Britt-Arnhild's House in the Woods

Eating green

@brittarnhild

I have been eating green today.
First a white pizza with asparagus for lunch, then for dinner, when we sat outdoors on the fondamente along one of Murano´s canals tonight, I had tagliolini gratinati con scampi e asparagus.

It is asparagus time in Italy just now. Many villages have their own asparagus festivals and on the local restaurant menus you are almost sure to find one or more dishes with asparagus. 

The Italians are following the seasons in their kitchen. Eat what you find in nature just, now seems to be their motto. I love that, and I try, the best I can, to make it the motto of my kitchen as well. We all want to save the planet, don't we, and very often the steps we can and have to take are simple. Go out, find out what is growing around you just now, check if it is edible. Eat it!

It could be simple. Unfortunately it is not. It is so easy to go to the supermarket and buy what is at hand, what is on sale, forgetting to check where it comes from and what costs Mother Earth has to pay.

Let us make it simple, shall we?

 

From the Food Court

@brittarnhild

A few years ago Oslo Food Court opened. I have wanted to go there ever since I first heard about it, and this weekend we are lucky to stay in an AirB&B just about 500 meters from the court. Last night I walked there with my daughter in law to buy a take away dinner from the four of us. Tonight our son and daughter in law are attending a wedding and we are babysitting our granddaughter Vida. We have been out for a long walk with her, and on our way home we again stopped at the food court.

Food is not cheap there, and if we had lived close bay it would be terrible for our finances. But two nights in a row, well, we can afford that.

Bread, olives, different types of cheese, salami and ham.......

.......and after Vida had gone to sleep we really had a feast.

 

The Land Where Lemon Grows

@brittarnhild

By pure chance, or may be it was meant to be :-), I don´t know.......but two days before flying down to Italy I found this book in a bookstore in Oslo. The Land Where Lemon Grows, The Story of Italy and Its Citrus Fruit, by Helena Attlee. I bought it, I brought it with me of course, and started to read it on the train south to Rome. The book was awarded Food Book of the Year 2015 by The Guild of Food Writers, and I have no problems to see why, I was hooked, already for the first page.

For years and years olives has been my image of Italy. They still are, but now lemons and oranges are part of it too. And not only lemons and oranges, Helena Attlee´s book has taught me that there are so many more citrus fruits growing in Italy, from up north, to the bottom south.

As I walked my way through the pages, I couldn´t help observing citrus fruits along the way. In gardens, along streets, in markets, and the more I looked, the more I saw.

I finished the book yesterday, after we came home. I got a head cold a couple of days ago, and the first thing I did when the last page was read was to send Terje to the grocery store - please buy oranges and lemons, I crave them.

And then I started to dream about my next travel to Italy and all the citruses I will look for them. "Every lemon-scented page made me feel it´s time to pack for Italy" writes Jonathan Keates in Literary Review after reading the book. I could not agree more. 

British Helena Attlee has written several garden books and she is leading garden tours in Italy. How I wish I could take part in one of them.......

In her book she has a section called: Places to visit, with a list of Gardens with citrus collections, Citrus Nurseries, Farms, festivals, Museums, Guided Tours, Restaurants and Cafés and Marmelade.

They are now all on my list of places I want to visit :-)

 

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In my blog world today:
(soon to be updated)

Britt Arnhilds dagboksblader, my online journey where I am in the prosess of writing down the travel tale from last week.

 Fløy en liten blåfugl, my birding journal

Med bøker på menyen, my reading journal

 Den blå hagen på Huseby, my garden blog

 

What to bring home? Food of course

@brittarnhild

The perfect souvenirs to bring home, food of course. We are in the food market not far from Termini, Nuovo Mercato Esquilino. A paradise for lovers of Italian food.

We have a lot of space in our suitcases this time, and can bring homer more or less all what we want. Not fresh meat, fish or seafood of course, but so much else.

I buy a bag of these garlics. I plan to plant a few of them and see if I can make them grow in our garden. 

I buy pepper and other spices,

I buy cheese and salami and parma ham,

and when Terje pays, I photograph citrus fruits.......everywhere.

 

Tegamaccio, fish soup in a terracotta pot

@brittarnhild

From Cortona you can see lake Trasimero, a lake which is situated not in Tuscany, but in Umbria. The first day we met Frances we told her that we were planning to drive down to the lake. "You know there is a ferry out to Isola Maggiore" was her reply, and both of us knew that Isola Maggiore it had to be.

The day was very hot. We hoped that the lake would give us some fresh air, and it kind of did as long as we were on the ferry, in shade of the burning sun. Not so on the island.

Frances also told us that St. Frances of Assisi had stayed on the island, and we could still visit his church. Very intriguing of course, so we filled our water bottles and started an island hike. "Let us first walk around the island" I said, "then we can do the churches afterwards.

Cicadas filling the burning air,

colourful critters.......

.......and then we came to a dead end. Danger. Look out for slides. And we had to turn, walking back.

By then we were famished,  we walked back to the village and found Ristorane L´Oso. A good choice, a best choice.......if, I mean when I go back to Isola Maggiore, I know where to go to get my food.

We shared a seafood starter. Oh, is all this true? We looked at one another is disbelief before we started to eat, and soon the huge plate was empty, our smiles broader and broader.

But I still had the highlight. A fish soup. Tagamaccio, a traditional fish soup from Umbria, its name from the terracotta pot, tegame, in which it is cooked. A eat fish soup everywhere I travel, and like to believe that I know a little about fish soups by now. And believe me - this one is GOOD!

