The Susanne

When I went to visit a friend in The Hague in 2003, his mate proudly announced that he knew some Nor­we­gian. ‘Knekke-brø-e-øh-te’ he pro­claimed, look­ing very chuffed. I laughed and asked him to teach me the Dutch word for it, but sadly I’ve for­got­ten it by now.

Anyhow – I’ve been exper­i­ment­ing with recipes for crisp bread for weeks now and I believe I’ve finally arrived at the per­fect one (for me)! I just made a fresh batch today that I’m going to give to mum when I go home for Easter.

And, by request, I’ve also posted the recipe. Happy Easter everyone!

This recipe makes 24

• 100 g whole grain flour (I like to use whole wheat)
• 65 g sesame seeds
• 65 g flax seeds
• 65 g sun­flower seeds
• 65 g pump­kin seeds
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tbsp honey
• 2 tbsp veget­able oil (I use soy)
• 2 dl water

Set oven to 170 C.
Mix all ingredi­ents together then divide dough in two. Spread each half between two sheets of baking paper, and use a rolling pin to roll them out very thin. I like to trim the edges of the sheet of dough so that the crisp breads will be more even in shape when cut. Cut into 12 pieces (or more if you like them smal­ler) Bake for about 20 minutes on bottom rack, open­ing the oven to let out steam every now and then. They’re done when they’re a lovely golden colour and com­pletely dry. Leave to cool, then enjoy!

Sometimes I simply have to have an entire day to myself. Today is one of those days. Even after spend­ing all last week in frantic revi­sion mode for my exam (oh and I totally pulled off the mir­ror­ing, I’m con­vinced it earned me a whole extra grade!) and yes­ter­day in a state of fever­ish sleep/hallucinations, I still needed today to be a Day of Solitude. Not having to deal with people left me free to make dinner to last me a week, clean the whole flat again, and make myself a lovely little nook in which to enjoy my solitude and a deli­cious even­ing snack.

Oddmundo recently posted this pretty photo illus­trat­ing his obses­sion with technicalities:

I’m not sure why but I do love this pic­ture, per­haps it’s the fact that this wire only exists in this par­tic­u­lar form because Het­mann chewed it whilst Oddmund was still living in our formerly shared flat. And I miss Het­mann. I also miss the Odd Family (term coined by the amaz­ing Isla who I’ll se in less than a month when C, A and I travel to the Brit­ish Cap­ital in order to par­take in the London Book Fair, oh the excite­ment!) but I’m afraid that except for Svein On they’re all pretty much lost to me forever.

I should stop ram­bling now as I’ve a final exam in the morn­ing, I’m plan­ning on acquir­ing a passing grade by mir­ror­ing the exam­in­a­tion com­mit­tee. I’ll let you know the result after!

Let’s Have Another Party!

Since my recent obses­sion with period dramas I’ve been watch­ing pretty much everything I’ve been able to put my hands on and today it was Daniel Deronda. I must admit I’ve never read the novel – I read about half of Middle­march for uni­ver­sity once and abso­lutely abhorred it, then went out and bought DD but never man­aged to muster the cour­age to as much as open it. I quite enjoyed the BBC  series though, so who knows. Maybe I’ll read it some day. Today, how­ever, is really the day for Emma. But, as I’m incur­ably lazy at the moment I’m going to watch the film ver­sion instead of re-​reading the novel for about the thou­sandth time. Not the 1996 film star­ring Gwyneth, oh no! The 2009 BBC pro­duc­tion star­ring none other than Romola Garai – who also plays Gwen­dolyn in DD! I quite like her to be honest: she reminds me a little of Blair from Gossip Girl (yes, I am that shal­low!) And having seen her inter­pret­a­tion of Gwen­dolyn I’m quite excited to see what she makes of Emma. Yes, quite excited…