Everyday should end with a dinner party

Today we take a break from Norwegian eats to talk about M.H.'s extraordinary dinner party, in occasion of his birthday. He turns 19, and we all benefit.

This year's menu is seafood oriented. This makes me a very happy amateureater. For starters, we have crayfish.

The crayfish has been sitting in a lime marinade for a couple of hours before being baked in the oven.

For those of you interested, the marinade consisted of lemon and lime juice, lime rind, one small onion (diced finely), white wine, olive oil, ginger, and spiced with chili, salt and pepper.

It's an angry little bugger, it is. No matter, it's still ridiculously tasty.

Being Chinese, I'm always expected to take care of the rice. Despite a lifetime of dependency on rice, I only ever make rice in a rice cooker, and perform very poorly without it. Disappointed, M.H. has to do it himself.

For mains: fillet of plaice, served with asparagus and rice. The plaice is cooked in a creamy sauce, with pickles and capers. A Portuguese recipe, apparently.


Plaice. So ugly on the outside, so tender on the inside.

For dessert, M.H. gets out the blowtorch for some creme brule, served with a generous heap of raspberries. For some bizarre reason, I'm the only one who wanted seconds. I was also the only one to request for an additional post-dessert of ice cream. How odd.

Thank you M.H. for a grand meal.

Eating with Isa & family

I have the great fortune of being friends with Isa, whose dad is a food photographer. For the past two years or so he's been working with this lovely baker lady to write recipe books, and the cakes she bakes for those photography sessions need to be eaten, somehow, by someone. Yes, my friends, this is my moment to shine. In fact, one of the first things that her dad said to me was, "your reputation for eating precedes you." Thanks, Isa.

Today Isa and I went on an expedition to pick up some cakes.

Pass through these gates for earthly delights.

When I met her she was wearing a pink blouse with a baby blue apron. She has one of those permanent smiles that make her dimples seem as natural a facial feature as her nose or eyebrows, and the first thing she said to us was, "Would you like some wine?" Then she floated serenely into the kitchen as us mere mortals followed, and poured us glasses of rosé. She told us that she used to work in a bakery, but felt so lonely making cakes by herself every single day, that now she's working on a train "where it's me and three hundred other people." She then served us, in chronological order:

1. Strawberry basil pannacotta
2. Satsuma star anis pannacotta
3. Lemon meringue tarts ("I boiled the meringue so it gets a creamy texture. Isn't it lovely?")
4. Almond apricot tart
5. Strawberry and cream roll cake
6. Chocolate and orange sponge cake
7. Rocky road brownies
8. Walnut and cream sponge cake

Yes, she is indeed the goddess of cake.

Tonight the eating feast continues as shakebook is throwing a dinner party to celebrate her new found moral superiority. I suggested that we all dress up as the things she has given up: me as a cigarette, Isa as a slab of meat, and daintydog can be Buddha. (She's not actually giving up buddhism but I'm not sure how to dress daintydog up as "non-belief".)