The Susanne

Movie night with the sister –  what a lovely concept. And what a lovely night. A while back we placed an ad at finn.no which serves as a kind of ebay to us living in stone age Norway, asking if anyone owned (and would be will­ing to sell us) a copy of the movie Vill­hesten (The Wild Horse) from 1994. I’d write all about it but I’m simply too lazy so if you want you can read about it (in Nor­we­gian) on Nor­we­gian wiki­pe­dia here. Grow­ing up as a horse crazy little girl it was one of my favour­ite films and I even belonged to a book club called Pennyklub­ben which was all about horses, and they had sponsored the film and sent all their mem­bers the single with the theme song from the movie: Du Følger Vinden (You follow the wind). Yeah, you guessed cor­rectly: I played it non-​stop.

So a lovely girl replied to the ad and my sister bought the film and tonight we were finally able to sit down and watch the movie we’d so been long­ing to revisit. And oh what a won­der­ful film it is. It had me back in 1994 in an instant. I felt the old long­ing for my own horse, long­ing for an adven­ture like the girls in the film, long­ing to listen to the song again… and again and again! Alas — the single is long lost. I ask myself how I could have lost such a treas­ured object, but the truth is I got over my horse crazy stage at some point and prob­ably threw it out during one of my tan­trums which usu­ally occurred when I was forced to tidy my room, or maybe it was even lost long before that time. I’m ser­i­ously con­tem­plat­ing pla­cing another ad just for that little cd single. With just one or pos­sibly two tracks on it — but then I only need that one, that song that can still make me feel like a ten year old girl whose greatest ambi­tion is to own my own horse and go for long rides every day. Ah…

But my life is quite changed since then. My ambi­tions now are much higher and the pro­spect of them much scar­ier. I’ve still not com­pleted all my oblig­at­ory course work for the semester, my mind just refuses to co-​operate, every time I sit down to work my mind blanks or freezes or I get a head ache from the stress of it all. I wish I knew how to calm myself, col­lect my thoughts and just do it but I don’t — I con­tinue to doubt my own abil­ity to the point where the self doubt becomes a self-​fulfilling proph­ecy and the end result is… well I don’t know the end result yet but the situ­ation at the moment is far from great!

But I still treat myself. The other day I decided to buy myself a cook’s knife which I’ve been want­ing for a long time, a san­toku knife but I don’t think it’s an actual san­toku. The little leaf­let that came with it says it’s a san­toku but I’m sure that’s just a descript­ive term and it’s really a fake. It’s def­in­itely lovely though. So light, fits so well in my hand and does my every bid­ding with no trouble at all and I’m simply smit­ten with it.

I also allowed myself a little night out on Friday after spend­ing many hours read­ing and taking notes for my essay on Vol­pone (yes, still on that! Will it ever end I ask you! But then I know it will, for the final dead­line is on Sat­urday). I had made plans with Lis­beth to go out but then I texted her saying I had to stay home and study because I simply didn’t deserve to go out. — And then I changed my mind of course and allowed myself some fun. And oh, we had fun. We had moji­tos at qba, a bar at Grünerløkka where Hilde works, and the Aus­tralian boy who danced whilst making our drinks man­aged to get grass straws in our drinks. They still tasted fine though.

And we met a lovely dog who tried to eat our faces and my camera. His owner came out and I apo­lo­gised to her for get­ting him all excited but I don’t quite remem­ber her reac­tion. I sus­pect she was stone sober and found me annoy​ing.The dog loved us though! (and yeah, I’m a cat person not a dog person. And I still liked this dog)

Tomor­row is my last chance to finish my phon­et­ics paper then have to really get down to Vol­pone: I’m making myself hit the lib­rary so hope­fully that will give me that extra push. Also it will keep me away from the kit­chen which is always a big help, today I made a quick couscous soup which I read about and it just soun­ded so lovely. I used some minced beef because it was on spe­cial and some tomato paste and it was amaz­ing! Mmmm. Although I think I put a little too much couscous in there – I’ll use less next time. No photo – it simply didn’t look as good as I would have liked. It tasted deli­cious though and really, that’s what mat­ters isn’t it?

