BRODERICK, Sask. – For Chris Anholt-Seitz, Christmas means lefse.
Lots and lots of lefse. Thirty-two dozen, to be exact.
That’s what it takes to steer a catering and baking business through Christmas in this Norwegian community where Anholt-Seitz and her family live, farm and cook.
It also takes mental preparation.
“As soon as November comes you have to start. Lefse takes a lot of time.”
The Christmas rush, which finds Anholt-Seitz locked in her kitchen from morning till night, is driven by three consumer demands – individual baking orders, bake sales and banquets.
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Since she and her husband, Brad Seitz, started Chris’ Kitchen in the spring of 2001 in Broderick, Anholt-Seitz has baked up a culinary name for herself. Even before that, 10 years spent at farmers’ markets in nearby Outlook had earned a reputation for herself and her buns.
It’s this reputation that fuels the orders that come in from as far away as Saskatoon – not only bread buns and lefse, but also cinnamon buns, sugar cookies called rosettes, the Norwegian cone cookie called krumkake, and other dainties.
Besides preparing individual orders, she is tied to her kitchen counter by thoughts of the crowds that will throng around her booth at a Christmas farmers’ market in Rosetown, Sask., and a bake and craft sale in Outlook.
Then there are the Christmas banquets. This year she had banquets booked for Dec. 4, 5, 6, 7, 17 and 19 for groups such as the Outlook nursing home, the local regional economic development authority, the Lutheran church’s women’s auxiliary and the senior citizen’s club.
Catering for a community dinner theatre in Outlook in late November stretched the family’s resources close to the breaking point.
The pace requires participation from all family members, including their children, 14-year-old Bergen, who is “a big help,” and 10-year-old Sophie, “my little cleaner.” Anholt-Seitz’s brother, Brian Anholt, is also recruited.
Besides the set-up and clean-up work that these banquets require, food preparation is also demanding, especially when 75 pounds of potatoes have to be peeled by hand.
After doing that too many times, Seitz tracked down a powered potato peeler that can peel 10 lb. of potatoes in 20 seconds.
“Now all we need is a carrot peeler, but I’ve never seen one of them,” he said with a smile.
Surprisingly, Christmas is not the family’s busiest time of year. Anholt-Seitz said this past summer was even more hectic, with the farmer’s market and banquets keeping them on their toes, as well as catering for large parties and barbecues in people’s backyards.
It’s been like this since Chris’ Kitchen opened, catering for 200 people on only their second job.
Anholt-Seitz grew up in the Broderick area and bought her uncle’s farm in 1982 after he died, farming it herself until she met Seitz in 1987.
He now runs the farm, tending to their 32 Hereford-Limousin cows, as well as being Chris’ Kitchen’s “lift and carry man.”
He said the cattle business isn’t as bad as it might have been and not as good as it should have been.
“The calves are not a bad price. It’s the older ones that are worth nothing.”
He said 10 of his cows should have been culled this year, but the bovine spongiform encephalopathy crisis has made that a losing proposition.
“I should be able to get at least $5,000 out of them, but now I can’t even get $500 out of them,” he said.
“They’re there till they die.”
He described the state of farming in general as terrible.
“That’s why we’re doing this,” he said, waving his arm to take in their commercial kitchen.
“We wouldn’t have the farm if we didn’t have this.”
After Anholt-Seitz met her husband, she baked for the farmer’s market and worked at a coffee shop in Outlook. She got her first taste of catering when the restaurant owners decided to expand into that line of work. While they did it for only a year, Anholt-Seitz was hooked.
When her mother died in 1999, she left them her house in Broderick. After extensive discussions with the public health inspector, they converted the house into a commercial kitchen and their new business was born.
She only quit her job at the Outlook coffee shop in May, which has given her more time for Chris’ Kitchen. However, there are still only so many hours in the day and more work than she can sometimes handle.
But, she added, it’s all necessary.
“The way the farming thing is, you don’t say no.”
