Britt-Arnhild's House in the Woods

Pigeons for rabbits

@brittarnhild

Some use rabbits. The late King Olav V prefere pigeons :-)

Faith in Food

@brittarnhild

I am home alone and I just ate two hotdogs in bread for dinner. With five small tomatoes. Not at all a dinner as I like to have it. Not at all a dinner according to the rules I´ve set for my kitchen. But rules can be broken, I am not hungry any more and I actually liked the sausages.

I have in previous posts written about fast food versus slow food, local food versus food which has travelled a long way, cheap no good food versus I want the best and I pay for it food.

Buying groceries in Norway almost always means visiting one of the actually quite few chain stores, where people want their food as cheap as possible, and the quality often depends on that.

 

Food means a lot to me. Ok, there can still be days with two hotdogs, may be........... but most of all I want the best ingredients. Herbs from my garden, vegetables, cheese, fish and meat fresh from the market. I want to smell of herbs like I was coming directly from India, I want scales from the fish on my fingers, blood from the meat on my hands. I want to knead my own dught, bake my own bread.

Luckily the trend is changing, although slowly. We are more aware of what we eat, more aware of the ethics, the sustainability, the climate.

 A week in Lofoten was a feast for the palate. The photos today are from one of the restaurants we visited, Underhuset. Local fish everywhere. Prepared by the best chefs.

The title of this post is from a book I bought recently, and will start to read today. Faith in Food, Changing the world one meal at a time, by Susie Weldon and Sue Campbell with a foreword by HRH The Prince of Wales. Behind the book is ARC, Alliance of Religions and Conservation.

I plan to tell you more about the book after I´ve read it, and I´ll post food tales in the new category Faith in Food here on Britt-Arnhild´s House in the Woods.

 

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The charm as I see it

@brittarnhild

I walked over to Bakklandet, the old part of town, after work today, to buy two concert tickets, one for me, one for my brother Børge in Iceland who is coming to town. It has been two long working days after my return from the holidays, I was tired and I was thinking about blogging. "I have absolutey no idea what to blog about" I told my self. "Am I running out of ideas?" my thoughts went on. "All the tales are already told" my inner voice told me. As I walked my steps became heavier and heavier. "Is my blogging tales river drying up?" "What if I find no more stories?"

Heavier and heavier my steps became, until they kind of stopped completely. Not until then did I raise my head, did I see. I saw charm all around me and then I knew!

My blog readers will love to taken on this walk!
So tie your shoelaces, and come along.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sometimes……..

@brittarnhild

Some days I dream of being a waterlily. Growing in the Water of Life.
Still, peaceful, with an only purpose To Be.

 I dream of letting God´s blessings shower me like summer rain, the wind cherish me like a mother, the sun warm me like a lover.

Other days, most days, I know that I am a human. I thank God for the life he has given me. The laughter, the tears. The joy, the worries. The love. The contentment, the longing. The life. The death.

 

Photos from the baccalao party

@brittarnhild
(photos by Rita-Wivi Fredriksen)

Last night I thought that I had no more photos from the party to show you. This morning I found that Ingrid´s mother in law, Rita Wivi had taken quite a few with her cell phone and posted on facebook. I asked her if she could send me the ones she had, she did, and here are some of them.......

Yes, Granny, baccalao was on the menu :-)

Marius turned 25 in May, Ingrid´s a quarter to hundred birthday is on Wednesday.
Aren´t they a stunning couple!

Party is over, and Ingrid is saying good bye to her grandparents.

Of course we are proud.
For good reason......................

 

As the preparations go on

@brittarnhild

We will fill the house with family tonight. The reason? Ingrid will be 25 in a few days. This beautiful, strong, amazing, clever, smart, fit, lovely girl of ours.

As for blogging, I have an idea: I plan to post photos "as we go", with updates through the day. I have done this once before, in California at Jane and Lanny´s huge BBQ party. Then I was not in charge of anything though, my only job was to walk around, take photos, blog. Today will be more busy as I am the chef, but I´ll do my best.

So if you want to follow the preparations, well, then you need to come back here........

 

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10.55am

"Mamma" Marta said, "I remember we always used to have jelly and vanilla sauce at birthdays. Can you make that again?" How could I say no :-) Orange and raspberry jelly´s, made the fast way, vanilla sauce made by me, milk, egg, sugar, potato flour and vanilla sugar.

Now it is time to peel the potatos........

 

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14-15 pm

 Out in the greenhouse to get paprika and cayenne pepper

 Frying the paprika in olive oil

Frying onions, garlic and cayenne

Terje helps to cut the potatos and the fish

Can you see what the main dish will be?

 

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15.40 pm

As a wonderful smell is filling the house and Terje is gathering chairs, I have started to do the first table.

 

Ingrid´s mother in law, Rita-Wivi came with a chocolate cake. As a matter of fact today was Rita-Wivi´s 48th birthday, Ingrid´s 25th is not until Wednesday, so we had a double celebration.

Marta made an oreo-cake but I never got a photo of it.

Before eating my mother played the piano and we sang and danced for the birthday girls.

.........and after that things were so busy I never got any more photos.

 

An end and a new beginning

@brittarnhild

From Kongsvoll Alpine Garden

Our vacation is over. Four weeks of traveling north, south, east and west in our own country. We have seen so much beauty, Norway must be the most beautiful country in the world ;-), and our four weeks have only sharpened our appetite to see more.

Ingrid and Marta on top of Pulpit Rock

We are back in Trondheim and The House in the Woods now, and will spend the day housecleaning and making preparation for a party tomorrow to celebrate Ingrid´s 25th birthday.

Hellaren, the old farm under the mountain

 To start with(not actually part of the house cleaning, but a treat to myself before starting the work) I am sorting through the hundreds of photos I´ve taken the last weeks, and as I do so, I decided to share a few with you.

 
From The Street of Colours in Stavanger

Vacation time has given me a lot of blogging time. Going back to work full time on Monday will make finding time for blogging a challenge. Though, through my almost 10 years of blogging, I´ve always worked full time, so I know I will make it. Still, I know it will make a difference.

A small tree managing to secure her roots on a huge rock

It is time to rethink what blogging means to me. Why I started blogging, why I´ve continued over the years.

Skudeneshavn

With all the travels I do, I could easily run a travel blog. I could blog only about gardening. Only about cooking. Only about books. I do some of this in my minor blogs, but here in The House in the Woods I do a wide range of topics.

A garden in Skudeneshavn

Some people ask me how I can share so much of my life in my blog. What about privacy? This is something I have to think about again and again. I love sharing and I love getting feedback from you. Still though there are of course many rooms in my life I never let you into.

Reflections seen from our outdoor breakfast table in Haugesund

As the world of blogging is changing, it takes more to keep your readers, old and new. 

One of many waterfalls along our way

There might be no changes in my blogging, or there might be many. I don´t know yet.
I do know though that along this new road I want to invite you along.

I am buying honey, apple juice and cherries from a local farmer in Odda, Hardanger

I could go on and on writing about this topic, but now it is time to start with my house fun.

Terje studying the map along the road

By the way, one of my "new beginnings", which is actually not a new beginning at all as I used to do it the first years of my blogging, is to write you back directly in the comment section. You are also free to give each other feedback there of course.

Campers on Sognefjellet


 

The challenge of growing cabin roses

@brittarnhild

We took over the cabin at Easter 2000 (my parents had built it in 1976) and one of the first things I started to do was to make a garden. Very slowly in the beginning, a tiny little bed with a tiny little rose.

Already the first year I met the challenge.....how could I take care of a garden when we were away for weeks at a time during the hottest, dryest periods of the year.

Over the hears the garden has grown, a little piece of new land cultivated every year.

The cabin garden is simple, consisting of roses and herbs, and also one cherry tree, one plum tree and one red currant. A few strawberry plants, a forsythia shrub and a few perennials.

The birds love our cherries, our red currant and our strawberries. So far we´ve had no plums.

We love the birds and don´t mind them eating our berries.

Butterflies and bumblebees also love my garden, and we love them.

