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I made it to Damascus. Deep into the night, just three hours before breakfast, after a long, long day on planes and airports.
The bus will soon be here to pick us up for a day of exploring. But I still have time to show you my first photo, a coffee maker in a street in Damascus.
Quite cool, isn't it :-)
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Reisefeber. Travel Fever. Do you have this word in English? Travel Fever, the restlessness in your whole body when you are waiting for time to pass, and when you check your watch you are completely sure it must have stopped. Time walking in snail speed.
I had reisefeber yesterday. Some time after church Terje knew that something had to be done. "Hi Britt-Arnhild. Let's go for a hike, you need to cool down your fever"
He knows me well this man of mine. A hike through the crisp, sunny autumn day. Hand in hand. Not many words needed. Being together. Knowing that he is there, waiting for me when I travel the world.
Love.
I took a lot of photos and had planned to show them here, but then decided that this reflection in quiet water was enough. Was just perfect. Like my love reflected in Terje. His love reflected in me.
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Saturday morning, a bright autumn day and Bondens Marked (Farmer's Market) in Trondheim. Leaving home in the morning for my usual Saturday morning photographing Trondheim, drinking my cappuccino, writing my diary, I remembered to bring my big market basket, and walking through the market with its 27 stalls, it didn't take long to fill it.
Vegetables, bread, sausage, berries, and a few pieces of heavenly handmade chocolate for the after dinner coffee.
Spent much of the day in The Blue Garden yesterday, the blue furniture is stored inside the playhouse for the winter, so there is not much blue except the name of the garden right now. I planted more tulip bulbs, digging in the soil, praying for the growth of my garden, for life, for family,for friends.....and braiding in between all prayers........give me safe and blessed trravels Lord. Show me the way, make me willing to walk it.
All day the purchase from the market coloured the kitchen, my hands longed to start making dinner. Marta and a friend who slept over saw the colours and cried out to me in the garden, where I sat reading Arabian Nights :" Oh, mamma, you have been to Bondens Marked. Can Tiril have dinner with us tonight?"
Terje spent the first part of the morning digging the potatoes out, we planted two different types this year, Molt, which we also had last year, and Troll, a new type for us. Dinner menue was simple to chose: a colourful vegetable wok, grilled new potatoes, bread made of spelt bought at the market, and a reindeer sausage also from the market.
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reading Arabian Nights in a Nordic autumn garden.
Only two days till I leave for Syria and Damascus.
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My mouth has been watering these past days, reading all your lovely apple recipes. Staying, first with friends for two days, then three days in a hotel, I was far from any kitchen, ovens and cooking possibilities. Coming home earlier then Terje had expected yesterday afternoon, I had a light dinner of leftovers with him and Marta, in Norway we eat as soon as we are home from work, some time between five and six, Terje asked if we should make a treat for supper.
"Sure" was my prompte answer, "I'll bake an apple cake!"
While my cake baked I sat down and read your recipes all over again. Margaret's slices of apples with the fried ham for breakfast, or her dessert of saute apple slices in butter with chopped nuts and raw brown caramelized sugar.
Wendy's Apple Waldorf Salad:
1/2 cup toasted walnut halves, chopped into pieces 1/2 cup yogurt 2 tbsp mayonnaise 1 teaspoon honey lemon zest black pepper Mix the above ( except walnuts) and add it to two crisp, chopped apples,and two sliced celery stalks, 1/2 cup raisins, 1/2 juice of one lemon, when ready to serve: divide portions on top of lettuce of your choice and sprinkle with walnuts
Caterina's Baked Apples
Wash 4 (or however many you want) apples, hollow out the core with an apple corer, fill the hole with brown sugar, some butter, and a sprinkle of cinnamon, bake at 350 degrees for 45 minutes or until they're soft and caramely, serve with heavy cream, whipped cream, or vanilla ice cream. Delicious! I have even used leftover baked apples on top of my morning oatmeal the next day.
