Lutefisk

I forgot to actually write what Lutefisk is yesterday. I'd like to just write it's horrible and leave it at that, but I guess that's not very helpful. I've borrowed from Wikipedia as I'm not really sure how to explain it myself.

Lutefisk (on the upper left side of the plate) as served in a Norwegian restaurant, with potatoes, mashed peas, and bacon.

It is made from stockfish (air-dried whitefish) or dried/salted whitefish and lye (lut). Its name literally means "lye fish." Some people compare it to rat poison, which actually has a hint of truth to it, because of the traces of nonstandard amino acid lysinoalanine found in lutefisk due to the reaction with lye. I can't believe people eat this of their own free will!


The origin of lutefisk is unknown. Legends include the accidental dropping of fish into a lye bucket or sodden wood ash containing lye under a drying rack. Another claims the practice enabled storing fish outdoors. Cold temperature acted as a preservative and the lye deterred wild animals from eating the fish

Preparations:

Lutefisk is made from dried whitefish (normally cod in Norway, but ling is also used) prepared with lye in a sequence of particular treatments. The watering steps of these treatments differ slightly for salted/dried whitefish because of its high salt content.

The first treatment is to soak the stockfish in cold water for five to six days, with the water changed daily. The saturated stockfish is then soaked in an unchanged solution of cold water and lye for an additional two days. The fish swells during this soaking, and its protein content decreases by more than 50 percent, producing its famous jelly-like consistency. When this treatment is finished, the fish, saturated with lye, has a pH value of 11–12 and is therefore caustic. To make the fish edible, a final treatment of yet another four to six days of soaking in cold water, also changed daily, is needed. Eventually, the lutefisk is ready to be cooked.

Cooking

After the preparation, the lutefisk is saturated with water and must therefore be cooked carefully so that it does not fall into pieces.

If one likes to have the lutefisk more firm in its consistence, one can spread a layer of salt over the fish half an hour before it is cooked. This will "release" some of the water in the fish meat. The salt must be rinsed off before cooking.

There are several ways to cook lutefisk:

Lutefisk does not need additional water for the cooking; it is sufficient to place it in a pan, salt it, seal the lid tightly, and let it steam cook under a very low heat for 20–25 minutes. An alternative is to wrap in aluminium foil and bake at 225 °C (435 °F) for 40–50 minutes.

Another option is to parboil lutefisk; wrap the lutefisk in cheesecloth and gently boil until tender. This usually takes a very short time, so care must be taken to watch the fish and remove it before it falls apart. Prepare a white sauce to serve over the lutefisk.

Lutefisk can also be boiled directly in a pan of water. Fill the pan 2/3 full with water, add 2 ts of salt per liter water, and bring the water to a boil. Add lutefisk pices to the water until they all are covered with water, and let it simmer for 7 to 8 minutes. Carefully lift the lutefisk out of the water and serve.

Lutefisk sold in North America may also be cooked in a microwave oven. The average cooking time is 8–10 minutes per whole fish (a package of two fish sides) at high power in a covered glass cooking dish, preferably made of heat resistant glass. The cooking time will vary, depending upon the power of the microwave oven.

When cooking and eating lutefisk, it is important to clean the lutefisk and its residue off pans, plates, and utensils immediately. Lutefisk left overnight becomes nearly impossible to remove. Sterling silver should never be used in the cooking, serving or eating of lutefisk, which will permanently ruin silver. Stainless steel utensils are recommended instead.

Lutefisk party

My mother's aunt was holding a lutefisk party today, with sausages and mash for those of us that doesn't like lutefisk. We've not really been to see that part of the family for about 10 years, we've only occasionally bump into each other, so it was lovely seeing almost all of them again.
I used to spend a lot of time with them before, when my great grandmother was alive, and before we moved to Oslo. I especially played with my mum's cousin Julie as she's only a few years older than me.
Julie is the main reason I wanted to go today, as I really wanted to see her again and meet her daughter, Sofie. Julie lives on New Zealand and I really hope I get to visit her there sometime, maybe when I go to Australia. Her partner Paul has already invited me to their house. Paul is a Kiwi. I talked quite a lot with him today. It was nice to talk to someone that I could ask all sorts of Australia questions to, and I also learned a lot about New Zealand, so I think it would be nice to go there as well.

It's hard to save all my money for Australia as I want to go everywhere else as well! I need to get a job ASAP where I earn enough to go travelling as much as I want and wherever I want!

I also watched that film "Dear John" today. Normally I like romantic films like that, but I think "Dear John" was a bit "slow" for my liking, although I might change my mind, I think I might have thought the same about "The Notebook" the first time I saw it.

