The Susanne

On Sat­urday night at about 1am, The Boy­friend, his cousin and I went crab pick­ing. We were a little tipsy from the party and it was pitch black out because of the clouds, and the rocks are very slip­pery. But we braved all these obstacles and went out with high spir­its and higher hopes of a great catch. We were not dis­ap­poin­ted. Last year, The Boy­friend and I only caught four crabs on our nightly adven­ture. This year we came back with 21 beau­ties! We were soak­ing wet from the rain (and I from fall­ing in a few puddles along the way…) and tired from the day, so we covered them with some sea­weed to keep them alive, and went to bed.

The next morn­ing we woke up, excited about our catch and couldn’t wait to get our hands on it. We filled the largest pot with some sea water and put it on two burn­ers to boil. Then all we had to do was wait until the water was ready for our little crabby friends… After the fun of throw­ing the little things in the boil­ing water we had to wait another 30 minutes while they cooked, then drain them on the rocks outside.

Luck­ily The Boyfriend’s cousin R’s boy­friend P sug­ges­ted we eat the crab legs while they were still warm, as appar­ently it’s easier to suck the meat out then. It is my belief that he was simply impa­tient about dig­ging into the good­ies — and I heart­ily applaud his initiative!

Mmmm… so good!

Later on, with only a few, stray, legs left on the crabs, it was time for the birth­day feast ( it was cousin S’ birth­day) — con­sist­ing of crabs, of course. The table was laid, every­one gathered, and then we ate. And ate, and ate, and still there were a few little crabs left over once we were all full. They were some pretty meaty little guys! We didn’t actu­ally make a crab cake like we’d joked about the night before when we went pick­ing, but I think that was pos­sibly for the best.

Happy birth­day, S. And thank you for lend­ing me your clean and dry (spare) trousers whilst my own dried off…

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:

I caught a fish! Well, The Boy­friend and I caught it but I reeled him in and gutted him and cleaned him. And named him, Kalle Cod. After Kalle Klovn which was a char­ac­ter on tv when I was little. It was quite funny actu­ally, we were out on the water at about 9pm, and The Boy­friend said that he actu­ally hoped we didn’t catch any fish because then we’d have to clean it and bla bla bla. The next moment his face went kind of funny and he handed me the line. And there was def­in­itely a catch on the other end of it! So I reeled it in and as there was jelly­fish on the line and we were only a few short minutes from his house we just put little Kalle in a bucket and sped home. The whole family came down to see and The Boyfriend’s mum helped me gut and clean the fish. So fun. Going fish­ing again tonight, and Trond’s coming too. I’m excited about it: I love fish, I love fish­ing and I love hanging out with Trond. Unbeat­able com­bin­a­tion, really!

An hour after I got off work, the sun was gone. (It had to happen…) In its place was a thun­der­storm with strong wind and heavy rain:

Yeah. Good thing my brownies turned out won­der­fully per­fect! They’re moist and sticky on the inside, with lovely big chunks of almonds and dark and milk chocolate… Recipe will be posted under ‘drinks and snacks’!

I came up with this last night when I was crav­ing pasta but also saw there were loads of veget­ables in the fridge that had to be eaten. I even threw in a little cheese even though it makes me ill, just because cheesy pasta is so yum. This made one huge por­tion that I couldn’t finish, so I sup­pose it will feed two girls or one man.

• 1 por­tion spaghetti
• 1/2 cap­sicum (green bell pepper)
• 1/2 onion
• 6 cherry tomatoes
• 8 small broc­coli florets
• 1 dl grated Jarlsberg
• 10 slices cured ham

Slice the cap­sicum and the onion thinly (about 1-2 mm thick). Cut the toma­toes in half. Cut the ham slices into 1 cm strips.

Boil the spa­ghetti in 2 L water with a little salt and veget­able oil.

In a skil­let, sauté the veget­ables (except the toma­toes) for about five minutes. Add the toma­toes and sauté for another minute. You don’t want them to turn to mush.

When the spa­ghetti is done, drain and put it back in the pot. Add the veget­ables, the ham and the cheese and toss. Serve imme­di­ately on deep plates.

Yum!