The Susanne

Soooo.. loads has happened! I’ve been to London, which was amaz­ing… Lots to do, lots to see, people to meet, drinks to be drunk, plays to be visited…I even man­aged to squeeze in a visit at The Pump! Mind you it was on the way from Oxford Street to Pic­ca­dilly Circus. But I did it!

We also vis­ited a few gal­ler­ies and museums,

saw Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament,

met up with S and his lovely girl­friend I,

got drunk with them,

had a BBQ thrown in our honour by L and met heaps of cool people,

got drunk with them,

watched a mid­night salsa lesson,

rode a pink black cab,

took the Tate to Tate boat on the river,

had lunch at the beau­ti­ful Hurl­ing­ham Club,

admin­istered brown cheese to skep­tical Londoners,

rode a merry-go-round on the South Bank,

vis­ited a posh night club and got bought drinks all night and break­fast in a smart res­taur­ant at 4 am,

had ter­rible hangovers,

prac­tised self-​medication — hair of the dog style,

saw London from above on the London Eye,

waved to the Queen,

vis­ited the gor­geous St James’s Park where we saw pel­ic­ans and a squirrel,

went to Mamma Mia Sin­galong at the cinema,

shopped at a prac­tic­ally empty Top Shop on Oxford Street at 9am,

posed in the kit­chen of the Nor­we­gian YWCA,

mastered the Tube,

shopped for dresses at Spit­al­fields market,

had lunch on Brick Lane,

posed in a red phone booth,

vis­ited Shakespeare’s Globe and saw the Merry Wives of Wind­sor — but no photos allowed as cam­eras had not been inven­ted yet ;)

had awful cham­pagne on the flight home…

–and then passed out.

Very suc­cess­ful trip, in other words. When I got home, The Boy­friend and I broke up. Sad, but right. From now on I sup­pose he will be known as The Ex. We’re trying the friend thing and so far it’s worked very well. I moved out over the week­end and am now installed in my new, tiny home, shar­ing a kit­chen and bath­room with another girl. I have an amaz­ing view from my bed­room window and I miss my bunny whom I lost in the divorce. I got the camera though, so photos will keep coming! The food, on the other hand… Well let’s jst say cook­ing for one isn’t as fun as cook­ing for two. I will prob­ably get back into it, but for now I just don’t feel like cook­ing at all. Very sad.

1. Cozze alla Mar­in­ara. The best thing I’ve ever tasted, with such per­fectly bal­anced, intense fla­vours and the broth was per­fect: just light and deli­cious yet filling at the same time. My mouth threw a party at every bite of mussel and every sip of broth.

2. Fruit trucks. I bought a kilo of the famous Sicilian Bronte pistac­chios and some amaz­ing, tiny little pears from this truck. It all tasted divine. Some of the pistac­chios even made it back to Norway with me. Yey!

3. Gam­boli fritti. Sea­food is of course the greatest part of Sicilian cuisine, so no wonder I man­aged to eat fried squid sev­eral times in sev­eral res­taur­ants. With sev­eral levels of deli­cious­ness, O’Neils in Recanati having by far the best.

4. Gran­ita. It’s like a slushie, only made with real fruit and much, much, much better tast­ing. I ima­gine it might be the inspir­a­tion for slushies…

5. Prima piatti. First course. I love how they have four course din­ners that last hours. Of course I could barely fit one course in me, but I still tried out the dif­fer­ent courses and loved them. I’d love to eat like that at home. If only I could afford it, I def­in­itely would. I’d just eat teeny tiny por­tions so I’d have room for everything!

6. Risotto alla mar­in­ara. This was very much like paella and not like any risotto I’ve ever tasted. First of all, the rice didn’t stick together like a gooey mass and it didn’t taste gooey either! It tasted deli­cious, the sea­food was cooked to per­fec­tion and the rice as well. Every rice grain sep­ar­ate and deli­cious in its sep­ar­ate­ness. Yum! If only I knew how to achieve such great res­ults at home…

7. Tiram­isu. This is my favour­ite dessert and although I really can’t eat it without becom­ing ill, I dared the haz­ards and ate half of this huge block of home made tiram­isu. It tasted heav­enly. A little strong, espe­cially as I was feel­ing des­per­ately hung over after our only night out the night before. But like I said, I love tiramisu!

