The Susanne

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…

Back in the ’60s, The Boyfriend’s grand­mother (on his mother’s side) and her sis­ters bough a small island for 2500 kr. The value was based on the fact that it was pas­ture for 2,5 sheep. They built some cabins there, pretty small ones at first and then they’ve added on to them in the years since, to acco­mod­ate the grow­ing fam­il­ies. Now it’s a reg­u­lar para­dise just within the Hark­mark fjord and look­ing out to the wide ocean, and I’m sure it’s worth mil­lions upon mil­lions. Not that anyone’s think­ing of selling: this is a family retreat and that’s what it will always be.

The whole family uses it and every­one helps with the upkeep and improve­ments, and once a year they all gather for the annual family party. It tra­di­tion­ally includes a feast, singing and a good catching-​up of the year’s events. This year was the 20th anniversary of the event and my first time. The Boy­friend, his dad and his uncle had been scar­ing me with tales of new­comers being forced to stand on the table so i was pretty nervous. in fact, that’s the reason this is my first time: last year I decided it was ridicu­lous (read: too scary) and changed my train ticket to two days later. This year, though, I’d seen through their scam. Appar­ently only new babies go on the table, and that’s only so every­one can see them. So I only had to stand up next to my chair and look pretty. The party went well, every­one stuffed them­selves with prawns and white bread, and later with cake, before the song books and gui­tars were brought out and the singing began. I’d con­vinced The Boy­friend he should bake a cake for the party this year, and picked out this recipe from Con­fes­sions of a Novice which looked abso­lutely scrump­tious. He agreed to do it on the con­di­tion that I was there to lend a help­ing hand when needed, which I gladly agreed to. He didn’t need much help actu­ally, but I must admit I butted in a little. I find it very hard to keep my hands off things in the kit­chen. The cake was a huge suc­cess. Ten minutes after the cakes had been brought out, all that was left was a small heap of crumbs and crushed blue­ber­ries. Four dif­fer­ent people asked for the recipe and I think every­one has some new­found respect for The Boyfriend’s abil­it­ies in the kit­chen. I was told I’m a good influ­ence on him, which was pretty cool to hear also.

I have been get­ting a cold lately and of course it chose Sat­urday to really show its ugly face. I didn’t mind so much except that I wanted to make a good impres­sion on the rel­at­ives and instead I was reduced to a sniff­ling mess with no energy to spare and without my usual, sunny, bubbly dis­pos­i­tion. I did my best, though, and I’m sure they liked me anyway. At least a little…

The next day the sun came out and the boys went swim­ming. I wanted to more than any­thing, but I felt fever­ish and stuffy and awful and opted out, instead taking on the role of pho­to­grapher. They had fun though: