Kristine Leander and the Swedish Club: Impresario of Control

Book Introduction: Pathology of a Coverup

This section was written contemporaneously in early February 2023, as the events described were unfolding.

Here is a fact related to my case – in the first email Kristine sent me yesterday about the new chef “they” hired (she told the BoD last night, 2/1/23, that he was hired on Monday, 1/31) she referenced him as “Chef Christo”.  She also told me that I would remain under her supervision, not his. 

A few minutes later, she sent me a second email in the thread and noted, “Correction, his title is: Food Service and Bar Manager.”

About a half hour later, at the board meeting, Kristine proceeded to introduce her agenda item, the hiring of the chef.  When she did it though, she stumbled introducing him again, just like she did in the email.  She had to pause and think, and then stumbled as she said what his official title was, like she was having trouble being precise with her lines.

The conclusion I drew from the two events is Kristine was having trouble spitting out his official title because of a couple of factors related to this coverup.  First, the fact she was embroiled in a conspiracy with others to manipulate and hem in me, the pressure was on to save Kristine’s and the Swedish Club’s position.  The pressure was on for her to participate in the conspiracy, to carry out her role in the plot they had hatched, and she probably had to do it with a greater degree of legal precision, keep it all straight, following the likely directives that the lawyers and Sarah had come up with, and what they hadn’t thought of Kristine had.  

First Kristine’s plot in late August 2022 had its challenges to pull off – there wasn’t a ready supply of visiting chefs so she had to verbally and in writing finesse all that, a spin on Groucho Marx’s famous phrase, “who are you going to believe, me or your lying eyes?” Kristine’s only choice was to avoid any obvious question, like where are those visiting chefs when none were materializing.  So she came up with her usual, plausible, untrue, diversionary story – repeat it often and with feeling – “Christine is a visiting chef”, “She is an independent contractor”. 

As time wore on and no resolution to the situation with me was even remotely in sight, and as the appearance of the visiting chef plot was falling apart – it’s pretty hard to convince people that you were a visiting chef when you have been the only “visiting chef” over four months time, and your time is scheduled clear into the next year.  This required another plot to be hatched to likely bury the legal problem with me a little further. 

The conspirators’ plan was a bit convoluted but rather banal in its lack of imagination, putting up a fake job and tailoring the requirements so that it moved my ability to access it out of reach.   Not a very original plan. And given the fact that the whole thing was conceived in order to cover up the original plot – Kristine’s hostile treatment of me and the situation she had gotten the Swedish Club in over that, her embroiling you in that plot and doing it also to cover up her wrongdoing about hiring you in the first place, this second plot was not very smart and was more ethically challenged. 

It had some legally technical acts and phrases that were required, and keeping a lot of phrases and terms straight when she used them was a challenge for Kristine. 

The telltale signs there was a conspiracy, the January 2023 job offer on Indeed was a construct from the get go.    The job, “Food Service and Bar Manager”, the title, the underlying job duties, and the experience and knowledge requirements were carefully and with malice crafted to create a position that would screen out any potential for me to apply for and be a credible candidate for the job.  My qualifications, whatever they thought them to be, were the baseline first, and then possibly, a likely candidate, yourself,* your qualifications became the baseline for the job because they far exceeded mine but would also be a standard that they could live with – the assumption on Kristine, Sarah, and the lawyer’s part likely inlcuded that others like you existed in the job pool, would apply, and could be considered.  And even hired.  They were not so constrained that you or others were screened out, but the more important constraint was that I was screened out. 

Two.  As you have wondered, the question you asked at the time, “Why should I have to apply for a job I was already hired for?”  The short answer is you shouldn’t have to.  That’s where Kristine and Sarah were gaslighting you and attempting to manipulate the situation with you and with me.  I was sitting in the middle of the lobby on January 6^th, it was about 4:20, somewhere around there.  I had been going through the 2022 Swedish Club Board Minutes notebook again.  Then, I had finished that, was hanging out, sitting at the table in the middle of the lobby, talking to Wendy off and on. 

