Britt-Arnhild's House in the Woods

These dinners when we travel the world

 

@brittarnhild

To invite, to plan the menu, to set the table, to cook, to sit around the table, friends from different countries, to share a meal, to travel the world through food........... oh, how I love it.

Today the guests were from Italy, Iran and Greece. All of them now living in Norway. Federico and Nazanin for many years, Ioanna for just a few months.

Nazanin has lived in Norway for 7 years, and got her Norwegian citizenship just two days ago. Worth a celebration.......napkins with the Norwegian flag :-)

The main course was Italian. Spaghetti carbonara with chard from the garden.
For dessert Nazanin brought sweets from her mother in Tehran, Ioanna had made some traditional Christmas cookies from Athens, Terje served red currants from the garden with vanilla sauce.
Federico told us about his Italian lasagna, made completely from scratch.......Federico, I want to tast it :-)

This was the first time we met Ioanna. Daugher of the friends of a cousin of mine........
Ioanna, I do hope  we will see you again, for another meal.

 

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To travel the world through food and friends.
A perfect way to travel!

 

When everything is knitted together

@brittarnhild

My Buddleja, Butterfly Bush, is still small, but oh so beautiful this year. The butterflies love it and I love it. A couple of weeks ago, when the bush started to bloom, I did a google on buddlejas and found some very interesting information. Among the things I learned is that the name of my bush is buddleja davidii, named originally after Pére David, and French botanist and explorer who lived from 1826 - 1900. My curiosity can never resist information like this, I wanted to learn more about this Pére David. As I so often do, I went over to amazon, and not much later I had order a book about the man.

The book came today and I sat down to read almost at once.

The first thing I learn is that "Pére David will forever be linked to the giant panda, the deer named in his honor and the hankerchief tree".

 I am neither interested in the panda, nor the hendkerchieftree, at least not so far. But the deer caught my interest. In China Pére David came over a rare type of deer, and sent some of them back to Europe. And here is what I find when I continue to read:
A breeding population was established at Woburn Abbey by the 11th duke of Bedford in 1894-1895.

In 1895 the herd of deers was killed in China, due to a flood, and suddenly all the ones left of this rare species were the ones at Woburn.

 

In 1985 a small population of deer, bred at Woburn Abbey, was re-introduced to the central Yangtze by the Chinese government and in 1986 by the World Wildlife Fund. A recent count put the population at 2500 in three national reserves in China

I visited Woburn Abbey in April, together with a blogging friend, Lindsay. I took photos of some of the deers there, but had no idea of this.

 

Here is the post I wrote from Woburn Abbey in April.
While you read it, I will continue with the book about Pére David :-)

 

 

It feels like a new room. It is a new room.

Text and images Britt-Arnhild Wigum Lindland

When he had finished the new hallway it was time to do something with the old one (the new hallway is a kind of extention to our house). First on the list - removing the ugly, white wardrobe.

What a joy to know that the wardrobe would now be history. So would the worn dark orange floor.

 
My father in law is a carpenter, and though Terje works in quite another field, as a civil engineer, he has inherited his father's skills.

 
For weeks now he has spent the nights either out cross country skiing, or working in our old hallway.

Most nights he has done both.

 
To the noise of busy tools, the smell of fresh wood and paint, I have followed the work. Followed it in my way. The way I love spending the nights.

Reading!

 

What am I reading, you ask? Through words and a few illustrations I am travelling several hundred years back in time, several hundred miles south, toVenice and the Veneto region in Italy, learning more about the renaissance architect Andrea Palladio.

I first read about him in Frances Mayes' blog, ordered Palladian Days by Sally Gable and Carl I. Gable, started an email correspondence with Mr. Gable, ordered The Perfect House by Witold Rybczynaski, kept on armchairtravelling with my blogreader (and dear friend) Antonella who lives in the region......and suddenly a Palladio week-end in May together with Antonella, with boat from Venice up the Brenta Canal is booked.....

 

How different The House in the Woods is from the Palladian Villas. How I love sitting in my red house from 1975, dreaming about villases built 500 years ago.

Palladio wrote Four Books on Architecture/Quattro Libri dell' architettura. From one of them I read:

One must describe a suitable house which will be appropriate to the status of the person who will have to live in it and of which the parts will correspond to the whole and to each other.......

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Our new room is finished....almost. We still need to by a lamp or two, the 100 years old drawer, which used to be grandma Olga's, needs a new mirrow, the old one wouldn't do any more....we have order a handmade one made in the old style......and the white wall needs a painting. I am planning to look for an antique one in Venice.....later this year. Or in the summer.