Merry Christmas!

Or Happy Holidays if you prefer.

In Norway we celebrate Christmas today, the 24th, I don't know why, maybe it's because Santa can get one more day to deliver the presents.

We don't celebrate it in the morning either. We have a "normal" day until 5pm, which means shops are open and everything, the shops are usually open until 2pm or 3pm. At 5pm the church bells "chimes Christmas in", so at 5pm we have our Christmas dinner, which consists of pork ribs (not the kind with BBQ sauce) or lamb for most people. I don't really like either so I have rice porridge.

After we've had our dinner we wait a few hours, in which time we play games, read books/comics or watch telly or whatever. Then at 8pm (ish) we open our presents.

So now I'm going to get out of bed and watch some traditional Christmas programs on telly that I haven't seen in 3 years because of living in Britain.

Enjoy the Holiday, however you celebrate it!

Winter Wonderland

We've had a fair bit of snow here lately, I believe it's because of my mum's cousin coming home from New Zealand for Christmas, and she wished for it. I like snow, in countries like Norway that knows how to deal with it anyway. Everything becomes pretty when it's covered in a layer of snow, and it's also kind of easier to get in the Christmas Spirit with all the snow around. That's going to be strange if I manage to go to Australia, as Christmas will be at the height of summer!

I wish I'd bought some bread or something with me so that they wouldn't have swam away...

I've been on top of the mountain to the left. You can't see it very well on this picture, but that mountain has a heart shape at the top, do you see it?

Why does the moon never look as close on pictures as it does in real life?

Phone trouble

I can be rather stupid sometimes, like when I know I can't upgrade my unlocked iPhone because then it will become locked again, and then I go ahead and upgrade it! Silly me. And now I can't get it unlocked again, I've looked on the internet, and there are many ways of unlocking it again it seems, but I need to get it into dfu mode, which it won't do! I've tried everything!
There are programs that say they will put the phone in to dfu mode without me having to spend hours trying to get the home + power button combination right, but those programs won't work either!

I've given up on sorting it now, so this morning when the shops opened I practically ran in to town to get myself a new phone. I probably spent half an hour - hour in front of the wall with the phones before deciding on a new one. Luckily I just got paid today, although I still didn't really want to spend to much money on a new phone. In the end I settled for a Sony Ericsson Xperia X8.
They didn't have one in, but they'll get it Monday or Tuesday, so in the meantime I've got to borrow a really old Nokia from the store, although not as old as the one I have from the last time I had a Nokia, that one's about 8 years old. But I think it was really decent of them to lend me a phone, now I just have to find out how it works.

Seeing as I have to wait until at least Monday before I get my new phone, I could just as well have bought a new one online, they've got cheaper ones. And then I could have used my ancient Nokia 3310 until it arrived. But at least now I can just run down to the local electronics store if there's anything wrong with the new phone.

It's such a hassle changing phones, especially now that I can't get into my iPhone to get my contacts and things like that. I loved my iPhone, but I think it's best I don't get one again, unless I get a completely new unlocked one that I can upgrade as much as I want. 

I've also got all my shifts on my phone, but at least I know when I have to be at work today, so I can write down the rest when I'm there.

While I was looking for a way to sort out my iPhone I came across a very funny page on the internet, called Damn You Auto Correct! I think one of the reasons I haven't cried my eyes out over effing up my iPhone is because I've sat laughing so hard at all the funny auto correct mistakes on this page.

Anyway, make sure you don't do the same mistake I did, take care of your phones.

Doctor Who

I have just watched the 5th season of Doctor Who. I love Doctor Who, the new Doctor Who that is, I've not seen the old ones, but I guess it would be quite cool to watch those seasons as well, just to kind of know the history behind it all, it's just that they look really bad in comparison to the new ones.
Anyway, the first time I watched some of the season 5 episodes I was rather disappointed because there were so many changes, but I think it's really good now, Matt is very good as the Doctor and Karen as Amy. Although I have to admit that I still think David Tennant was the best Doctor so far, but of course it might just be because I'm still kind of used to him.
Anyway, I'm looking forward to season 6 coming out on DVD, from the end of season 5, there's a lot to look forward to. I have to say it's a little bit easier with TV-series that have finished, at least then you don't have to wait for the next season. All the waiting is rather boring.

Another reason not to watch the old Doctor Who: they're all old men, not as good looking as the ones now.

