Midnight Sun

Running for The Midnight Sun on a June night, a few days at Thorup Strand, Denmark.

Photo: Kim Lightbody

“At midnight, the sky glows bright blue, with stripes of darkness and soft clouds; there is a glimmer of pink from the setting sun. The clouds are extraordinary; they have a tangible

quality, as if you could reach them…You think: I know I can. There is an endlessness to all this blue and you are aware that the darkness has lost its power. You want to stay forever

in this moment, in this light which softens all outlines and makes midnight seem eternal. It feels as though the quiet Nordic life and elemental nature have struck a harmonious, invisible agreement.”

I walked towards the North Sea through the dunes on the beach at Thorup Strand. It was late, almost midnight and in the little fisherman’s house from mid-1800, where Marie gave birth to 12 children, was Kim in her pyjamas on her way to bed, and Kelly tumbling around to find the perfect setting she would never really get. We had cooked all day, worked with dishes and produce. We drove 29 kilometres to find the best organic vegetables, Naturbruget Tranum in Ejstrup, a place that never existed in your concise. And we were standing there in a greenhouse full of colourful edible flowers, we found new potatoes so fresh, we could rub the skin off with our fingers, strawberry-rhubarb ruby red, asparagus with a snap, herbs we nibble on to taste, their deep aroma of the soil, from the hands of the gardener. We were in the middle of a vegetable paradise, surrounded by the big raw moor, a withered green landscape, rolling low hills. We drove back and Kim made me stop, we crawled over the dunes and stood up and looked over the landscape. Never had she imagined such rough scenery in Denmark with the ever-romantic storytelling about a people happy and full of hygge.

Here on these rough shores were generations of Lutheran poverty and culture of renunciation. You feel the wind and the light that has rustled through these generations, and they have picked sea buckthorn, collected the beach cabbage, and pulled the plaice and cod out of the sea, cooked them or exchanged them for other daily needs.

Photo: Kim lightbody

Eternity was brought here by Anna Ancher, who around 1900 painted her life in the north, the daily beauty of seeing the light coming through the windows, a simple cornflower picked on your way home over the moor, the happy meals with artist friends. She painted yellow like the sun, the stillness so you could see life. She carved out a space for the creativity of the artist she needed to be, while being a mother and a companion to her artist husband.

I ran back to the cottage, I needed to fetch Kim: the light, it is pink, blue and eternal, we came here for this, for this beauty, to capture this, the simple summer of abundance, light and long hours. The sea had quieted down, the water’s ebbing and surging was slowing like a long breath. We were alone on this beach. Houses were lit up in the background, the fishermen’s boats were drawn up on the beach and left as evidence of the living here. Kim photographing for us to capture this moment, that night, that hour in June, just a week before summer solstice.

We went back to the small cottage, Kelly was lying there in the dark, laughing in the light of/on her phone. We went to bed, I pulled the curtains after I had turned the light off and crept into my pyjamas and wrapped two duvets around me, head on the pillow looking towards the sky and planning what to cook tomorrow.

A sourdough bread, rosehip jam, a strawberry-rhubarb porridge, bake or fry a piece of cod with herbs and lemon? Do the frikassé from all the vegetables we got at the farm, my abundance of the day? Bake a new pound cake with cardamom? Drifting into sleep while thinking of the morning coffee that will start the day.

We woke up the next morning to the sound of the wind, with grey skies drifting over above us, bringing refreshing showers here and there. After our morning coffee in the salty wind, we packed up the car and drove to the next location, stopped on our way to pick up some fresh strawberries from a roadside stall.

Photo: Kim Lightbody

Recipes, stories and pictures are in my new cookbook, Midnight Sun, photographed by Kim Lightbody, published by Quadrille.