary to make the paper-thin potato bread in assembly-line fashion.
“We started this 30 years ago as a group,” said Smith, who is originally from Minnesota.
She and Sandra Kingslien, originally from South Dakota, are founders of the group, which started from a Triumphant Love Lutheran Church dinner group.
The eight or so ladies involved are mainly from other northern states with Norwegian-American influence including Wisconsin.
This year they made 30 pieces of lefse. They started with 30 balls made up of riced potatoes, flour, heavy cream, butter and salt.
Some ladies rolled out the dough with the special rolling pin while others manned the 400-degree griddles with the long lefse sticks.
Lefse is usually served with butter and sugar. The ladies celebrated the season and had their lefse at a traditional lutefisk dinner together with their husbands.
Malia and Ava Smith helped their grandmother Jean Smith make lefse this holiday season.
Diane Pilat shows the lefse ball before it is rolled out with Sandra Kingslien in the background.
Jean Smith started the lefse group with Sandra Kingslien 30 years ago.
Deanna Wells, Diane Pilat, and Sandra Kingslien roll out the lefse dough to make the holiday treat.