Britt-Arnhild's House in the Woods

A Fork in the Road

@brittarnhild

Some time last year, or may be it was the year before, I bought a Lonely Planet book, A Fork in the Road. A book filled with tales of food, pleasure and discovery on the road, tales written my a long line of well known food critics and travellers. Frances Mayes, the woman with Ynder the Tuscan Sun and a handful of other great books, is one of the writers, and it was Frances´recommendation which lead me to read the book. I planned to read it as soon as I got it, but somehow it hid itself in a stack of books, only to revealed again the other day.

I am slowly reading through the book now, savouring each and every tale. And as I read I start to remember my own food tales. My own forks in the road.

 

Two weeks in Laos in 2004 was a food eye opener for me. I had travelled to exotic places before, to Haiti, to The Dominican Republic and to Eritrea. Very carefully I had tried the local food, and got my share of stomach problems, but it was not until I came to Laos that I really dared to try the local food. Most of it completely new to me.

I travelled with Norwegian Church Aid, we were out in the countryside most of the time and if we wanted food to eat we had no other choice than eat what we were served. But still :-)

Noodles, vegetables, rice, greens and fish was on the menu every day, but from time to time we got other things.......

.......like bamboo caterpillars.

or fried critters.....

The strange thing - I loved what I ate.
And I ate what I was served.
All of it :-)

 As I continue to read the book there might me more food tales to share.

 

 

 

Bread with palm honey from the Valley of the 1001 palms

@brittarnhild

In the House in the Woods we love homemade bread. I bake all the bread we eat, inspired by my late father in law who proudly said, aged 90? "I have made absolutely all the bread we have eaten in my house for the past 50 years. At least!" These days the bread is extra rich and juicy, as it is flavoured with Palm Honey from La Gomera.

 

Hi, palm honey? What is that? Honey is gathered by bees, it does not come from palms, kind of like maple syrup! I can hear you saying that. And you are right of course, at least to some extent.

I had not heard of palm honey either, not until we started to travel to Tenerife, and then to La Gomera.

La Gomera is, among a lot of other things, an island perfect for hiking. We have very slowly started to explore a few of the hiking routes, and our very first hike took us to The Valley of the 1001 Palms.

Following an old Thomas Cook book which I have, we drove to the village Vallehermoso, tempted by the descriopion of the walk:
This walk is about 3,5kms (2 1/4 miles) combines Gomeran landscapes of lush valleys in deep ravines, overlooked by volcanic rocks, with a charming reservoire. It is suitable for any age and fitness level, although the hill is reasonable steep......

It was steep, believe me, it was. Up and down, then up again and down again. But the lovely landscape made me forget that my knees do not like to much steep downhill.

From Thomas Cook again:
It is doubtful whether anyone has really counted the trees here, but as many are on tap for La Gomera´s famous palmhoney, it is possible (that there are a 1001). Whatever the number of trees, this valley is a splendid sight, particularly in the late afternoon, as the sun shines directly down on it.

Guess what!
I am longing back to La Gomera.

By the way;
palm honey is the sap from the palm tree :-)

 

After the appointment

@brittarnhild

I had an appointment at the hospital today. Because of some problems with my left hand they wanted to do a neurophysiology test. For a long time I laid there on a hospital bed, electrodes attached to my fingers, electricity through the nerves to see how they reacted.

Quite uncomfortable.

After the tests I walked over to my job, treated myself with a detour along the river, vakkerveien, the beauty walk, I call it. And out there, in the middle of the river, on a tiny bank, a cormorant was greeting me.

Can you see it?

 

Thanks for your prayers yesterday.
Of course we believe in them!

 

 

Do we believe in prayers

@brittarnhild

I met a woman on the bus this morning. We know each other a little from church, and we have a friend in common. Our common friend is fighting brain tumors and we are all worried for him.

"I sat down at my kitchen table last night" the woman said. "I lit a candle and I prayed for our friend. We all have to pray for him. He needs all our prayers. May be we should form a praying group and meet in the church"

 

My friend is in my prayers every day, and now I am asking you to pray for him as well.

 

Wet as a crow

@brittarnhild

Våt som ei kråke, wet as a crow, we say in Norway. Today it is raining cats and dogs, or rather crows and magpies.

I have several blog post ideas, but some days are not for sitting in front of the computer. So with this wet crow, which I photographed through my office window earlier today, I am wishing you God´s blessing wherever you are.

 

To use a Christmas gift

@brittarnhild

The creativity of my dear friend Mauro in Venice has no limits. When a packet arrives in the mail from him I can´t wait to open it to find out what is inside. It can be glass made by himself, it can be fagioli borlotti beans to make his yummy bean soup, one year it was an empty bottle......well, I though it was empty until I saw the label "Air of Venice"......I still have the bottle and it is still filled with Venice air, for me to breath when the longing for this fairy tale city is too strong.

This Christmas the gift was a bag of pasta, shaped like Christmas ornaments.

The pasta has been stored away since Christmas, but yesterday, after taking a deep breath from the Air of Venice bottle, I decided it was time to use it. For a pasta, sausages and white sauce casserole. Topped with cheese and crumbs from dry bread/"Wasa knäkkebrød".

 

I had great food photo plans when I started the casserole......

.....but somehow all I am left with is this half eaten meal......

 

I could have left blogging today, but as you see I didn´t.
Instead I can say that the pasta casserole, which Terje and I shared last night, was absolutely perfect. We ate a lot more than we had planned to and in the end we almost licked our plates.

And there is paste from Venice left for at least one more meal.....

.....and now I must leave you to go downstairs to start the Mother´s Day dinner. yes, it is Mother´s Day in Norway today, and I am working on a post for tomorrow about it........

 

and if you want to know more about spaghetti vongole you MUST go over here to read Mauro´s comment and to check out all the links he has shared :-)

 

 

The Sami People´s Day and a book release

@brittarnhild

February 6th is the National Day of the Sami People. Here in the area of the sør-samer, the southern group of the Sami, we had a dobble celebration, the National Day, and a book release of a book written first for children aged four, as a greeting from their church, but also a book for all ages, for the whole family.

We started in the cathedral with a midday prayer, where the hymns and most of the reading was in the south sami language.

And the sami who attended wore their south sami costumes.

The book was presented......

.....and given to two of the south sami children in the church, Samuel and Sara Janne.

 

After the prayer we continued in the Archbishop´s Palace, in our offices, where we had coffee, cakes made especially for the day, with the sami flag,

flowers for the author and the illustrator, Anne Grethe Leine Bientie and Ellen Sara Reiten Bientie, mother and daughter.

Anne Grethe told us about the book and abpout the process of making it,

and when I bought the book she wrote me a very special greeting.

 

Thank you Anne Grethe, now I am looking forward to enjoy your book.

 

When tales come alive

@brittarnhild

I have been to a senior cafe today, to talk about my travel to Nepal almost two years ago. I started to tell about my visit to Chitwan National Park, the huge elephants and the elephant safari. I told them about the tiny little box on top of the elephants which was meant to give space to four people, I didn´t need to ask them to look at me and the size of my body comparedto a much smaller man or woman from Nepal. I told them about my worry about being too big for the box and then my fear that I would not be able to crawl out after the safari. I told them about the almost two hours when I sat on the back of an elephant, smiling until I felt my jews went out of joints. The joy. The pleasure. Thre freedom.

Afterwards, while we had coffee, several of the women, and also a few men, came over to my table. They had tales to share. One woman had been to Chitwan herself, doing the same elephant safari. Another woman had a good friend who had a daughter who had lived in Nepal for many years. One woman came from a village where the late missionary I told about lated in my tale was born, the sister of the missionary had been her nurse and she would never forget when........

The tales floated, and I was the lucky, blessed recipient.

Not all tales were connected to Nepal. One of my aunts, my father´s younger sister, was there also. She came over to sit at my table to drink her coffee. She visited Nepal about 10 years ago and started with some of her travel tales from that trip. But after a while she started to tell about when she, her husband and my four cousins went to Taiwan to stay for three years. This must have been in the early 1970ies. I remember me and my oldest cousin were penpals through those three years. What a joy to hear about it through my aunts words.

 

I have been thinking about all these tales today. And I have been thinking about all the millions of tales each of us bring with us. The tales that make up our lives. The treasure chests we all are.

And I continue to think of two things, or rather, I am giving myself a homework with two tasks:

to listen when people share from their treasures

to share freely from my own chest

 

Dreaming at the fish market

@brittarnhild

It is this time of the year again. The time when the cod find its way back to Lofoten to spawn (is my English correct I wonder......) I walked down to the fish market after work today, to buy cod, roe, liver and tongue, and now I, Terje, Ingrid and Marius have had a feast!

While I was busy buying my fish, the owner of the fish market, whom I know from childhood, came over and winked at me: "Tomorrow we will get cockles" He knows of my love for spaghetti vongole, Venice, the Laguna, Mauro and everything. I don´t have time to go back tomorrow, but Friday I will be there, and if you come to The House in the Woods there might be some spaghetti vongole left for you......though, according to Mauro, not the real one.

 

If you don´t know my spaghetti vongole you can read about it in my blog, but to understand what it is all about you have to read it in correct order:

 

Spaghetti vongole the real way

 

Women´s night and spaghetti vongole

 

Seeking for vongole in the laguna

 

The spaghetti chef in his Murano kitchen

 

 

 

 

 

Winter

@brittarnhild