food: traditional soup in wooden cup, berries (add pics)

NOTE TO ME ADD PHOTOS OF OUTSIDE, LUNCH




Study/blog/lunch break today I fixed a quick homemade soup of potato, served in one of the old-fashioned traditional wooden handled wood cups lying around the kitchen. I used the larger size for the soup, and the smaller size for fresh loganberries (blackberries?) and raspberries, I just found in the yard. Last of this summers berries, yet, even with the rains, hail sleet and cold, still delicious, not water-logged, not mouldy, and not mealey bugs. yay! See what happens when I go out to take what I thought was icky photos for the blog?! I find winter apples, along side new juniper berries, and delicious summer berries still on the vines. Here raspberries and similar grow in vines, which might often appear to be shrubs or bushes but are just a huge tangle of brambles which are still single vines. Blueberries grow on tiny shrubs close to the ground, slightly different looking that ones I´ve seen in Southern US states, Colorado, California, New York etc. Still taste great!

Last year about this time, walking along the sea at Bontelabo in Bergen, the littles and I found what we thought were white raspberries (which I know exist and have had before) but were actually molteberries (cloud berries in English), which we love. Well, honestly we love all berries, all the better if we pick them in the wild, and like spending the day finding them! The berries usually never get past us eating them, to be made into fancy or even plain pie. I think I managed enough berries for a bramble pie, but only after picking (ie eating) berries for about an hour til we got full enough we couldn´t eat any more. It takes a while to pick berries--thorns, finding the vines, wading through brambles, over hills, along ridges, paying attention to not fall off the mountain, for instance,).

Our yard is rampant all over with raspberries, blueberries, lingonberries, lots of berries I have no idea what they are called in any language but they are safe to eat; red currants, blackcurrants, gooseberries in different colors including red; apples, plums, wild mints, beautiful numerous endless types of bulbs, flowers, roses, and weeds which look like flowers to me such as foxgloves in shades of purple, white, pink which grow wild and are considered weeds! (They are flowers to me!).

The blueberries have a fancy metal picker you hold which carefully strips all the leaves and berries, leaving the berries in the main holder, leaves falling to the ground. We rarely use that, even though it makes a quick job, a minute or so, of any blueberry bush. The corners and other areas of the yard are covered in what might be considered a wild ground cover of short wild blueberry bushes, all covered in hundreds of tiny blueberries, a bit larger than the wild Canadian blueberries you might have gotten in cans in packages of blueberry mix. The berries are no where near huge, but are wonderful deep flavour, that remind me of the blueberry girl in the original movie about Willy Wonka and the chocolate factory, as the tiny berries have so much blueberry color and flavour!

Even from a baby, they´ve all enjoyed spending hours searching for, picking and eating their own berries!

At home it´s a bit easier, as there are fruit and berries all over. Raspberries on long 3 or 5 foot tall branches sticking up out of the ground. Huge bushes of red or black currants, red or green gooseberries which here are sweet and mild, not sour and strong as other places where I´ve tasted them! My aunties in the Northern US states used to make gooseberries into pies, and all kinds of desserts, preserves, jams. They normally were some of the best cooks, bakers, canners of preserves etc, but the gooseberry items were always so sour, loud, strong; as the berries were never sweet. I wonder now they maybe picked the berries too soon. The ones here are so delicious, sweet, morish, I have yet to rarely get to have enough to make jam, as we eat them all straight from the bushes!

Wild rhubarb, herbs including spearmint & wild nettles which is great for tea.


Summers we often hunt for other places to find berries, along our walks. Our walks are not to just get to somewhere, from place to place, but also the walks in themselves are time to explore, enjoy.

Along the walk down to the bus stop, are many wild berries, tiny alpine strawberries, raspberries. Along the walk across the local closest mountain, are raspberries, blackberries, blueberries all over; and several places along the jagged rock with overhanging berries such as sweet juicy red gooseberries, blackberries, black currants. Surrounding most trees are vines of various berries, and there are trees everywhere along the way. Even within the city of Bergen even in the most built-up places are nature, hidden forest walks, parks, fruit, berries if you look. There are even morello cherry trees here, with delicious ripe cherries you can pick from the trees in summer, if you know where to look. It´s ok to pick for yourself, and maybe even a national pasttime it is such a usual thing to do. My father was German so we did stuff like this in the US and I grew up with this as a normal thing to do, what with all my aunties who gardened, picked their own, canned and preserved everything from berries, fruit, peaches, sweet blue pickles, sour dill garlic pickles, meats, mincemeat, corn, beans, jerky, rosehip jelly, concord grape juice and jams,etc.