8. The market: fish! We got to the market when it closed having spent all day look­ing for it in the strange city that is Catania and where no one speaks Eng­lish. So I only man­aged to snap a few photos whils run­ning through it as the Sister was sickened by the com­bin­a­tion of oppress­ing heat and the smell of fish, guts and meat… I’d love to shop here though. Pick up some loveøy fresh fish and cook it up in the even­ing when the weather begins to cool, per­haps after a refresh­ing even­ing bath…

9. The market: veget­ables. It must be the lack of fresh food public mar­kets in Norway, but I am crav­ing the chance to stroll along in the midst of a bust­ling market pick­ing out the fresh food I want for dinner…

10. The market: meat. Notice the almost whole carcases?

I’m quite excited about the upcom­ing hol­i­day 17. May. It’s the Nor­we­gian Con­sti­tu­tion day, cel­eb­rat­ing the day in 1814 when a con­greg­a­tion of the finest men of our nation com­pleted our con­sti­tu­tion and declared our inde­pend­ence from Den­mark. Of course, we were to be sub­jug­ated to Sweden for another ninety-​one years before finally achiev­ing com­plete inde­pend­ence in 1905. But we still cel­eb­rate 17. May as the most import­ant date in our nation’s his­tory. The day is tra­di­tion­ally cel­eb­rated with every­one dressed up in their best, many wear­ing folk dress, all gath­er­ing in the streets to par­take of or watch the many 17. May parades.

The best known and prob­ably most endeared parades are of course the children’s parades. The Nor­we­gian poet Henrik Werge­land fathered the idea of the national day being the day of our nation’s chil­dren. He also penned the song ‘Vi ere en nasjon vi med’ (lit­er­ally trans­lated ‘we are a nation, we also’) which is sung by chil­dren in the parade. The parades are fron­ted by march­ing bands play­ing this and other songs such as the national anthem, with school chil­dren fol­low­ing, singing, shout­ing ‘HURRA’ and waving flags. It is truly a sight. In Oslo the children’s parade fin­ishes out­side the royal castle where the royal family gath­ers on the bal­cony, for the people’s view­ing pleasure.

At Eids­voll, where the con­sti­tu­tion was cre­ated, there is also a spe­cial pro­gramme on each 17. May. The set­ting is per­fect for the cel­eb­ra­tions on this day: the house where it all took place making a mag­ni­fi­cent back­drop whilst the people gather in the grounds for speeches, music and games for the chil­dren. This is the 17. May I grew up with. We would get up early, gather at my school and then pro­ceed to the start­ing place for the parade before, after an excru­ci­at­ingly long wait, the parade would get under way and finally we’d end up at Eids­vollbygnin­gen where our par­ents awaited us, cheer­ing, their pock­ets con­tain­ing money for the hot dogs and ice cream we so longed for. 17. May is the one day a year when chil­dren can eat all the ice cream and all the hot dogs they like.

This year, I’m host­ing my first 17. May break­fast. The Boy­friend and I decided on a quieter and less stress­ful route this year, no stu­dent party and no train ride to the Nation’s cradle which is where my par­ents live and is the scene of my child­hood. Instead we’re having The Boyfriend’s brother over for break­fast early in the morn­ing and then we’ll head down town to see the children’s parade and try to get a glimpse of the King.

As far as I’m con­cerned, I don’t mind going the whole day without so much as a mouth­ful of ice cream or hot dog. What I could never do without on this day though, is salmon. Smoked salmon and gravlaks. Which dir­ectly trans­lates to dug salmon or dig-​salmon. It has noth­ing to do with dig­ging though: gravlaks is simply fresh salmon mar­in­ated in a mix­ture of salt, sugar, fresh dill and some cognac for three-​four days. Many people con­fuse gravlaks with the very different-​tasting rak­fisk. Whilst gravlaks is fresh salmon and deli­ciously tast­ing, rak­fisk on the other hand is fer­men­ted fish. Some do say that gravlaks is basic­ally the same product, having simply gone through a quicker pro­cess not includ­ing micro-​organisms and that the final result is much the same; but I do not agree with this com­par­ison at all. To me, there is a clear dis­tinc­tion between the fla­vours and also, there is of course a vast dif­fer­ence between decom­pos­ing fish and fresh fish. And just to make it clear: no one will be served rak­fisk at my table. Ever.

Today, my pas­sion for improv cook­ing has lead me to mar­in­ate half a side of smoked salmon. Yes, it might be super­flu­ous, as the fish is already ‘prepared’, it might not turn out well at all, but I’d quite like to see the result anyway. I made the mar­in­ade using the usual ingredi­ents: salt, sugar, pepper and heaps of fresh dill. As we don’t have cognac in the house (The Boy­friend is more of a whisky drinker) I poured a shot of whisky over my little exper­i­ment instead. I’m excited to see the result on Sat­urday: I’m sure I’ll eat it even if it doesn’t taste great con­sid­er­ing the amount of work I have ahead of me in the days to come. The salmon must be turned over sev­eral times a day, and prefer­ably left out of the refri­ger­ator for a few hours each day in order for the fla­vours to prop­erly impreg­nate the fish.

Excited? Oh yes, I should think so!