The Susanne

Things are really looking up for me. Not only am I uncharacteristically well prepared for this new semester which is about to start (having actually read a few of the books on my reading lists over the summer), but I have a new job, plans for a great ‘new’ kitchen and dining area and now — wait for it — The Boyfriend just landed the job of his (my) dreams! He is now getting paid loads of money to spend all day on the computer mucking about with php scripts. I think it is safe to say the future has never looked quite as bright to me as it does right now.

Also of course, I’m excited about my and Maria’s trip to London which is now only three days away. But somehow… I’m equally excited to get back here afterwards and just get on with my new, great everyday life. It is such an amazing feeling, I don’t believe I’ve ever been quite as happy as this!

Hetmann moved back home today. He’s been staying at my parents’ house all summer where he’s had the basement all to himself, as well as a lovely, big ’summer house’ (cage) outside. He’s been spoilt rotten with all fresh food - mum’s home grown lettuce, parsley, carrots, strawberries, apples and his favourite: raspberries. So when I brought him back to our one bedroom flat today I felt a little bad for the little guy. But it seems he’s settled in just great! Already he’s running around looking like the king of the castle that he is. I’m glad he’s home.

Now is all this great fortune a result of fate? Was I destined for this all along? Is it a matter of karmic retribution for having suffered through the last two, awful years of my life? Is it simply dumb luck? Well, to be truthful, who the h*** cares ay? I’m ridiculously happy and I’m not ashamed to say: I think I deserve it!

Growing up, I never knew that whaling was seen as anything but normal anywhere in the world. In my world, whaling was an important part of my country’s history, and whale steak was a former ‘cheap meat’ turned delicacy that took great care to prepare properly. It was not until I was a little older that I realised how most countries disagree with Norway’s policies when it comes to whaling. When I first arrived in Sydney for my student exchange on my second year of high school, people at school knew mainly two things about Norway: that whaling is practised (against the demands of many countries), and that the captain of a ship (the MV Tampa) which had recently picked up fugitives at sea and brought them to Australia, was Norwegian. Luckily no one asked me if Norway is the capital of Sweden or if we have to watch out for polar bears when we leave the house, but one lady who was the co-worker of my first host mother did think English is the official language in Norway. That assumption was based on my fluency so I was quite chuffed at the time, but seriously!) I wondered that they all knew so little of my home country, but then I didn’t know much about Australia until just before I went.

I remember once when I was very young, up north in grandma’s cabin, we had whale steaks and I couldn’t quite get my head around the fact that it was fish, but it wasn’t fish, and it was meat, but it wasn’t meat. My conclusion was that it was good food and I liked it.

When I went to the supermarket today I was amazed by the unusually well stocked fish counter. It was simply packed! There was fresh cod, salted cod, whole salmon, salmon fillets, trout fillets, mackerel, halibut, pollock.. all very fresh and very inviting. My eye was immediately drawn to the trout, but then I spotted the whale. It’s been years since I last had it and as we had salmon last night at Anders and Stefanie’s, I decided tonight was to be a whale night. I also cast a few longing glances at the fresh mussels, the crab and the lobster, but managed to refrain from buying any of it. My poor little student housing refrigerator isn’t one I like to trust with the keeping of fresh seafood, so I’m planning to go back tomorrow and get some mussels to make Cozze alla Marinara!

Today, though, I made whale steaks. The girl at the fish counter said a portion size is about 200-250g so I bought half a kilo.  It was much more than I’d pictured getting, but timid little girl that I am I didn’t ask questions, simply followed her suggestion.

The thing about whale meat is if you over cook it, chances are you’ll end up with an awful taste of tran (fish liver oil). My solution was cooking it at a high heat for only about a minute or so on each side and then letting it rest (wrapped in tin foil) for about 15 minutes before eating. This left it very red in the middle, or should I say raw, but it was warm and lovely and incredibly tender. I’d rubbed it liberally with salt, pepper, fresh rosemary and garlic and left it in the fridge for a few hours before eating, which gave it a brilliant flavour.

The Boyfriend finished off his whole steak but I could only manage about 1/3 of mine. So I guess it’s not always a good idea to listen to sales people when it comes to what quantity to buy…

Conclusion: I still love whale meat. If you don’t, then — you’re missing out!

Tonight, The Boyfriend and I visited a couple we know who had a baby two months ago. The father is Norwegian, we know him from uni, and the mother is German. He is really strong, wilful, and such a little man. He has loads of hair and it’s not like baby hair, it’s more like the hair of a thirty-year-old. Long, dark and thinning at the top. (Or is it filling in? )

Any who, he’s a pretty cool little guy. They tried to convince us he gets tetchy in the evenings, but I didn’t really see how. They let me hold him and all I had to do was tell him how handsome he is and say ‘boobies’ a couple of times, and he laughed his head off. Apparently you’re not supposed to talk baby talk to babies any more, but seriously, once you’ve got them there in your lap, looking so cute and babyish, how can you not do it? Beats me. We brought the camera but when we got there no pictures got taken, we were just so mesmerised by the little fella.

And no, I’m not sold on the whole baby idea just yet. I don’t want a little man hanging from my boob all day, nor the inevitable house arrest which follows the Miracle of Birth. Some day, though. And I hope whatever I end up with will be as cool as Vegard the Norweger.