Michele's Apple Crumble:
I grew up eating apple crumble. Like a pie, only faster to make because there is no pastry required. And the crumble topping is lovely! Filling: 6 apples 6 tablespoons sugar 1 teaspoon cinnamon 2 teaspoons butter Crumble: 4 teaspoons butter 1/2 cup brown sugar 1/2 cup flour 1/2 cup rolled oats Peel and slice apples into greased baking dish. Combine sugar and cinnamon and sprinkle over apples. Dot with two teaspoons of the butter. Blend the remaining four teaspoons of butter into brown sugar. Mix and add flour and rolled oats. Spoon mixture over apples. Bake at 350F for 15mins. Uncover and bake until crust is golden and apples are tender (approx. 35 minutes.) Serve warm or cold with whipped cream. Delicious! Serves 4 to 6 This recipe comes from http://www.canadabbhosts.com/recipes/AppleCrumble.htm I use this one when I'm in the mood for some apple crisp as the one in my mom's old cookbook makes enough for 50 people at a church picnic.
Pinar's special treat:
1 lt milk 9 spoons of semolina 11 spoons of sugar 200 ml of fresh creme 3 apples.. grated 1/4 glass of sugar 1 teaspoon cinnamon nuts or hazelnuts grounded.. /it's better if you do this in a food processor /one cup/ cook on a medium heat the apples sugar and cinnamon until there is no more pple juice.. in another pan.. cook the semolina milk and sugar stirring continuously.. /medium heat/ stop cooking when it thickens .. thick as a pudding .. pour half of the semolina in a glass container / it has to be wet to avoid adhesion.. just fill it with water then pour the water away .. then you can fill it with the semolina mixture../ lay the apple mixture over it.. lay the rest of the semolina mixture on top.. cover with grounded nuts.. chill before serving.. =) enjoy..
Mouth watering for sure, isn't it :-)
Thank you girls for your recipes. I will save them all, and who knows, one day there might be a book about apples..........
Well, I finished my cake yesterday, we had coffee....and ate about half of it. Now I think it is time for coffee again.
By the way, I would love more new apple recipes. Do you have one to share?
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Three days with meetings, walks near the lake during breaks........but not uring lunch break yesterday. There are nmostly met at this meeting, but during lunch break yesterday I filled my new car with women and we went for a knitting hunt.
At the yarnstore I found the world's biggest mitten. They hope to get it into Guinness Book of Records. It is all handknitted!
I need to finish Marta's Selbu mittens!
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It was in the afternoon. I was in Oslo airport waiting for the plane to take me to Trondheim. With the book in my lap, tears were slowly running down my cheeks. I was reading about quite another airport, quite another time. The airport of Havanna in Cuba where young Nora was with her family waiting for the plane to take them, forever, from their beloved country, as refugees to a place they knew nothing about. I was reading Broken Paradise by Cecilia Samartin.
The Cuban/American writer Cecilia Samartin was in Norway last week on a book signing tour. Do you remember I told you that on the day I went to my local bookstore to have a couple of her books signed for me, I forgot my camera. It turned out to be no problem. Cecilia's most charming husband Steve was there, and as soon as he knew that I was without my camera, he offered to take a photo of me and his wife. "I will put it on our facebookpage" he told me. Last night there was an unknown email in my mailbox. From Steve.......with no topic in the topic line. Spam, I thought,and almost deleted it. Luckily my curiosity got me, I opened the email and found a message from this most charming husband Steve: "Hi Britt. I did post pictures on facebook. Thanks for coming to see Ceci - Steve"
The (most charming husband) MCH Steve gave me permission to use the photo here. Thank you Steve. Though I wonder - how did you find my email address.......