These deli­cious little snacks can be the per­fect way of sat­is­fy­ing that intense chocol­ate crav­ing without the intense guilt which usu­ally fol­lows. Made from ‘puffed rice’ as we call it in Norway (I have not been able to come up with a suit­able word for it in Eng­lish, although I believe you’d be able to make it your­self by put­ting rice in an air popper for pop­corn) and melted chocol­ate, mixed together and cooled in little tops on a cookie sheet or in cup­cake tins, it is a staple of children’s parties and a loved snack by kids coun­try wide. My mum never used to make them so I only had the luxury of tast­ing them when vis­it­ing friends’ houses on spe­cial occa­sions such as birthdays.

I’ve put together an adult ver­sion with dark instead of milk chocol­ate, mixed with a little vanilla sugar to sweeten it a bit.

Yields 15-20:

• 1,5 L puffed rice
• 250 g dark cook­ing chocol­ate, in small pieces
• 1 tbsp vanilla sugar
• 1 tbsp margarine
• 0,5 dl water

In a small sauce­pan, melt the mar­gar­ine and add the cook­ing chocol­ate. While the chocol­ate is melt­ing, add the water a little at a time to get a smooth, not too thick yet not too runny con­sist­ence. Add the vanilla sugar.

In a bowl, mix the rice with the melted chocol­ate until well covered. Place in cup­cake tins or spoon onto a lined baking sheet. Leave to cool com­pletely before serving.

Think­ing about Hellstrøm earlier today reminded me that I’ve been want­ing to try making risotto for a while now. Risotto has always been one of my ‘scary foods’, espe­cially since watch­ing Hell’s Kit­chen where it seemed as if not a single epis­ode went by without someone get­ting yelled at by Gordon for making inedible(according to him) risotto.

The net­work (TV3) pub­lish a recipe from each epis­ode of Hellstrøm Rydder Opp on their web­site, and the recipe for the first epis­ode was risotto. I decided to try it, but couldn’t figure out the meas­ure­ments (8 small cups? what’s that? espe­cially as we use the metric system here in Norway and a ‘cup’ might be any­thing from an espresso cup to a huge mug). So I fol­lowed the recipe on the back of my rice packet instead.

Also I’d been plan­ning to make this for dinner today — so I settled on a com­prom­ise: risotto with garlic and tuna! I added some carrot to get some colour in there as I didn’t have any fresh chilli, and I must say I’m quite pleased with the result. The risotto turned out creamy, the rice was cooked per­fectly al dente, and the fla­vours of the tuna, garlic, and parmesan com­ple­men­ted each other really well. Deli­cious! Will def­in­itely be making more risotto in the future now I’m no longer intim­id­ated by it! And because tuna is so inex­pens­ive I do believe I’ll be trying to eat more of that, too. I really do love a piece of warm toast with tuna and salt — but today’s risotto suc­cess has inspired me to get out of my com­fort zone and try dif­fer­ent things. What else would be good with tuna, I wonder?

Dead­line for the first draft of my essay was nine minutes ago. I handed in noth­ing like what I hope my fin­ished essay to be a month from now — in fact I have simply not been able to wrap my mind around the ques­tion. Either it must be ridicu­lously simple and only a matter of dis­cuss­ing how the char­ac­ters differ in their ruth­less self-​seeking, or it is as I think: much more com­plex and com­plic­ated. And I still haven’t figured out how to answer it. I have come up with an idea for a bril­liant essay on the dif­fi­culty of the ques­tion, but some­how I doubt that will get me that A…

I always feel strong dis­ap­point­ment in myself at times like this. I feel like a fail­ure, I feel like I have not put enough effort into it (although I have, of course!) I feel like I have no worth while thoughts at all and that I know noth­ing. Yea, I know. Sad. It’ll pass soon enough though. And when it does, hope­fully the veil that I know is hiding the answer I seek will lift and I will be able to finish my task!