At a certain point I saw Sarah go across the front of the Lobby and to Kristine’s office.  Probably within five minutes they both came out, went to the elevator and left.  Within probably another 10 minutes they came back, Kristine went to her office and Sarah kind of filtered away towards the area where I was sitting and then walked past me a few feet, and then she kind of paused and we started chit chatting.  I was surprised because she pulled out a chair and sat down, and continued to talk to me for probably 15 minutes or so.  I was surprised she spent the time talking to me because I had already talked to her earlier, I thought we had basically engaged in a complete conversation so I wouldn’t have expected Sarah to stop by and sit down and engage in another round of conversation with me.

Our second conversation wasn’t about anything Swedish Club related per se, it was just general pleasantries about things going on, personal asides about things we were doing in our life, etc.  After awhile she got up, she said she was going home, and she went to the elevator and left.  , sheRunning breathlessly up to you the evening of January 6^th, practically the moment they had posted the job, dragging you out in the middle of the dinner service work, wanting to tell you they had posted this job and that they wanted you to apply for it!

You already had been hired, the only way to “un-hire you, to terminate that oral contract, would have been to terminate your employment.  Washington is an at-will employment state.  But Kristine armed with her poor legal advice from likely Vi Reno, armed with her own self important sense of craftiness, and armed with the misconception that the only valued contract is one in writing, wrong, she thought she would accomplish her ends by breaking the news to you you hadn’t really been hired, and then getting your buy in to play in the visiting chef scam she was going to run with the board. 

And the latter reality is that – the purpose of the visiting chef scheme – it is for the board’s benefit.  Who outside of the board would have cared one iota about whether it was a visiting chef, no chef, or any permutation thereof.  The members have grown accustomed to turmoil and questionable food choices, so they had no standard they were going to hold Kristine to about her chef or food prep arrangements.  It’s the board she had to not just placate, but convince that she hadn’t done what she had done – hired a foodservice manager/chef. 

So Kristine thinks, no hiring was done, that’s disappeared, it was just an offer she has rescinded.  However, there was no “offer” in the legal sense to be withdrawn as the offer had already been made and accepted, hence a legally binding contract was created –  hence the only way to break that contract would have been to terminate your employment. but that is not what happened. 

This gives rise to the plot that was being carried out from August 24th until January 27th.  She was scrambling – if she breaks with you, she has no idea how you will react.  So before she even met with you on the 24th she had at least lined up Chris, she was working on some others, she had to cover her losses, coming up with no chef if you wouldn’t join her visiting chef program she would have to find others, and the subtext of this is – this is another thing Kristine excels at – putting the spin on bad situations, the happy story – the Swedish Club is off on an adventure hosting the cooking talents of visiting chefs!

Covering up what Kristine had done

Then there was a secondary plot, that both supported the first plot, covering up for what Kristine had done, that was for Kristine’s benefit, and then the rest of the secondary plot was primarily aimed at me – creating maneuvering time and space to manipulate the situation with me, to run out the clock, and/or to somehow undermine the situation related to my claims against the Swedish Club, Kristine, and over time against the Board. 

To the first plot, Kristine claims that she was withdrawing a job offer on August 24^th.  That’s her story.  However, I believe there was a valid oral contract in place, but either way, there was this owithdrawn from me as part of a subterfuge, but orally the agreement was that I still had the job, but was marking time only in order to one, give the impression I had not been hired, and two, to run out the clock on whatever resolution or scheme was afoot to defeat me in my case?

”Christo” is probably a chef, and that’s likely what his resume is grounded in, not food service or bar manager experience.

What follows traces how that coverup was built, maintained, and ultimately exposed.

The Pattern Before the Coverup

What happened in late 2022 did not arise in a vacuum.

By the time the “Food Service and Bar Manager” job was posted, by the time the title began morphing from “Chef Christo” to something more administratively sterile, by the time the Indeed listing appeared calibrated to exclude me, the pattern had already been set in motion.

The two statements dated December 29, 2021 — written before the “visiting chef” fiction and before the February 2022 job advertisement — document the early architecture of what would become the coverup.

They record:

• Kristine’s explicit acknowledgment that I had “created enemies” at the Club — specifically “Lars’ camp.”
• The refusal to attach my name to food service accomplishments because it would not “buy us anything.”
• The invocation of “Swedish names” as the threshold for recognition.
• The sidelining of my disability as a pretext for denying opportunity.
• The installation of Arista Catering under the guise of “temporary solutions,” while my own role was quietly narrowed.