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My current booklist:

 

 

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Did you see the chocolate art at Demel yesterday?

Did you watch the new Year's Concert from Vienna yesterday?

I don't watch television, but I have a sacred exception - the New Year's Concert. Here in Norway it is sent in two different programs, part 2 comes first, around noon, and then the first part of the concert comes in the late afternoon. I saw both parts, part 2 at home in a deep armchair with my knitting, with coffee and a piece of left over cake from the night before, part 1 at my parent's house, after our traditional halibut fish dinner.

 
If you watched the concert yesterday you saw the making of a chocolate cake at Demel's. Did you? Mouth watering, wasn't it???????  

I visited Vienna in June 2009. There I met Merisi, the fabulous artist behind Merisi's Vienna for Beginners. She is the best guide you can get, especially when you love coffee. She took me to more coffee houses in a day than I usually visit in a month, and twice we visited Demel, this famous coffee house in the heart of Vienna.

Demel is built with glass walls between the cafe and the kitchen where the chocolate and marzipan art is made

.....and best of all, you are allowed to take photos.....

....as many as you want....

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Breakfast at Demel was a dream as well. Not as sweet as the Demel chocolate though.....

Here is a link to Merisi's Vienna for Beginners. If you can't go there for real, her blog is the perfect place for you. If you can go there for real, her blog is still the best place to visit in blogland!

  
All photos are from my visit to Vienna in June 2009. The last photo shows Merisi's hand shooting one of her tempting Demel photos.

You can read more about my days in Vienna here

 

A blog reader takes me back to The Alhambra

 

In a blog post from The Alhambra, September 10th, I write:

 One book I've been trying to buy, but not succeeded, is Washington Irving's The Alhambra from 1851. Robert Irwin write that Hans Christian Andersen carefully studied Irving's narrative technique.....the tale of the Arab astrologer in Irving's book was retold in Pushkin's folk poem The Golden Cockerel (1835) and.....the artist David Roberts was moved to visit the Alkhambra after reading Irving.

One of my Bristish blog readers, Anne from Oxford, read this, couldn't forget it.......and litsen to what happend:

Dear Britt-Arnhild

I was looking in a shop a few weeks ago, a big shop, that sells second items.I normally only go for the first section, but this day, for some reason, I ventured further, to an area I have never looked at. I had no reason to!! It is packed, every little section, every shelf, some old, some newer, all stacked on the floor as well. - I was only there about 5 to 10 minutes, and there it was - just for you :-)

With Anne's letter came W.Irving's book, Tales of The Alhambra. The one amazon was unable to find for me before my travel.

Thank you so much Anne. I just finished a Chaim POtok book this morning, now I will read Irving's book before I start preparing myself for my next upcoming trvael, Praha/Prague.

   

Armchairtravelling from the dentist chair

 

Thursday was dentist day to fix my broken molar. I am no good at coping with the dentist chair. I would love to be anywehere else.....but some times a girl has to do what a girl has to do.

 

I climbed the chair and tried to listen to the dentist telling me that this would be okay, there would be no pains as the "break" was a nice one. Just relax........

 

I closed my eyes and while counting my breathing (I always does that when I need to calm myself), I decided to do an armchair travel. It is a long time since I've been to Laos, so that's where I decided to go.

 

I spent two weeks in Laos in 2004 together with a group from Norwegian Church Aid. It was my first visit to the country, actually my first visit to Asia, and it turned out to be an eye opener in so many ways.

 

We travelled to different parts of the country, by car, by plane, by boats. One day up the Mekon River by speed boat, one day down again. One day southwards, 10 hours on the river by what were called a house boat. Hours floating, dreaming, looking at the shores....down to Loang Prabang, a World Heritage site where we came just in time for the night market. It was like a dream.

 

We met people, in cities and in remote areas where Europeans were hardly seen. We made friends, we ate the local food, we learned about the culture. No staying in posh hotels, but in small, local places. To nights were shared with giant rats!

 

We talked, we shared impressions, we prayed, we were silent.

 

I loved the Mekong River. Fortunalely we were safely back from the speedboat ride when I read in Lonely Planet that you should take care - fatal accidents happened every week when speedboats hit stones in the river.

 

Well, going by cars were not a very good alternative.

 

"Okay, you are done, your molar is fixed now" The dentist's voice broke into my travel. "Done? But there have been no pains?????" I opened my eyes, struggling to travel all the way back from Laos to a dentist chair in Trondheim.

Now I have learned how to cope with my dentist fear. I'll armchair travel. I am going back to my dentist in a couple of weeks for my annual check. I wonder where I will go then. May be to Mexico?