In the mean time, I’ve got the layout job for Filo­lo­gen loom­ing. The first course night of the layout class was yes­ter­day and I found it inter­est­ing, if maybe a little dif­fi­cult and not com­pletely sat­is­fy­ing. There were ques­tions which I didn’t get answers to, and lots of stuff that is quite irrel­ev­ant to the type of pub­lic­a­tion we make. I’m going back for round two tomor­row and am excited about it: hope­fully things will fall a little into place and I’ll be able to learn most of what I’ll need so that when Monday rolls around and I have my meet­ing with the editor and the rest of the edit­or­ial staff I won’t be com­pletely clueless.

I must admit I eat quite well even when I’m busy with study­ing. The dis­trac­tion of cook­ing is the most wel­come to me of all dis­trac­tions, and I’m sure many of you can relate to my feel­ings on the sub­ject of dis­trac­tions and pro­cras­tin­a­tion: Yes please, no please, please leave me alone… So I allow myself the luxury of spend­ing an hour or two in the kit­chen cook­ing and eating. Yes­ter­day it was smoked saus­ages and sautéed veget­ables; today it was a lovely grilled tail piece of trout, with green beans and sugar snaps (as you know, my favour­ite combo), mush­rooms and a sweet bal­samic vin­egar glaze. Mmmm!  What I really love about cook­ing when I’m really sup­posed to be study­ing, is that I can ration­al­ise and tell myself that I must eat, I need brain food, I can’t very well starve to death over an essay! Plus the break is very refresh­ing and I always return to my work with renewed energy and much, much happier!

Last night as I was set­tling down with my books, ready for a night of hard core study­ing, a sudden surge of loneli­ness came over me. I felt des­per­ately sad and pathetic, newly single and home alone on a Sat­urday night! Yes­ter­day was also the one month anniversary of my break-​up, which only made things sadder and more pathetic, in my mind at least. So when C called me, on her way home from Göteborg, I thought I’d never been so happy to hear another person’s voice. A few hours later I found myself on her sofa, glass of wine in hand, gig­gling and dis­cuss­ing where to go out. We ended up at a party with C’s friend M’s friends who are all civil engin­eers and it was the weird­est, fun­nest and fun­ni­est group of people I have met in a long time. Firstly, they all looked the same! Actu­ally they all looked very dif­fer­ent, but some­how they still man­aged to look identical. Quite the conun­drum! Secondly, they were all dan­cing! All the time! Grown men (and a few women) dan­cing to Bob Sin­clair and DJ Ötzi, taking up all floor space and a couple were even spot­ted dan­cing on chairs. Strange, you say? Unbe­liev­able, you say? You don’t have to take my word for it: I took pictures!

The last couple of days I’ve been trying to get rid of some of the stuff that’s been accu­mu­lat­ing in my fridge and pantry — it was at the point where I felt very guilty about buying any food because I already had so much, plus there was really no room for new food any­ways. So I made two ‘throw everything in a pot’ meals which both turned out amaz­ing! Yes­ter­day it was a seafood-​noodle stir fry which i made with kimchi fla­voured ramen noodles and sea­food from my freezer. The noodles were an impulse pur­chase, I actu­ally had no idea what kimchi was but I had a vague feel­ing I’d heard about it some­where before, most likely on Elyse Sewell’s LJ. My desire for learn­ing ignited, I poked around a little on this won­der­ful thing that we call the Inter­net, and learned all about kimchi. Who knew fer­men­ted veget­ables could taste so good? I used a little of the kimchi broth to make the stir-​fry sauce, along with soy sauce, garlic, hot sauce and onions. Fried up the noodles with green beans, sugar snaps, some carrot and onion, and the sea­food. Mmmm!