This matters.

Because once you read those statements, the later events read differently.

The February job ad does not look like an open search. It looks like a gate.
The Indeed listing does not look like recruitment. It looks like insulation.
The insistence that “no one would eat a semla bun unless a Swedish person made it” does not read as cultural pride. It reads as boundary enforcement.

The December 29 statements show that by early 2022:

• Credit was already being withheld.
• My contributions were already being minimized.
• My national origin was already being used rhetorically.
• My disability was already being positioned as a limitation.
• My personal relationship with Lars was already being operationalized against me.

The “Food Service and Bar Manager” posting did not create the coverup.

It formalized it.

The earlier pattern is where the pathology becomes visible:
a shifting story line, selective memory, legal phrasing inserted where needed, and a constant recalibration of titles, roles, and narratives depending on audience.

And perhaps most telling of all — the emotional precision.
The pauses.
The corrections.
The rehearsed language.

Once you see the pattern, the stumble over “Chef Christo” is no longer a stumble.
It is a script adjustment.

---

Next up: Compounding All of That: Lars

No one can understand what unfolded at the Swedish Club without understanding the relational layer beneath it.

Beginning in July of 1985 through December 2021, Lars and I were involved in a deeply intertwined relationship — romantic, intellectual, cultural – that’s 36 years. He did not merely date me; he initiated me into a worldview. Denmark was not just a country in our conversations. It was a motif. A discipline. A performance of identity. He cast himself as mentor and arbiter — of Danish food, of language, of culture, of refinement.

He once told me he wanted me to be the best “Danish” person I could be.

I believed him.

I built around that.

And the Swedish Club — that designated landmark building, Modern style, with its committees and coded loyalties — was not outside that relationship. It was the stage on which much of it unfolded.

Kristine was not an observer from a distance.

She was in it.

In my December 29, 2021 statement, I recorded the moment when she crystallized what had been ambient tension into language. She told me:

“You have created some enemies here.”

When I pressed her — enemies who? — she answered:

“Lars’ camp.”

That was not an offhand comment. It was a diagnosis.

She then added:

“It doesn’t buy us anything to use your name.”

That sentence is the hinge.

It reveals motive. It reveals calculation. It reveals alignment.

This was no longer about performance in the kitchen or quality of meals. It was about affiliation. It was about proximity to Lars. It was about whether my name was politically safe.

Psychologically, this is triangulation.

The dynamic is simple but corrosive:
Two people form an alliance. A third person is positioned as destabilizing. Power consolidates around the alliance. The destabilizing party is isolated, not directly attacked — just edged out.

Kristine did not confront Lars publicly.
She did not create institutional boundaries around him.
She did not discipline him.

Instead, she managed around him.

She told me, in that same January 18 conversation recorded in my statement, that using my name would not “buy us anything” because of “Lars’ camp.” That is strategic social containment.

It is also displacement.

Rather than address the source of volatility, she adjusted the perimeter — me.

The marginalization that followed was not random. It tracked relational fault lines.

Credit disappeared.
Titles were withheld.
My disability was invoked as limitation.
And when I created a Scandinavian calendar to unify Swedish, Danish, and Norwegian holidays — she replied:

“Your Danish bias is coming through.”

That phrase did not arise from nowhere.

It was not culinary critique. It was personal indictment.

Lars’ Danish identity had been central to our relationship. To accuse me of “Danish bias” was to drag the personal into the professional and dress it as cultural correction.

Psychologically, this is reframing. The private becomes the public explanation. The relational becomes administrative.

And my part?

I cannot pretend neutrality.

I chose that relationship.
I let it shape my creative work.
I believed intimacy could coexist with professionalism in a small cultural institution.

I underestimated the political ecology of the Club.

In the December 29 statement, I also recorded Kristine telling me that my name was not being used because of “Lars’ camp” and because I did not bring a “Swedish name” to the food program. The layering of those two rationales — social allegiance and national origin — is not accidental. It is identity sorting.

Once the relationship with Lars ruptured in December 2021, I was no longer just a former partner.

I was a liability.

And from that point forward, the institutional decisions begin to align with that interpretation:

• The rapid installation of Arista.
• The narrowing of my visible role.
• The February job posting with mandatory Nordic credentials.
• The March 21 declaration that I would not be considered because of my age and disability.

