A friend recently returned from a vacation to Sweden and shared photos from his trip, mentioning a word I hadn’t heard before: fika.
Something about the way he used the word on his social media post pulled me in. The word sounded like something I would appreciate.
Loosely translated, a fika is a Swedish coffee break.
I don’t drink coffee. I’ve never been to Sweden, but I was right about appreciating the word and what it represents.
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I decided to contact my friend Erika Sunnegardh. She’s a Swede, an international opera soprano who made her Metropolitan Opera debut in 2006 — and my go-to source for all things Swedish.
I messaged her and learned she was on a boat off the coast of Portugal. Even so, she took the time to send me a voice message with her take on fika.
She said it’s been around for several hundred years, but the word itself took hold around 1910. Cleverly, the word came about by someone rearranging the letters of the Swedish word for coffee, kaffi. She said that it started as something women did, gathering over coffee to meet and talk. She used the word “lighthearted” to describe its origins.
Eventually, fika became a part of everyday Swedish life.
She emphasized that fika is about much more than coffee.
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Logistically, sweet treats are mandatory. They call them fika bread — cinnamon rolls, cardamom buns, pastry or the like.
However, cookies are also a part of fika. She shared a detail that struck me as deeply Swedish.
“Tradition has it you should treat seven different kinds of cookies,” she said. “No less, because then you’re stingy, and no more, because then you’re showing off. Seven is the magic number.”
According to the Visit Sweden website, there are seven specific types of cookies that are the most traditional fika cookies: Brussels cookies, chocolate slices, dream cookies (a type of meringue cookie that melts in the mouth), raspberry caves, oat biscuits, nut biscuits and chessboards (two-tone shortbread cookies).
Sunnegardh told me that morning and afternoon fika are a part of daily life in Swedish workplaces. Work stops. Everybody leaves their desk. Someone may stay to cover the office phones, but fika happens, lasting 10 or 15 minutes — never more than 20. People bring their own treats and their personal phones are down. Tea is permitted for the noncoffee drinkers.
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Lemon and chocolate Hubig’s Pies, cut open to show their fillings, make a decadent coffee break snack. Chocolate rejoined the lineup for flavors as the beloved New Orleans hand pie continues its gradual return to the full spectrum of flavors. (Staff photo by Ian McNulty, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune)
“It simply is what it is,” Erika told me from her boat. “It can’t be degraded or weirded out by any digital thing. I have never heard of anyone skipping fika just because the world has changed.”
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I recognized fika from the start.
Not from Sweden, but from Mississippi.
My parents’ home was fika central.
Throughout the day — almost any day — usually mid-morning or mid-afternoon, people knocked on the door and were welcomed in. My mother would put on coffee. Somehow, there was almost always cake.
People sat down and visited, and the day went wherever it went. Now that I think about it, they usually stopped by in the mornings around 10 and in the afternoons around 2, which coincides nicely with the Swedish tradition.
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My parents led productive, even busy lives, but I never remember Mom not sitting to visit when guests arrived — and my dad too when he was home.
They didn’t call it fika, of course. They didn’t call it anything. It was just how things were.
Things stayed that way for my parents until my dad died and my mother moved away from our family home to be closer to my youngest brother.
The tradition was not passed to the next generation. Dropping by unannounced is unheard of now. We rarely sit and visit without an agenda. We schedule coffee weeks out.
I do like calling it fika.
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Names change things.
What was an interruption becomes a ritual. What felt like lost time becomes the point.
If fika is the word that gets people to put their phones down and sit with each other — really sit, with something sweet nearby and no particular reason to leave — then I am for it.
My mother never needed a word for it. She just opened the door.
Louisiana pastor Tony Spell must stay 50 yards from his neighbor’s home unless he’s checking the mail after a protection order was issued against him – as shocking bodycam appears to show him using a homophobic slur to describe his alleged assault victim, just two days after he was arrested.
Spell, 48, is banned from speaking with the neighbor either online and in person, according to the order issued Friday, which has since been reported by The Advocate.
“Mr Spell may walk over and check his mailbox; other than checking his mailbox, he is to be 50 yards away from the protected person’s property,” a note on the order says.
Pastor Tony Spell allegedly assaulted his neighbor’s son after he threatened to kill and rape his wife. WBRZ
Spell, the pastor of Baton Rouge’s Life Tabernacle Church, will appear in court in September after being charged with second degree battery over last month’s assault that unfolded opposite the church.
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He claimed Scott Sherwin’s son had threatened to rape and kill his wife before delivering 35 blows.