Food traveling is a great way to travel. To follow the seasons and the local specialties. I love foodtravel books, and a favorite food traveller is Tessa Kiros. Are you familiar with her? No? Then it is time to do something with that. Buy her books, follow her on facebook and on instagram :-)

I posted a photo of the soup on instagram, asking Tessa if she happen to have a recipe. Her answer, which came almost right away, was:
I don´t have that one - others yes, but different regions. Yours sounds amazing. Will look it up.

Another favourite food traveller is Frances Mayes of course. While I was texing Tessa Kiros, several food pictures appeared on her instagram page. While I enjoyed my tegamaccio, she was busy in her Bramasole kitchen, testing recipes for her next book, See you in the Piazza.

 

We never made it to the churches. I have to go back!

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All this food talk, my mouth is watering.
Good thing our  gardenpizzas are just ready.......see you later.

Frances Mayes´blog

 The homepage of Ristorante L´Oso

Flavours and Traditions of Trasimeno

 

Truffle time

@brittarnhild

Eating in Italy is about following the seasons. You eat what is ripe, there and then. During our stay this time, it was truffle time. No doubt about that.

Thomas pointed out places for us on our map. Marking them with a ball pen. I love to have maps marked with ball pens, just as I love books with dog ears. Terje the driver. I the map reader. The map I´ve bought in Tuscany, GPS, google maps. Taking us to small villages, churches, monasteries. Since Thomas was the one who had marked the map there were many churches. And monasteries.

We drove roads less taken. Up, up, up. I was prepared to get a great view over Tuscany, but no, there were trees everywhere. Driving mountain roads in Italy is different from driving mountain roads in Norway.

We came to one of the monasteries exactly half a minute after closing time. "Sorry, we are closed!"

But on our way down, in the middle of no where, found another monastery. With a restaurant with a truffle menu. And an ancient apothecary.

Truffles. A new taste to me. I had to tell myself that this is something you like Britt Arnhild. And then I did. Then I loved it.Potatoes ands scarmorza cheese flan with fresh truffle. Followed by home made strozzapreti pasta with fresh truffle. Oh, I could eat it again, and again.

While I went for the truffles, Terje decided the hunter´s menu.
On our way up the mountain we had passed a deer and her baby, so I did not!

The old apothecary deserves its own blog post. We deserved another village, another stop. Another coffee.

 

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Blogs updated:

dagens lille grønne, ideas for a green living, today with Terje making cherry jam

My nature journal

 

 

 

Preparing the perch and the roe

@brittarnhild

If you saw yesterday´s video, you know that I got to perches while I was ice fishing. I was so happy, I am still smiling :-)

Today Terje and I ate the fish for dinner, with the roe, tzatziki, cucumber salad and potatoes.
A perfect lent dinner.

 

 

 

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!

 

A new way of eating, or?

@brittarnhild

Terje and I flew down to Stockholm this morning. It is a 1 1/2 hours plane ride. Torgeir, our oldest son, lives here, and we are spending the weekend with him.

On the plane I was reading from Anthony Bourdain´s book "A Cook´s Tour". Do you know Anthony Bourdain? He is a well known chef, well, more than that, he has been noted as one of the most influential chefs of the world. In A Cook´s Tour he tells tables full of food tales from his travels around the world. A very adventurous, brave, eater and traveller.

Eating adventurous is always part of the game when we are with Torgeir. I am sure some of you remember the basement garage dinner he took us to the last time we were in Stockholm.

I know there will be great meals this time also, and the start was a treat. Probably not new to most of you, but arriving at the main station in Stockholm, leaving the airport bus, walking over to the metro which would take us to the AirB&B we have rented, we stopped to have sushi. Picking out food as it came down the line, like trains on a kid´s train set.

I loved it.
Like a girl in a toy store.

 

From Mauro´s kitchen

@brittarnhild

"You must come back to our house together with us, you see we have a very special surprise for you." Barbara was smiling when she invited me to have dinner with her and Mauro and their two girls. I had already had dinner with them, and afterwards we went out in their boat to explore the laguna. It was easy to acept. Of course I wanted to have dinner with them. I have eaten in Mauro and Barbara´s home many times now, and I love their fresh, traditional Italian cooking.

Back in their house Mauro started the night´s soup while Barbara prepared the dessert. While cutting the vegetables Mauro asked me if I remembered the glass jar Terje and I had brought with us last year. A jar filled with Terje´s homemade black currant marmelade. Oh yes, I remembered, and could tell them that the jar was an old one, from Terje´s mother, originally used for some kind of medicine.

"I have saved the jar" Mauro told me, "and now I will make something special to fill the jar. Something you can take back to Norway."

 

A pot. Some boiling water. Some herbs. Dried tomatoes which Mauro had bought at the Rialto market that same morning.

Pure virgin olive oil in the jar.......if I lived in Italy I would buy this oil!!!!!

 The tomatoes were out in the jar, and Mauro´s special "sundried tomatoes in a Norwegian glass jar" was finished.

The lid was not quite tight, but Mauro wrapped it up for me in a completely safe packet. Not one drop was spilt when I arrived home a couple of days later.

Yesterday Terje and I had dinner out in the garden. Mauro´s "sundried tomatoes in a Norwegian glass jar" was perfect with the pasta :-)

 

Lagre