These are not isolated HR decisions.

They are consolidation after relational fracture.

The tragedy — and the novelistic truth of it — is that none of this required a formal conspiracy. It required alignment. It required silence. It required a willingness to treat relational discomfort as managerial inconvenience.

And that is how pathology spreads in institutions.

Not through dramatic confrontations.

Through quiet adjustments.

Through withheld credit.

Through language like:

“It doesn’t buy us anything to use your name.”

Once you read that sentence in its original context, everything that follows begins to cohere.

The job posting.
The title corrections.
The cultural gatekeeping.

Compounding all of it was Lars.

And compounding Lars was Kristine’s choice not to stand apart from the relational crosscurrents — but to manage within them.

What follows traces how that management hardened into structure.

📂 Primary Source Documents

December 29, 2021 Statements

The following two contemporaneous statements were written before the February 2022 job posting and before the “visiting chef” storyline fully matured. They provide direct documentation of the atmosphere, the conversations, and the structural dynamics already in play.

🔗 Author’s December 29, 2021 Recollections – Part 1

🔗 Author’s December 29, 2021 Recollections – Part 2

For readers who want to understand how the later job posting, title manipulation, and Indeed advertisement fit into a broader pattern, these two documents are essential.

They are not retrospective interpretations.
They are contemporaneous records.

Read them alongside the February 2022 job advertisement.
Read them alongside the March 2022 disability-based denial of my application.
Read them alongside the semla bun exchange.

The connective tissue becomes visible.

This chapter traces how that pattern was operationalized — how narrative control turned into formal exclusion, and how informal marginalization evolved into structured removal.

From the Book to the Photos

You’ve seen the words.
Now you can see the place.

Following the publication of Kristine Leander: Impresario of Control, Swedish Club 411 is releasing a companion visual archive: thousands of photographs documenting Swedish Club operations from 2020–2023.

Events. Workspaces. People. Power. Culture.
This is what the Club actually looked like — day after day, year after year.

👉 Explore the Swedish Club Operations galleries

Kristine Leander File Library

A Reader Advisory & Context Note

This section of the site houses materials curated by the author, Elizabeth Campbell, over multiple years while she was a member, employee, and participant in the life of the Swedish Club.

These files form the backbone of the book
Kristine Leander and the Swedish Club: Impresario of Control — A True Story.

They are presented here so readers can explore, at their own pace, the people, events, patterns, and behind-the-scenes dynamics that shaped the story told in the chapters.

Privacy & Sensitivity Notice

Reasonable efforts have been made to review and, where appropriate, redact personal information relating to private individuals and to limit the disclosure of sensitive material not essential to the narrative.

That said, because this library reflects real events, real people, and real conduct over a long period of time, some materials may contain content that is personal, uncomfortable, or revealing in ways that were not intended for public view.

This is a true story.
It is not a sanitized one.

If you believe material has been included in error or requires correction, please contact the author so the issue can be reviewed.

Content Advisory

Some portions of this library include descriptions of personal conflict, emotional harm, workplace misconduct, and abuse of power. Certain materials may also reference sexualized behavior, exploitation, or intimidation.

Reader discretion is advised.

This library will be updated periodically as additional materials are incorporated into the book or released for public viewing.

Source Materials

The materials linked below are part of my contemporaneous personal record documenting my experiences, events, and communications connected to the Swedish Club and its leadership.

This archive reflects the narrative and documentary foundation of Kristine Leander and The Swedish Club: Impresario of Control and related writing projects. The documents reflect how events unfolded as I experienced them.

• 0001 – Contemporaneous Record / Diary Archive
• 0002 – Contemporaneous Record / Diary Archive
• 0003 – Contemporaneous Record / Diary Archive
• 0004 – Contemporaneous Record / Diary Archive
• 0005 – Contemporaneous Record – Diary Archive
• 0006 – Contemporaneous Record / Diary Archive
• 0007 – Contemporaneous Record / Diary Archive

Ms. Leander’s Swedish Club History and Activities

• Member
• Board Member
• Cultural Director
  • Newsletter Editor
  • Activity Director
• Executive Director
• Lifetime Member

Other Information