The Susanne

When C and I had take-​out sushi last Sat­urday we got to won­der­ing how dif­fi­cult and/or expens­ive it would be to make it at home (and pos­sibly save a load of money!). Well, this being Pro­cras­tin­a­tion Day, I did some research – and dis­cov­er­ing that farmed Nor­we­gian salmon is 100% safe to eat raw as long as you buy it very fresh, or frozen, I defros­ted a fillet I found in my freezer, made some sushi rice, opened one of my jars of home made pickled ginger and enjoyed an abso­lute feast of Sake (salmon) Nigiri Sushi. It was heav­enly, and much much cheaper than the 100kr I’d have paid for it at my local sushi place. Plus I’ve got another full meal left over in the fridge along with some salmon sashimi.

The rice came out deli­cious but not as firm as I’d have liked as the ‘balls’ kept dis­solv­ing when I dipped the sushi in the soy sauce. I sup­pose prac­tice makes per­fect though, and as I plan to keep per­fect­ing my sushi making skills I am sure the day will come when I make the most amaz­ingly firm piece of rice. Can’t wait!

Procrastination Day!

I am shame­fully behind on my assign­ment for Friday: a 20 minute lec­ture on two or more texts from the cur­riculum of what must be the most ridicu­lous course ever to be ‘taught’ on MA level at any uni­ver­sity. Need­less to say I am suf­fer­ing from a severe lack of motiv­a­tion and we all know that is the per­fect breed­ing ground for the infec­tion we all know (and love/loathe) as Procrastinitis.

Today it mani­fes­ted itself in an uncon­trol­lable urge to alpha­bet­ise my books. I’ve never bothered to sort them before, I’ve just bought them, kept them by my bed­side until I’m done read­ing them then stuffed them into a book case wherever I could fit them in. What caused today’s spell of neat­ness? Well, I’ve recently learned that I’m pos­sibly the only ser­i­ous reader of lit­er­at­ure I know who has no system at all for stor­ing my books. So I guess I gave in to con­form­ity. My oldest, crap­pi­est book­shelf didn’t like my new endeav­our though and pro­tested, quite loudly, by col­lapsing. I man­aged to put it back together but it’s look­ing mutin­ous and my inner eye is seeing a jour­ney to IKEA in my imme­di­ate future. Now I must get back to my pro­cras­tin­a­tion, if only just to get all the books off my bed before nightfall.

Well thank good­ness — Spring is here! I’m not quite sure I’d have sur­vived much more of the end­less grey skies and con­stant snow­fall, but no matter because there is not a cloud in sight and there are little stream­lets of melted snow every­where in the streets. Sunglasses go every­where with me and it is finally warm enough to enjoy our coffee out­side next to the one beau­ti­ful piece of archi­tec­ture in all of Sagene/Bjølsen:

I’ve also been on a mis­sion to make my kit­chen more ‘homey’ by get­ting a red/white checked table­cloth (coun­try style all the way!) and put­ting my radio/cassette player in there for morn­ing entertainment/news. And the other day I saw this gor­geous cup and saucer in a shop and had to get it! How pretty. Now my kit­chen is (nearly) perfect.

Oh and lastly, Sat­urday night was my friend TW’s 30th birth­day party and C and I went all around Oslo put­ting together a lovely gift basket for him con­tain­ing all Eng­lish stuff (yes he is a bit of an Anglo­phile, I guess you could say.)

We even made heart shaped scones, black­berry crumble (which we baked at the party to ensure the fresh-from-the-oven exper­i­ence!) and peanut butter fudge. I think maybe that last item might be more of an Amer­ican food­stuff though, but no one ques­tioned it, so.

Too exhausted still to write much  except the city was beau­ti­ful as always, if a bit cold (freez­ing winds and rain and even some snow), it was amaz­ing seeing Johanne again and get­ting to par­take in her life there, her friends are all awe­some and the alco­hol was simply too plen­ti­ful, deli­cious and cheap for my own good. Oh and the pierogi! Fant­astic! Am determ­ined to learn how to make them!

Just back from Copen­ha­gen. Two and a half days in utter luxury: duck breast and oven roas­ted lamb for dinner, two hour break­fast buf­fets with waiters attend­ing to my every wish, and lob­ster and oysters for lunch. I’ve fallen in love with the life­style and plan to marry up. And I’ve also fallen in love with Karen Blixen (Isak Dinesen) and I want to read everything she’s ever writ­ten! I’m read­ing Winter’s Tales at the moment, I want to go on to Out of Africa and Seven Gothic Tales and I want to re-​read Babette’s Feast which I remem­ber read­ing in school but I don’t remem­ber the story. Karen Blixen must be the greatest story teller I know of.

I man­aged to leave the memory card for my camera in my com­puter at home so sadly there are no good pic­tures but here is one I took with my camera phone of the place we were stay­ing, Schæffergården. Am apply­ing for a schol­ar­ship for a two week summer course there in June: two weeks of Danish con­tem­por­ary lit­er­at­ure and being waited on hand and foot — not too shabby eh?

Must also men­tion the luxury of being able to sit down with a glass of wine and talk about lit­er­at­ure with two of the most know­ledge­able pro­fess­ors in Nordic lit­er­at­ure at my uni­ver­sity. Priceless!