Grandparents pass along secrets of Norwegian lefse.

Byline: HOME COOKING By Randi Bjornstad The Register-Guard

Every country has its special culinary treats, and in Norway it's lefse (pronounced LEF-suh), a sweet-ish equivalent of a Mexican tortilla or a Greek pita. It's made with butter or lard, cream or half-and-half and mashed or riced potatoes. Norwegians traditionally spread the thin rounds with butter, sprinkle it with sugar, roll it up and taste ecstasy in every bite.

Of all the foods Eugene software developer Steve Lange prepares, his lefse is what his family and friends rave over most.

"He has other specialties and is handy in the kitchen," wrote a friend who nominated him as a Home Cooking subject. "But his lefse is the best."

Specialty: Definitely lefse, Lange agrees. He started making it when he moved too far away from Wisconsin and his grandparents, Jess and Sylvia Sneed, who kept him supplied throughout his youth.

"I wasn't going back very often, so I wasn't getting any lefse," he says. "I knew if I wanted it, I'd have to make it myself."

His grandmother supplied the recipe, and his grandfather milled him traditional lefse tools - a short, thick roller scored with tiny squares for "texturizing" and a long, thin turning stick with one flat and one slightly rounded surface - and Lange started practicing.

"When I first made lefse, it was thick and heavy," he says. "But I discovered that the moister the potatoes and the stickier the dough - and using flour on the board for rolling instead of trying to make the dough drier - the thinner and more tender it gets."

Cooking experience: Not much until after college, when Lange realized that he needed to learn to cook "beyond Boy Scouts." He especially enjoys grilling on his recently installed gas barbecue. He claims to be a recipe-follower, unlike his wife, Vie, "who's really creative when she cooks."

Biggest cooking success: Making a Japanese dish for members of a monthly supper club potluck.

"I got a cookbook and made this slightly custardy, slightly jelled white mixture with these nice vegetables in it. I put it in individual cups, and each one had one long, graceful strand of lemongrass in it," Lange says. "Everyone else brought some kind of stir-fry."

Biggest cooking failure: Other than occasionally walking away and forgetting something on the stove, probably burning the apricot soup, which he tried to make once for a gathering of the same supper club.

"I was being oh so patient, oh so patient as I was cooking it, and then I realized we were going to be really late, so I turned up the heat," Lange recalls. "In one instant it burned - there were dark flecks all through the soup. It was a disaster."

Favorite cookbooks: He started out with "Betty Crocker," "Joy of Cooking" and "The Moosewood Cookbook" for basics, then through the years added a changing bunch of specialty and "fundraiser" cookbooks.

Why these recipes: Lange offers the lefse in honor of his grandmother. The pumpkin pie's his own evolutionary recipe.

Lefse by Steve

4 cups organic russet potatoes, riced twice

2 tablespoons half and half

1/2 teaspoon salt

2 heaping cups flour

3 tablespoons softened butter

Additional flour for rolling

Peel and cube potatoes and boil in unsalted water until cubes break apart easily with a fork. Rice the potatoes twice in a food mill or potato ricer. Add the half and half and mix well.

Mix the salt and flour in a large mixing bowl. Cut in the softened butter. Add the butter-flour mixture to the potato mixture and beat or knead until the dough is well blended. Add extra flour in small amounts to make the dough dry enough to roll by hand.

Form dough into logs about 3 inches in diameter and 6 inches long. Place in glass baking dishes and cover tightly with plastic wrap. Refrigerate until stiff, or overnight.

Heat a large griddle to 500 degrees.

One at a time, slice a disk off the lefse log and place on a heavily floured pastry cloth. Using a floured, cloth-covered rolling pin, roll the dough into large flat circles, the thinner the better. Use plenty of flour to keep the dough from sticking to the pin or the pastry cloth. The thickness of the disk will determine the diameter of the lefse round.

If you have a cross-hatched lefse roller, use it to flatten the lefse rounds, removing any air pockets and creating a texture.

Using a lefse stick or a long thin spatula, lift the lefse from the pastry cloth and place on the dry, hot griddle. Cook on one side until the round begins to puff up.

With the stick or spatula, flip the lefse to the other side; cook until the lefse has brown spots on both sides.

Remove from the griddle and place between layers of towels to cool.

Yield will vary depending on the desired size of the lefse rounds.

Steve's Better-Than-Average Pumpkin Pie

2 extra-large eggs

2 extra-large egg whites

1 can (29 ounces) prepared pumpkin

1/4 cup evaporated cane sugar crystals

1/4 cup honey

1/4 cup molasses

2 teaspoons cinnamon

1 teaspoon powdered ginger

1/2 teaspoon ground cloves

1/2 cup powdered nonfat milk

2 cups milk (preferably 1 percent)

Preheat oven to 425 degrees.

Blend eggs and pumpkin. Add sugar, honey and molasses and mix well. Add spices and mix well. Blend in powdered milk. Add milk and mix well.

Pour into two 9-inch pie crusts.

Bake for 15 minutes, then reduce oven temperature to 350 degrees and bake 50 to 60 minutes longer.

To nominate a cook for this feature, send mail to Home Cooking, P.O. Box 10188, Eugene, OR 97440; fax [phone]; contact Randi Bjornstad at 338-2321 or [phone], Ext. 2321; or e-mail [e-mail]. Include the nominee's name and phone number, your name and phone number and what makes your choice an interesting cook.