Some of my fondest memories of growing up are:

- being able to explore (woods, mountains, rivers, beach, lakes, forest, fields, etc)
-Sports (watching and playing: baseball, basketball, skating, swimming, running, hockey etc)
-food (picking wild food or from the garden, gardening, cooking, canning with family)
-nature and being outdoors (in all types of weather, terrain)

I always dreamed of living in a place that had sea, mountains, forest, beach, seasons. Or living in a place which was HOT and had snow * at the same time*. I found that place, it was Colorado and New Mexico, and California. Beautiful, spectacular, great place to live as an artist/painter painting, exploring, making pottery from the clay earth firing it inside the ground; sculpting, trying my hand at making furniture, enjoying the architecture of the natural mountains, earth, land, man-made pueblos, and adobes. Living in all these places, the heart of NYC in Times Square, was great. But once I lived in Sweden, nothing compared. Til I lived in Norway, with all my memories of elsewhere and all that I have now here. This is my home now, and my kids home:).

All of this is what Norway is, and that is why I love living here. It is like being an adult back in my childhood with all those fond memories then being able to here and now share and pass on to my 4 kids!

Winter = ice hockey, skating, skiing, snowboard, snowshoeing, snow ice cream, snow cones made from snow and kool-aid or juice; bundling up visiting hyttes with hot cocoa, hot coffee, hot gløgg in thermos; thick winter woolens under thick winter coats, huge winter boots, woolen hats and mittens. And snow. Lots of snow. A bit of rain, sleet, hail too, but snow. yay for winter. But still is fun to enjoy the last of the warm summer days sneaking in randomly now that it is becoming autumn now...

See my previous posts on winter, for ski areas, free things to do in winter here and where, how to get there etc.

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Traditional Soup recipes:


My throw together recipes, you get the idea

1) Fisk chowder

In a stockpot, throw in the veggies you´ve got/like. I typically use celery, carrot, leek, onion, shallot, and any other root veggies, such as parsnips, rutabaga which I can never spell, celeriac as I wanted to try it. Potatoes, red and yellow if I´ve got them, especially if they are wilty looking and need to most definitely be used up soon! Salt, pepper, herbs. Dill is good, but put it in near the end. Coriander seeds is good too (not traditional, I just like the flavour it adds). Maybe a splash of pepper sauce (tabasco or similar hot sauce).

Make the stock, I don´t puree it. When cooled off not simmering, add milk and/or heavy cream, butter, a bit more chopped herbs, and barely cooked fish. I prefer salmon, or whatever looks best that day from the sea. Sometimes the kids pick mussels at the beach here, or other shellfish. We get pink sea urchins, bivalves, blue mussels, crabs etc different times of the year. Whatever you like, whatever you have, throw it in.

If I have any seafood besides fish, I make the stock much much more spicy, like a crabboil type of spicey. yum!

2) Potato chowder, which I made today:

Quick easy. There were a handful of so of wilty red and yellow potatoes I needed to use up, for they sprouted! Threw them into pot, above a water bath to steam. Smashed the softened cooked potatoes, skin and all (leaving the skins on is not done here, so for company I would peel the potatoes!), added salted butter, whole milk, double cream, seasoning, fresh herbs dill and thyme. No onions or shallot this time, as I just couldn´t be bothered to saute them, but that would have been better. As it was, it still was delicious, on this chilly day, snuggled up like I was in front of the fireplace.

3) Lapskaus

Very traditional, extremely popular root vegetable soup here. You can add meat on the bone, but I usually make it with just root veggies.

My version, typically, again, throw together leftovers that I need to use up. I rarely go to the store to specifically get the ingredients for this. Sometimes. But usually I make soup, chowder, stew to use up bits and pieces, so they do not go rotten, get wasted, have to be thrown out. Food is expensive!

So the last time I made this:

storefekjøtt (meat on the bone) because I had it
smør (butter)
potet (some red and some yellow random potatoes I needed to use up)
fresh herbs (dill, chive, chervil, parsley, cilantro, thyme, oregano) as I grow them in the kitchen
persillerot (parsnips)

gulrot (carrots)

kålrot (kalarobi)

salt, pepper, seasoning

onions, shallot

Washed, roughly cut up everything. Put it in a large pot with water to simmer for a few hours, adding the fresh herbs and parsnips in the end. Seasoned again, added some water when needed.

This is really good, cheap, quick, easy to make! It is good with just the veggies, or with meat on the bone, such as mutton or beef.

4) Another traditional meat on the bone stew here:

Mutton on the bone, onions, canned crushed tomatoes, potatoes, green bell pepper. Throw all this into a large stew pot, with water, salt, pepper. Simmer for a few hours, til the meat falls off the bone. Serve over rice, pasta or mashed potatoes (leave out the potatoes in the recipe then).

Beef on the bone is also great in this stew. The bell pepper, and tomatoes combination really makes this stew one of my favourites especially in winter. I make it several times a month. I rarely vary this recipe ingredients, as this exact combination is perfect. T makes it lots, and now I do too. 

You can also make this from frozen meat on the bone, adding the frozen meat first, then all the ingredients on top, so it all fits into the stew pot. Add water as needed.