The Susanne

Today was the best day at work all summer. 150 people came in which I con­trib­ute 100% to the con­tinu­ing bad weather – the great thing about which being firstly that work isn’t as boring and secondly that being stuck inside doesn’t suck! So: yey!

Tonight though I’m going to take it com­pletely easy. Having had my dinner and a nap, I’m now plan­ning on fin­ish­ing my lit­er­ary love of the moment: Cap­tain Nemo’s Lib­rary by Per Olov Enquist. It is such a heart­break­ing and beau­ti­ful book, writ­ten in his usual bril­liant style and I abso­lutely love it.  Also want to finish it quickly as I have to get back to Ulysses and I’ve a grow­ing pile of ‘to be read’ books on my bed­side table.

Inspired by Thursday Night Smackdown’s tigh­tass Tues­day post about aran­cini I did a quick food blog search and dis­covered that the ama­teur gour­met made these little balls of joy four years ago. As the latter used goat cheese in his I decided to go with that, not really feel­ing up to the whole upset stom­ach debacle which inev­it­ably fol­lows any adven­tures I make in the world of cheese.

Aran­cini are so easy to make (albeit a little messy mind you!) and they really do spruce up that tup­per­ware con­tainer full of sticky, left-​over risotto in the fridge! All you need do is grab a small hand­ful of risotto, shape it into a ball, stuff it with some cheese of choice then run it through the breading-​mill (flour, egg, bread­crumbs) and deep fry for a couple of minutes until a lovely golden brown.

The cheese will have melted in the middle and I must say, although it will still taste basic­ally the same as last night’s risotto the simple fact that the aran­cini are crispy little balls filled with cheese really does make a world of dif­fer­ence! Espe­cially when served with a salad – I used a pack of ‘baby salad’ from my super­mar­ket, some red onion, sun-​dried tomato, toasted pine nuts and more goat cheese (which I ended up not eating as I star­ted to worry about the lactose con­tent) and a drizzle of walnut oil!

Ps, just wanted to share this pic from last Sat­urday when I treated N to my all-​time favour­ite meal Cozze alla mar­in­ara. With cham­pagne. Jealous?

En er en og to er to -
vi hopper i vand,
vi triller i sand.
Zik zak,
vi dryp­per på tag,
tik tak,
det regner idag.
Regn, regn, regn, regn
øsende regn,
pøsende regn,
regn, regn, regn, regn
deilig og vådt
deilig og råt!
En er en og to er to -
vi hopper i vand,
vi triller i sand.
Zik zak,
vi dryp­per på tag,
tik tak,
det regner idag.

I love this poem by Sigbjørn Obst­felder. I tried to find an Eng­lish trans­la­tion but couldn’t – and as much as I’d love to do my own trans­la­tion I fear I don’t have the time whilst at work even if I did have the artistic talent. This poem must be done proper justice and just any old trans­la­tion simply won’t do. So there – I’m sure most of my read­ers speak Nor­we­gian anyhow.

Today is cold and wet. Rain drip­ping from roofs. But I am look­ing out at it all from my place at the desk in the lib­rary. Inside is lovely and warm and there are books, many many books and I have checked out one today already and ordered another four from another lib­rary. Ulysses lies beside me and I’ve picked it up a couple of times today, read a few lines and then had to put it down to helt a patron. Everything is calm and lovely. I lent four Anne-​Cath. Vestly books to a gor­geous little girl and my heart warmed. I’m wear­ing my green woolen jumper and am not even bothered by the fact that I’m able to wear it in July. I’m look­ing for­ward to a lovely walk along Akerselva in the rain after work, maybe get­ting take-​away falafels to eat during the walk, maybe not maybe some coffee to keep warm. In the words of Thorkil:  Det blir (er) en fed sommer i år. Ja, jeg kan mærke det!

Oslo:

The World’s Oldest Man:

Books:

Pimms:

Love:

After days of feel­ing abso­lutely miser­able my good humour has finally returned as I’m work­ing with the lovely M instead of Fat Face, and I can’t help noti­cing just how beau­ti­ful the world is. Even the lib­rary in Eids­voll has its charms today, who would have thought after the week I’ve had that I’d actu­ally feel this way. My apo­lo­gies to every­one who has been affected by my bad temper, I can only blame fat face and the way this summer job is throw­ing me com­pletely off bal­ance and leav­ing me dis­turb­ingly inhar­mo­ni­ous. I’ve missed my happy self – hope­fully I’ll be able to hang on to it a little better next week. At least now I come pre­pared. I’m totally loving the easy access to new books, by the way. That’s one of the perks of this job, the other being the lazy days here at the lib­rary. I’ve had a chance to catch up on all the feeds in my google reader and I’ve even put together a pretty cool (if I may say so myself) col­lec­tion of recipes for N (and myself). Can’t wait to try them out!

I have returned from the great met­ro­polis that is Londinium, some­what poorer in cash but infin­itely richer in wisdom and exper­i­ence. Will not debase my amaz­ing memor­ies of the trip by writ­ing them down here but I will share pic­tures. They are due to appear here in this post some time later today. Not now as I am abso­lutely fam­ished and must cook dinner.

xx Susanne/Kirsten

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Panda and Bella’s London adven­ture is only about a day away. We leave pain­fully early Friday morn­ing and return Sunday night – in those three days we’ve a packed pro­gram con­cist­ing of loads of lit­er­at­ure stuff that no one else wants to do. But we’ve found each other and will finally get to go spy on Vir­ginia Woolf’s house and visit the Dick­ens and Sher­lock Holmes museums. I am very excited. Also we’re stay­ing at posh hotel which is a vast improve­ment from my last visit to the met­ro­polis. Can’t wait – I am already miss­ing the luxury of Schæffergården and am in need of a fix.