Jerry and I attended a wedding in Germany recently and stopped in a grocery store to buy a card and wrapping paper. We were in a bit of a hurry, but I managed to scoot to the baking aisle, and, lo and behold, there it was…

Antler salt, in small packets. On the same shelf as the yeast, flour, and sugar. So Swedes aren’t the only folks to bake with antler salt. Germans do too. We bought three packets.

Last month, I received nice comments about Selma Lagerlöf, the first woman to win the Nobel Prize in Literature, a relative of Jerry’s, and the foster mother of Nils Holgersson.

Selma wanted to adopt Nils; but, as a single woman, she was not allowed. It bothered her.

And she did not only save the young Nils Holgersson. She also rescued Nelly Sachs, born in 1891 in Berlin, Germany, an only child, and a pretty girl doted on by her well-to-do parents.

Like most European children, Nelly read “The Wonderful Adventures of Nils” and when she was 15, she wrote its author, Selma Lagerlöf, to express her admiration. They went on to correspond for 30 years.

Nelly became a writer herself, of poems and essays for newspapers and magazines; at times she struggled mentally, but writing held her. She dedicated her first book to Selma in 1921.

But then the 1930s came, the Sachs family (pronounced Sax) was Jewish, and the Nazis were in power. Nelly’s father had died years before and her mother was failing.

Together, the two kept their heads down, Nelly strong for her mother, when she humbly wrote to Selma, now 81, asking if she could somehow use her influence to help them escape to Sweden.

Just after the Gestapo ransacked their home and ordered them to report to a concentration camp, Selma persuaded the Swedish royal family to grant them a Visa.

They escaped to Stockholm, one small suitcase between them, on one of Berlin’s last flights in May of 1940. Selma passed away before their arrival; she and Nelly had never met.

Isolating in a tiny studio apartment with a makeshift kitchen, Nelly was pushed to the edge of sanity by the hopeless faces she left behind and were sure to perish, including the man she loved.

She somehow got her hands on a black Mercedes typewriter and wrote poems, day and night, like never before. They seeped from her, emanated from her, as she cared for her mother.

But when she died, Nelly could no longer hold on and spent considerable time in psychiatric hospitals, sometimes unable to speak. But through it all, she wrote and wrote and wrote.

Twenty-six years after her escape, Nelly Sachs had filled eight major collections of poetry about the Holocaust, at times centered on forgiveness, translated into several languages, and read around the world.

And, for this, in 1966, she became the sixth woman to win the Nobel Prize in Literature! What are the odds that the first woman to win would save the life of a future one?

Nelly arrived alone to the formal ceremony in Stockholm and stood where Selma had fifty-seven years before, as King Gustaf Adolf declared her the poetic voice of the nearly six million Jews of the Holocaust.

As part of her acceptance speech, Nelly thanked her long-departed friend and savior, Selma Lagerlöf.

After the ceremony, she told reporters, simply, “I wrote in order to breathe.”

And went home to her tiny studio apartment with a makeshift kitchen and died four years later, at the age of 83.

The Swedish Royal Library has enshrined a replica of Nelly’s tiny studio apartment, and a park is named for her on an island off of Stockholm.

Just down from her childhood home also sits Nelly Sachs Park. Jerry and I were in Berlin a few years ago. It took us a bit to find it.

We waded through brambles and thickets to an open space, silent but for the carols of church bells; white ducks floated on a calm pond as an elderly man and his dog laid sleeping on a blanket in the sun.

When we got home from the wedding in Germany recently, I made a second batch of Selma’s lovely cookies but with antler salt. They were crispier, to be sure, but the baking powder did a delightful job.

I received another recipe from Irene Henriksson, the curator at Mårbacka, for her signature cake in the café.

It was one of the easiest cakes I have ever made. No sifting, no egg separating, no hand mixer, just a bowl and a whisk.

And it calls for soda water! Have you ever baked with soda water? I had not. The batter is bubbly yet smooth. And the cake, exquisite. The loveliest pale yellow, the texture divine. Swedish desserts are wondrous.

Mårbacka Kaka

(Converted from metric)

2 cups, 2 tablespoons self-rising flour

¾ cup melted butter

3 eggs

1.5 cup sugar

7 oz soda water

2 tsp baking powder

¼ tsp almond extract

Whisk the eggs and sugar, then add the soda water and melted butter. (It will look a bit like a science experiment 😊.)

Stir in the flour, baking powder and almond extract.

Bake in a 350-degree preheated oven on the center rack for 35-40 minutes, in a greased and floured 9x13 pan. I use the flour- infused Pam. Spray and done. That is wondrous too.

Serve with heavy cream and lingonberries (Woodman’s carries them in jars), kind of expensive, but worth it.

• Do you have a special recipe with a story to tell? I would love to write about it. Email me at Janetlagerloef@gmail.com