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.

Fjording Norway: Day 2, Lofoten

On the ferry from Bodo to Lofoten, a camera orgy broke out on the deck. Of course, I had to join in. After about fifteen minutes of overexcited camera clicking, I realized that there isn't really much to see, unless this is your first time on a boat in which case the ocean may be an item of curiosity.

We approach Lofoten, landing at the Moskenes port. Not much to see here.

When I was planning this epic trans-Norway vacation, I had read in a travel guide that Reine was claimed by some to be Norway's most beautiful place. Nothing appeals to me quite as much as a superlative in print, so I booked us a night at a converted fisherman's cabin in Reine. This was possibly the best travel-related decision I have ever made.

Ours is the one with blue window frames.

When we walk in, we are met with the smell of wood (much like freshly opened IKEA furniture). We discover, to our great delight, that the cabin is much bigger than expected. It has an upstairs with a cozy mezzanine, a downstairs with a kitchen and an outlandish view, and an abundance of bedrooms and bathrooms. It is big enough to house two families with one child each, or a family of four and two lonely fishermen. The family spreads out over its new found luxury.

To the patio. The patio is the best part of the cabin. It sits on stilts, over the ocean, which you can see through the cracks between the wood panel floor. Leave me on that patio for long enough with pencil and paper and I will produce at least one major work of literary and/or visual art. It is so inspiring that I vow to buy myself a cabin in Lofoten one day when I'm older and richer.

After several hours of appreciation, we go for dinner. And my God, what a dinner. We ordered the following mains:

Monkfish with apples flavored butter sauce and cauliflower puree

Grilled stockfish with chorizo, almonds and apricots

Stockfish with bacon, carrots, capers and butter sauce

With that we were served homemade bread with dips, and a shot of cold tomato and ham soup.

The grilled stockfish was unanimously deemed to be the best dish. The meat has a very distinctively substantial texture and flakes beautifully. It has a mildly fishy aroma, but is otherwise flavorless; here, it borrows flavor from the salty mash and chorizo.

What is stockfish? It's dried cod. The fishermen catch the fish in the winter, which they hang on wooden racks for two months. Before cooking, the fish is soaked in water for nine days. Which is why it tastes so fresh. It can really only be produced in Norway, and goes to show the powerful impact of geography on food. This also means that Norway has a monopoly of sorts on stockfish, so it is ridiculously expensive to buy in supermarkets.

Photo by Morten Andvig via reinerorbuer.no

After dinner, we sat on our patio sipping tea and studying the arctic sun. Our findings: the sun is actually circling above our heads, constantly above the horizon. This also means that for several months of the year, the sun makes its rounds underneath you. Funny, this concept of day-months and night-months. It's so unnatural to man. It's almost like living on another planet.

A fisherman throws out some fish gibblets to an anticipating pack of squawking seagulls. All is well.

Tomorrow: The family goes on mist-safari.

Fjording Norway: Day 1, Oslo

Inevitably, a Norway round-trip would have to include Oslo. I've visited Oslo a couple of years ago, but I have no recollection of the place except for a certain "Sculpture Park", and that only because it is always mentioned with a tone of disdain by D. whenever the subject of Oslo is brought up. The sculpture park, and a horrendously overpriced meal of spaghetti.

This time we needed to stop over in Oslo for a couple of hours before catching a flight to Bodo. Our expectations were low, and when expectations are that low the experience slips into the realm of comedy - everything bad is funny, and anything good is a pleasant surprise.

After the a 3.5 hour bus journey (which I managed to sleep through completely, accomplishment of the week) the family needed food. The overpriced-spaghetti trauma was mentioned several times and we decided to go for something cheap and cheerful - kebab.


Kebab? 67NOK, (£6.70 pounds)

Fortunately it can only get better from here, and one massive ice cream later we warmed up to Oslo.

Did you know that Oslo is the only city in the world with a Mini Bottle Gallery? Fascinating, absolutely fascinating.

After finally giving the Norwegian a nod of approval ("It's not actually so bad after all"), we head to Oslo's Gardemoen airport. When we arrive, M. has a food scare ("If we don't eat now we won't eat until we get off the plane. That's several hours without food. I'm just telling you."), which the remaining two thirds of the family relent to. We stuff some heartburn-inducing sausage meals down our throats.


At 22:15 we arrive at the generally uninteresting town of Bodo.


Welcome to the Arctic Circle.

Tomorrow: Arriving in Lofoten, where the family gets to stay in the largest cabin. Success.

Sjömän & Slynor (trans. Sailors & Hussies)

Everybody loves pretending to lead a life at sea during the summer.

Now I'm off to Norway with the family, to return with tales about seafood buffes and overpriced breakfasts. Back in a week!

Americans make desserts

America, in my mind, is the home of all things sweet and brightly colored. Back in my international school days, kids would come back from America, accompanied always by a packets of cartoonish candy and tales of outrageous super-sweet snacks. In less than a month I will join the millions of people who have experienced America first-hand and returned slightly fatter, and live to blog endlessly about it. In anticipation of much America to come, here are some selected 4th of July cakes, borne of the patriotic dessert influx that followed the holiday:

Does it get anymore patriotic than an American flag in every slice? I think not. "A little taste of independence in every bite" indeed.

Although this one claims to be in celebration of America, I believe it was probably accidental. A pavlova, some blueberries and some raspberries later, the author suddenly realized that, "Why, this looks very American. Let's call it a 4th of July cake!" Very clever, very clever. Cake is always more impressive when it's categorized.

These are almost too pretty to eat and deserve to be put on display as an abstract representation of the modern American soul.

And last but not least: E.B. and family's traditional American flag cake. God bless America.

Failure is the mother of success.

On the bus to the dinner part, daintydog asked with a massive grin on her face, "So. How did you fail today? Tell me about your fail." She then opted for a more sympathetic expression, at which point she looked like she'd just had a stroke and paralyzed half her face. The fail in question is the stop motion animation that Isa and I are working on; we've run into some setbacks during editing and spent all day effectively watching the spinning wait cursor.

Nevermind - failing is learning.

Seeing as it is made by myself and Isa, the animation is obviously somehow related to food. We looked around the internet for some inspiration, and found ourselves humbled by greater talents. We said to ourselves: "But they're professionals", and nodded vigorously in agreement. Here are three stop motion animation shorts that are worth developing an inferiority complex about.

First of all, a classic by Jan Svankmajer, starring the most emotionally stirring character of the food world, meat. The strange anthropomorphism makes me quite uncomfortable every time, especially when the slabs of meat move their little meat hands. See for yourself.


Now, for something lighter and less edible, here's a fantastic short that feels like it stemmed from the imagination of a six-year-old. As daintydog so elegantly put it, "If you want to watch something that will make you feel talentless, youtube PES."



This is food stop motion on steroids. Can you identify all the countries? I got a bit lost when all the kebabs appeared, thus revealing my ignorance of world history after WWII.

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".)