Today I made a sort of bulgur ‘risotto’, with juli­enned carrot and sliced onion, and an asian type glaze which I made from onion, garlic, loads of ginger and soy sauce, with just a little corn flour to thicken. It was so yum! And healthy too, if you don’t count the tons of salt in the soy sauce. And I’ve always been a bit extreme when it comes to my salt habits, so noth­ing new there…

…was yes­ter­day! I’m gutted I missed it. I’d even been out and bought a kilo of mutton and a head of cab­bage and was only going to take a quick little nap before I star­ted cooking… And whaddya know, I woke up this morn­ing at 8, feel­ing nowhere near rested and com­pletely hor­ri­fied that not only had I missed out on National Fårikål Day, I’d also missed the first epis­ode of Hellstrøm Rydder Opp, the Nor­we­gian ver­sion of Gordon Ramsay’s Kit­chen Night­mares. I’d been look­ing for­ward to it for months now, sway­ing between excite­ment at the show and dis­gust at the old Nor­we­gian man trying to ‘be’ Gordon Ramsay. In the end, though, noth­ing was to keep me from watch­ing the show. Oh yea, except fall­ing asleep! Or should I say going into hiberna­tion. Or a coma. Not sure what to call it, but I’m very sur­prised that I actu­ally man­aged to sleep that long. Almost twenty hours straight — I didn’t even wake up once, so when I finally awoke this morn­ing I was fully dressed, on top of my bed­spread and with only a wool­len blanket pro­tect­ing me from the frosty morn­ing air. After get­ting up, some­what gingerly, and chat­ting to my mate R on msn for a little while, I dragged my sorry bee­hind into the shower and came out fif­teen minutes later feel­ing refreshed — and got star­ted on my fårikål!

Now, just because I missed out on the actual day it does in no way mean I’m will­ing to miss out on fårikål. I just love fårikål, it’s so deli­cious in all its sim­pli­city! Mutton, cab­bage, salt and whole pep­per­corns, who knew that would make such a scrump­tious com­bin­a­tion? I know wiki­pe­dia claims you’re sup­posed to add flour to the dish to thicken the sauce, but I’ve never had it with flour and frankly I can’t ima­gine it tast­ing any better with flour in it. Actu­ally I’m will­ing to take on anyone that claims fårikål is sup­posed to made with flour — I’ll fight till death!

Boiled pota­toes, though, are a must. And a cold beer to go along with it. Luck­ily some people left behind the odd can of beer when they were unce­re­mo­ni­ously kicked out of my party on Sat­urday night (after I passed out, I’m ashamed to admit) so I’ve got the beer thing sorted. For those who want to avoid alco­hol a non-​alcoholic beer would be good, or even just a glass of ice cold water!

I posted my own recipe for fårikål way back in June when there wasn’t a piece of mutton to be found any­where. So I have had to wait until now — but good things come to those who wait and this is def­in­itely a very good thing! I think I’ll make tra­di­tional Irish Stew next — as good as the modern ver­sion with beef and Guin­ness and loads of yummy veget­ables is I do love the tra­di­tional recipe very much also. And I’m def­in­itely hoping to be able to make fenalår — cured leg of lamb. This is a lengthy and smelly pro­cess though, so I’ll prob­ably have to do it at the parents’ house.. So we’ll se if I get around to it! Mmmm, and now I’m on the sub­ject of deli­cious lamb and mutton dishes my mouth is water­ing at the thought of mum’s amaz­ingly deli­cious lamb stew with green beans and tomato. Ohh, yum! I guess I’ll be eating a lot of both mutton and lamb this autumn. What a lovely thought! I just love autumn!

Also I did end up going to the network’s web­site look­ing for a rerun date for Hellstrøm Rydder Opp. I didn’t manage to locate it, but what I found instead was much, much better: Web TV! Yey! So I’ve now watched the first epis­ode and my feel­ings about the show are just about unchanged. On the pos­it­ive side I real­ised that as this show is shot in Norway and mainly in Oslo, I’ll be able to visit some of the places after the makeover! Which is some­thing I’ve dreamt of since Kit­chen Night­mares came out. As for the enter­tain­ment value of Hellstrøm Rydder Opp, though, the whole thing was a little bland and the dia­logue some­what stac­cato. Oh, how I missed Gordon’s pas­sion­ate excalmations!  But to give credit to the poor man (Hellstrøm) it can’t be easy trying to fit into Gordon Ramsay’s shoes. And he really is an amaz­ing chef. I’m just not sure if he’s really the right man for this kind of thing… I guess I’ll just have to keep watch­ing the show to find out ;)