This year has been extra challenging for the garden. We´ve been away for weeks, and it did not rain for weeks.

All the roses have survived, but their flowers are tiny and few.

 

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We are spending a few days at the cabin, and yesterday I spent a couple of hours weeding, watering, adding fertilizer, talking with the plants. And one thing I know for sure - as long as I am fit enough to weed, my cabin rose garden will survive!

 

From the herb garden

@brittarnhild

Years ago, where we used to live when the kids were small, I had a great herb garden. I had herbs to use all through summer and autumn, and also dried for the rest of the year. I read books about the topic, I tried new knowledge, and I loved it all. Then we moved, I got more busy at my job and in the new garden I had a hard time to find the perfect space for my herbs. Many of them died. I still had herbs to use through the summer, but I stopped drying and freezing. Then last year Terje built me a wooden bed for my herbs, I started to fill it at once, added more herbs this year, and all of a sudden I have a real herb garden again.

The corianders are ready to harvest. I have never had coriander in my garden before, but after two travels in India I have started to like the taste.

At first I didn´t know how to harvest the plants. I cut all the stems and started to peel off the tiny leaves, having no idea what to do with the bullet shaped seeds. The seeds were so beautiful and I started to wonder....may be the seeds could be harvested as well (silly me, I am an apprentice at this, I know) I looked up in one of my old herb books and learned that it was not the leaves but the seeds that should be harvested. I also learned that in India they use the leaves, but the taste can be a bit strong for our western palates. I really can relate to that.

What a pleasure to sit out in the sun, carefully removing the beautiful seeds from the stems. After a while all of me smelled India, and as I worked my way though the plants, I walked down a fragrant memory lane. (the link will take you to all my post about India)

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Being a herbal wizard apprentice, I seek new knowledge wherever I can. Though my instagram account @akeleiehagen, I meet fellow garden lovers. One of them is Tove in Lofoten, who runs a herb garden, Aalan Gård.

We visited Aalan Gård during our stay in Lofoten. Unfortunately Tove was not at home then, but afterwards I have learned from her on instagram that fireweed is a perfect tea plant. IIt is especially used in Russia where it is called Ivantjei (or Tzar Ivan´s tea)

It is too late to harves fireweed flowers this year, but next year there will be Ivantjei on my breakfast table............or may be I shall buy some from Aaland Gård. That way I can have the tea already this year :-)

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Do you have a herb garden?
Whay kind of herbs do you use?

 

Seeking out an old path

@brittarnhild

16 years ago, for my 40th birthday, my brother Frode gave me a very special gift, the book Nordlands Trompet by Petter Dass. A few months before that Frode had found out that through our grandma Olga we are related in a direct line to this most known Norwegian poet and hymn writer Petter Dass 1647-1707. On a special sheet of paper he had written out the long list of forefathers which took me back to the great poet.

On our way south from Lofoten, we stopped at Alstahaug where Petter Dass was a parish priest from 1689 and until his death.

Petter Dass wrote about nature, seen from the eyes of the fishermen and the farmers, he wrote about life and death in a way that common people could understand what so far had been only for the scholars. Even today he is the most known hymn writer in Norway, and when The Church of Norway released a new Book of Hymns last year, Petter Dass´most known hymn Herre Gud ditt dyre navn og ære, is in it as a honored numbered one.

 

Centuries after his death, this forefather of mine is of great inspiration to me. I sing his hymns, I read his texts, and again and again his words, his way of describing life, creates in me a deep love for the God created world.

It was a  blessing walking on some of Petter Dass´paths, looking out his windows, smelling the sea, enjoying the wild flowers, imagining what life must have been here more than 300 years ago.

Then, suddenly, as created by my dreams, a young maid, Olava, materialized. She was a maid on the farm when Petter´s son, or was it grandson, was the master of the farm. She invited us in and let us watch when she did her duties, all the time talking about her life and the life on the farm.

This autumn I plan to read more of Petter Dass´books, and let his words inspire me to live my life close to nature and nature´s Creator.

You can read more about Petter Dass here.

And more about Nordlands Trompet here.