But two days after the brawl Scott Sherwin reported Spell for allegedly mowing his lawn at 4 a.m., WBRZ reported.
“He’s doing this to intimidate my victim son,” Sherwin claimed in bodycam video seen by The Post.
“Do you cut your grass at 4 in the morning?” he asked the responding officer.
“You gotta get him to stop man,” the furious dad said.
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Sherwin claimed his family was unable to sleep – alleging Spell was carrying out “psychological warfare.”
An enraged Sherwin then swore at his neighbor, allegedly flipping him off, according to the bodycam.
Tony Spell kneeling and holding a goat. Tony Spell / Facebook
“I was asleep when this started at four in the morning,” Sherwin stressed, aggressively pointing at his phone.
The cop then went over to Spell, who was sitting on his lawnmower, before asking for his name.
“Everybody in the world knows my name,” Spell brazenly replied to the cop.
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Spell, who faces up to eight years in prison if convicted, then labeled Sherwin’s son a “f—-t” and seemed to take pride in the now-viral beatdown.
“He’s just sore because I beat the crap out of his f—-t boy,” he said.
“And he’s next if he comes over here and harasses these boys,” Spell said, speaking while a group of teens gathered nearby.
He has been embroiled in a rivalry with his neighbor. Tony Spell
Spell then started his lawnmower up and told the boys “get to work,” essentially ordering them to clear off.
Spell strongly defended his actions after being released from jail over the assault.
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“Number one, I’m a husband, number two, I’m a father, and number three, I’m a pastor who shepherds his flock,” he said. “I will not allow a man to murder my children when I’m gone,” he told reporters.
He revealed what Sherwin’s son allegedly said, which prompted the beatdown.
“He said, ‘Tony, I’m going to rape your wife, I’m going to rape all your grandchildren, and the next time you go out of town, I’m going to kill them,’” Spell said.
He addressed the altercation to his congregation and compared it to “domestic terrorism.” He also cited a Bible passage from Mark 16:18, WAFB reported.
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“In my name, they shall lay hands on the sick. And they shall recover,” he said.
“So today, I fulfilled the scripture. I laid hands on the sick. I don’t know how much recovery they’re going to have, but I laid hands on the sick.”
Spell has been in a longstanding feud with Sherwin; the pastor filed a lawsuit during the pandemic in 2020 over surveillance cameras that were installed.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Spell was ticketed for holding in-person church services, defying Louisiana’s social distancing restrictions.
Spell claimed the cameras were installed to monitor him.
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In April 2020, Spell was accused of attacking a protester outside his church. Police alleged that Spell backed his church bus in the direction of the protester, who was identified as Trey Bennett, according to news station WAFB-TV.
He was arrested for aggravated assault but never formally charged.
A new study from researchers at LSU’s Pennington Biomedical Research Center, FMOL Health | Our Lady of the Lake Regional Medical Center, and the Metamor Institute found that metabolic and bariatric surgery can be delivered safely and effectively for adolescents and young adults living with severe obesity, leading to significant weight loss and improvements in obesity-related health conditions.
Published in Obesity Surgery, the study examined outcomes from 76 patients ages 10 to 25 who underwent bariatric surgery through a Louisiana-based program at the Metamor Institute between January 2020 and March 2025. Researchers evaluated safety outcomes as well as longer-term health improvements associated with surgical obesity treatment.
The study found that patients achieved an average total body weight loss of 29%-32% maintained over one to five years. Among patients with available follow-up data, 94% experienced remission of type 2 diabetes, 67% showed improvement in hypertension and dyslipidemia and 64% experienced improvement in gastroesophageal reflux disease. Surgical complications remained low, with only 5% of patients experiencing complications within 30 days of surgery.
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Researchers noted that these outcomes were likely supported by a comprehensive, multidisciplinary care model that included experienced surgeons, nutritional guidance, behavioral support and coordinated medical follow-up. The study population represented a broad cross-section of Louisiana patients, with nearly 75% covered by Medicaid, highlighting the importance of ensuring access to effective obesity treatment options across socioeconomic backgrounds.
The findings support current American Academy of Pediatrics recommendations that adolescents age 13 and older with severe obesity and related health risks be evaluated for metabolic and bariatric surgery as part of comprehensive, evidence-based obesity care.
Meta Platforms Inc. has committed to spending an additional $40 billion on its sprawling data center campus in Louisiana, pushing its total expected investment beyond $250 billion for the site as it continues to grow its artificial intelligence computing footprint.
