Oregon Culture Keepers Roster Menu

Born in Norway, Laila Dahl Griffith immigrated to the Los Angeles area in the 1960s. After she met and married her husband Mike, the couple moved to Klamath Falls to raise a family. Throughout her life, Griffith has maintained her familial and ethnic traditions, playing a key role in the activities of the Klamath Falls chapter of the Sons of Norway. She makes a variety of Norwegian foods including lefse, a thin-rolled potato flatbread, often dried and stored for later use, and lompe, which resembles a smaller version of lefse, served fresh, and often wrapped around sausages. Griffith also takes great pride in making all kinds of traditional cakes and cookies. One of her specialities is krumkakke, a cone-shaped cookie that starts as a rich buttery batter, poured onto a griddle, and quickly shaped onto a wooden cone. Krumkake can be eaten by itself or filled with whipped cream. Each year before the winter holidays, Griffith welcomes the Klamath Sons of Norway into her home for a mass lefse-making. Women and men gather to boil potatoes, make the dough, and roll out balls into large, nearly translucent rounds that are then cooked briefly on a hot griddle. Lefse rolling pins must be wooden with a raised corrugated pattern that adds texture to the lefse. The thin and pliable flatbread is traditionally eaten warm, spread with butter and sugar, rolled up or folded into squares. Another traditional filling is gjetost (a carmelized goat’s milk cheese). And lefse is the customary accompaniment for lutefisk (lye-preserved cod). Griffith cooks from her mother’s recipes and makes most of her ingredients from scratch. She even blanches almonds for her homemade almond paste pastry filling. While many of her recipes are traditionally Christmas foods, lefse is popular all year, and Griffith often makes it as a popular side to serve along with other Norwegian dishes.