@brittarnhild
I love cooking. I love to invite friends, to decide the menu, to gather the ingredients - from the Farmer´s Market, from the grocery store, from my fridge or my freezer, or from The Blue Garden. I can spend hours in the kitchen, enjoying what I am doing.
I love photographing and I love blogging. To collect words for the tales I want to tell, to shot photos. To put together in my blog. To communicate with my readers.
Sometimes it is hard to put these things together. When I am in the kitchen, preparing for a lunch or a dinner, my mind is fully there. The hours fly and all too soon the table is set and the meal is ready......without photos.
Like yesterday. A small camera was standing there all alone in the kitchen. I managed a few shots, but most of the time I was too deep into my task. Especially when the food was starting to get ready. No photo of the soup, no photo of the spaghetti........and none of the coffee and cake.
I guess it will have to be like this. I am only one person, just me, I have two hands, two eyes, one heart.........and I want it to continue that way!
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Yesterday´s menu
(nothing posh, I prefere the simple meals)
nettle soup cooked on nettels from the garden
bruscetta with tomatos and basil, made on homemade bread
home made grissini
speghetti with a homemade pesto of basil, pine nuts, olive oil, salt and pepper
coffee/tea and my mothers fyrstekake
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As I said, being both the chef and the photographer can be a challenge. Watching my mother and her talents with my camera is another story. Like in August 2011 when mom made fyrstekake
Blog reader Andrea in Minnesota asked for my mother's fyrstekake recipe. I phoned my mother: "Can I come over next week to bake fyrstekake with you?" Mor (mor is the Norwegian word for mother) had already read Andrea's comment and had started planning. "Why don't you come next week. Then we can bake a cake for Ingrid's birthday.
Marta and I drove up to my parents after work yesterday. First a cod and lefse dinner, then a nap (for me), and we were ready for baking. Well, mor baked while I took photos, and asked questions, and Marta wrote down the recipe.
The recipe is originally written down in mor and far's wedding memory book. From 1957. Nine months before I was born.
Starting with the almonds we were soon immensed in the baking, in the photographing.
Flour, baking powder, sugar, egg, butter......
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While we were busy with the cake, my father was deep into another project......
............a project he and I will work on together the coming months.......still not ready to be revealed :-)
From a drawer my mother found the most important fyrstekake tool, a small wheel. I remember this wheel from my childhood, a tool to create magic.
But first some kneeding and rolling to do.
These old hands. A life of love.
Time for the almond filling
and the topping
"Mor, your hands are so steady!" "Do you really think so, they are not what they used to be you know, my 82 years are all in them"
Almost ready for the oven. Time for Marta to write down the recipe:
250gr white flour, 2 teaspoons baking powder, 125gr sugar, 1 egg, 125gr butter
Almond filling:
250gr almonds, 200gr icing sugar, 1 teaspoon vanilla sugar, cardamom, cinnamon, 1 eggwhite, 6 spoons cold water, egg to brush the top.
Ready for the oven.
175Celsius for 45 minutes.
Hi far, what are you working on now.........
Cake is ready!
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This cake was made for Ingrid´s birthday back in 2011. Today there are two birthdays in our close family. Torgeir, our firstborn, is 32, Marius, Ingrid´s fiancee is 25. Tomorrow is time for a HUGE party in The House in the Woods. A pizza party!
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The fyrstekake tale was first published om August 19th, 2011.