I’ve left the parents’ house which was my home for the summer and returned to my beloved flat. It’s a complete shambles even after several days of ‘tidying’ as I’m not great at cleaning and neither is The Boyfriend. We (read: I) wanted to give the flat a good tidying up, getting rid of some of the junk that’s accumulated over the fourteen months we’ve lived here, in preparation of a Fresh Start (read: new semester). In addition to making our flat the most perfect flat in student housing history, we’re going to become model students and start going to the gym regularly. Yeah, that’s right: we’re going to become nauseatingly perfect! But all that’s happened so far is we’ve bunny-proofed the place to make sure the little guy doesn’t accidentally chew an electrical cord and get himself fried, moved a lot of stuff out from its original hiding place and scattered it around the flat, and moved our desks around along with the sofa and the television to make room for — wait for it — Our Very Own Dining Table! Yeah, that’s right! We’re (read: I’m) finally fed up with eating all our meals on the sofa, hunched over the coffee table in front of the telly and have decided to make room for a separate dining table. It will be small of course as we only have a tiny flat. But it will be the right height and it will have chairs that go with it so we can sit upright and eat our meals like normal human beings. Yey!

But sadly, for now, this is My Reality:

I’m also looking forward to another addition to our little home: a new kitchen counter! (you thought I was going to say ‘baby’, didn’t you!?) I’m not replacing the one we have (as we live in student housing that’s strictly verboten), but instead I’m adding 80×60 cm of wonderful work surface and storage in my (until now!) ridiculously tiny and useless kitchen. I’m ecstatic! The counter top is going to be (treated) solid wood so I won’t have to muck about with silly cutting boards that slip on the lino surface that we have now and that are too small to be of any real use (because the counter tops available to me now are so small I’m sure the people who designed these units four years ago couldn’t imagine students ever eating anything but frozen pizzas and take-out). So I’m sure you can all imagine my excitement and relief.

Another bright spot on my horizon is my trip to London which will happen in just ten days! I’m going on a girls’ LONG weekend (more like a week, really) with my best friend Maria who’s studying to be a doctor in Hungary and we’ve not had more than a couple of days together in three years. I’m so excited about this trip I’ve a long list of things I want to do there:

• I want to see the Broad Street pump where Dr John Snow first proved that cholera was a water-borne disease thereby disproving the (then) popular theory about miasma, and have a drink in the pub bearing his name.

• I want to visit the Dickens museum and the Sherlock Holmes museum, and have a drink in the Sherlock Holmes pub.
• I want to go to the Notting Hill Carnival which is happening while we’re there.

• I want to visit Dennis Sever’s house which is a kind of mystery-tour/museum/time capsule.
• I want to go on a guided boat trip on the Thames as soon as we arrive.
• I want to drink Pimms at the White Horse Pub.
• I want to visit some of the cool markets and try jellied eel (jellied ewww?).
• I want to visit the Museum of Torture.
• I want to go clothes shopping (of course).
• We’re definitely going to see The Merry Wives of Windsor at The Globe Theatre
• and Chicago!

I’ve never been to a musical before but I have seen a Shakespeare play. Not at his own theatre, though! Oh, the excitement!

Plus loads of other stuff that doesn’t come to mind at the moment but I’m sure it will as soon as I’ve posted this. If anyone has any suggestions for us, what to do, what to see, what to drink, what to eat, please let me know.

After all, I’m a London virgin… -for another ten days!

1. Cozze alla Marinara. The best thing I’ve ever tasted, with such perfectly balanced, intense flavours and the broth was perfect: just light and delicious yet filling at the same time. My mouth threw a party at every bite of mussel and every sip of broth.

2. Fruit trucks. I bought a kilo of the famous Sicilian Bronte pistacchios and some amazing, tiny little pears from this truck. It all tasted divine. Some of the pistacchios even made it back to Norway with me. Yey!

3. Gamboli fritti. Seafood is of course the greatest part of Sicilian cuisine, so no wonder I managed to eat fried squid several times in several restaurants. With several levels of deliciousness, O’Neils in Recanati having by far the best.

4. Granita. It’s like a slushie, only made with real fruit and much, much, much better tasting. I imagine it might be the inspiration for slushies…

5. Prima piatti. First course. I love how they have four course dinners that last hours. Of course I could barely fit one course in me, but I still tried out the different courses and loved them. I’d love to eat like that at home. If only I could afford it, I definitely would. I’d just eat teeny tiny portions so I’d have room for everything!

6. Risotto alla marinara. This was very much like paella and not like any risotto I’ve ever tasted. First of all, the rice didn’t stick together like a gooey mass and it didn’t taste gooey either! It tasted delicious, the seafood was cooked to perfection and the rice as well. Every rice grain separate and delicious in its separateness. Yum! If only I knew how to achieve such great results at home…

7. Tiramisu. This is my favourite dessert and although I really can’t eat it without becoming ill, I dared the hazards and ate half of this huge block of home made tiramisu. It tasted heavenly. A little strong, especially as I was feeling desperately hung over after our only night out the night before. But like I said, I love tiramisu!

8. The market: fish! We got to the market when it closed having spent all day looking for it in the strange city that is Catania and where no one speaks English. So I only managed to snap a few photos whils running through it as the Sister was sickened by the combination of oppressing heat and the smell of fish, guts and meat… I’d love to shop here though. Pick up some loveøy fresh fish and cook it up in the evening when the weather begins to cool, perhaps after a refreshing evening bath…

9. The market: vegetables. It must be the lack of fresh food public markets in Norway, but I am craving the chance to stroll along in the midst of a bustling market picking out the fresh food I want for dinner…

10. The market: meat. Notice the almost whole carcases?