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Cecilia Samartin is very famous in Norway. Much more here than in USA where she lives I guess. I am reading Broken Paradise right now, laugh and cry with Nora and Alica and their families, and can't wait to start Mofongo, her newest book. Actually it is so fresh it is not out in English yet, only in a Norwegian translation. What do you say about that :-)
I am in Selbu, the land of the knitted Selbu mittens, for three days. A meeting. One lady came too late the first afternoon. She came over to me: "Will you believe this, I know this place quite well, but today I managed to take a wrong turn. I was miles up the valley when I suddenly realised I had missed the hotel. I have no excuse, only that I was listening to quite a book while driving" Always curious about books as I am, I had to ask: "Which book was that?"
"Mofongo by Cecilia Samartin" was the answer.
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Thank you for your writing Cecilia, and thank you for taking time to really see your readers when you do your booksignings. Thank you for being Ceci's MCH Steve, and for your third eye, the camera. I love the photo you took of me and Cecilia.
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A special thank to Jurizen Publisher for the youtube videos.
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If I lived in a huge, old, white wooden villa, surrounded by apple trees...........
...I would have grown an autumn party. Apple pizza, apple pies, apple cider, apple icecream, apple tea, baked apples, apple butter.......
.....and what more?????
Do you have an apple recipe to share? Please do so, and let's join for an apple party! Write your recipe in the comment section, and in a few days I might do an online apple party, recipes included.
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I have been in Oslo for a couple of days. While walking from my friends' house to the train yesterday morning, I passed this house, these apple trees.
I could have moved right in!
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It is easy to live with the seasons when you have a garden. Everything is asleep during winter, well, almost asleep, then spring comes with a wonderful awakening, with new, fresh energy, summer is overwhelming in all her beauty, then old age and silver hair comes with autumn. Nature is waiting, savouring the afternoon and the night to come. Preparing for a long sleep.
Silver hair, perfect with grey and pastell colours. Old age and silver hair and a promise of new growth.
It is time to prepare spring in the garden. Bulbs with a promise of tulips in a lovely palette of colours, crocuses, daffodills, scillas, muscatis and snowdrops. I dig in the wet soil, my fingers get the best perfume there is from lavender, rose petals and herbs, my heart sings.
Autumn is filled with promises. Winter is for rest and sleep, spring is when you fall in love, summer is for dancing.........
......autumn must be for living. Simple living.
Live simple so that others might simply live. Not my words originally, but try a google search and you will come up with 1001 different sources. So let's just make the words our owns.
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My Saturday morning walk took me to an area of the city where I seldom walk. Old wooden houses combined with a few grand old ones and many concrete quite ugly buildings from the 1970ies. A camera can chose what to shot and you know my favorites - wood, flowers, gardens, blue.......
Old houses have stories to tell. So many stories.
This white and blue house must have been a stable, probably with a flat on top. Children playing in the stable, a young boy proudly showing his girl the horses, hard work, happy days. Good to be anmong the animals during the strength of winter, a place to hide for the warm summer sun.
Close by is a bigger house where I went to music playschool as a toddler.I still have the book I got, worn now, filled with memories. A few years later I came back to the same building to play the piano in a student concert. I was the youngest one and therefore the first one to play. Oh my, was I nervous.....
Generations must have lived and loved here. I wish the walls could tell their stories. At our cabin Terje and I are reading aloud books froma local late writer, kristian Kristiansen. Many of his books are from this part of Trondheim, Kalvskinnet. The tales of life lived are greatly captured by his pen.
Another grand house, the Norwegian Biodiversity Information Center. I have never been inside this house and have bo idea of its history.
My walk continues, and soon I pass an old house with a very sad story, the old prison, "The Slavery"
I am not sure if I want to know about the history from inside these walls.
It is important to know though, and today there is a museum here.
My walk is coming to an end. It is time for a cappuccino, a visit in one of Trondheim's bookstores, and then may be visit a park before going home to make lunch.
But that's another story.
Text and images Britt Arnhild Wigum Lindland
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Booksuggestion:
Not only houses, but also old books have stories to tell. Geraldine Brooks write about a very special book, the Haggadah in Sarajevo in her The People of the Book
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