American Muffins

INGREDIENT:

Dry Ingredients:
4,8 dl all-purpose flour
1,5 dl sugar (preferrably brown, amount according to taste)
3 large tsp. baking powder
1 pinch of salt

Wet Ingredients:
1 egg
0,75 dl cup cooking oil
2,5 dl milk

DIRECTION:

This is "the real thing", not eggnog based muffins (cup cakes as Americans would say).  The ingredients should only be stirred together by hand, and one only needs two bowls and a large ballon whisper or ladle in addition to the muffin pans. The mixture makes up 6-12 muffins, depending on the size of the muffin pan.

You can decide the taste variations. I made this with banana and chopped almonds. Other alternatives are raisins, chopped chocolate, walnuts, cinnamon, blueberry etc. If you exchange 1/3 of the flour for cornmeal, you get so-called corn-muffins.

METHOD:

Set the oven on 200-225 Celsius. Stir dry and wet ingredients together, blend just until moistened (batter should be lumpy). Spoon batter into muffin pans - so full as you dare. It is an advantage to use muffin pans with paper forms in the bottom. Bake the muffins on the lowest rack for 15-20 minutes.

I found this recipe online, and I thought it seemed quite good as you can just use the same recipe to make loads of different flavours.

Cop shows

Traffic Cops, Road Wars, Motorway Cops, Night Cops, all those kind of shows, especially those set in the UK, I love them. I think I enjoy them even more because I know they're real, and not something fake a film director or whatever has just made up. Although it does also make me more nervous, knowing it's all true, it might be one of the things that makes me less willing to get a licence, knowing that there are really bad drivers out there.
Another reason I really like these programmes are the cops themselves, many of them are rather easy on the eye. I rather like men in uniform. I guess it's because they're kind of modern-day knights in shining armour, although not all uniforms are nice, and it does depend a little bit on who's wearing it of course.

I don't think I could ever be a police officer myself though, but I do admire and have a great respect for the people that put their lives on the line so that others can be safe.

London

I came back from London last night. I really didn't want to come back to Norway, I love the UK and I wanted to move back as soon as I landed in London. That's not to say I want to live in London though, I'm not sure I could live there, it's such a big city and everybody's always rushing everywhere. There are more people in London than there is in all of Norway, you get all kinds of culture just in one city, which is nice in one way, but I much prefer smaller cities, where you can actually go into a shop on the high street without getting trampled to death.
Anyway, I had a really nice time, and I got all my Christmas shopping done, so now all I need to do is wrap the presents and I don't need to worry about anything, not Christmas present-wise anyway.

Everyone should go to Camden Market when they're in London, they have got so many cool things! I got almost half of my Christmas presents there.

We didn't go to Notting Hill's Portobello Road on the Sunday when there is a market, but there's still loads to see and many cool shops, mostly antiques and vintage shops.

A friendly squirrel in Hyde Park

Hyde Park at sunset

The earth at the Science museum. It was really cool and showed the sea temperature and how it looked at night, I could have probably watched it for a couple of hours. Unfortunately we didn't get there until after four so we didn't have time to see what was on the three top floors, but there were so many other things on the other floors that I didn't really feel that I missed out on much. Although I hope I can go back again and see it all.

At the reception of our Hotel, it's called Westport Hotel, and it's right next to Paddington station, so it didn't take long to get into town. I thought the Hotel was fine, but I'm the kind of person that just need a hotel for a place to sleep at night, so I don't really need anything fancy.

Buckingham Palace

Ben and a couple of Bobbies (unfortunately not any of the young good-looking ones)

Piccadilly Circus

London baby!

I'm going to London later to day! I'm really looking forward to all the shopping, I will try to get all my Christmas shopping done so that I don't have to worry about that. I'm only taking hand luggage with me, and then I'll buy a cheap suitcase when I'm going back (and try not to have to pay overweight).
I hope I get time to go to Camden Market while I'm there and a couple of museums, and maybe some kind of show. We're coming back on Thursday though, so I don't know how much we'll actually have time to do, at least the hotel is close to town. Right next to Hyde Park actually, so we're kind of right between everything.
I'll tell you all about it when I get back.

Sophie Kinsella

From reading my blog I'm sure it seems like all I do is read, which is pretty much what I do except from work and try to realize my Australia dream.

This weekend I've read 3 books by... can you guess which author? Sophie Kinsella, that's right. I have read the Shopaholic series before, so I won't write about that, except for Mini Shopaholic when that becomes available at the library.  

One thing I have to say most of Kinsellas books have in common is that they make me want to tell the truth. Don't get me wrong, I don't usually lie, but they make me not want to lie just because something is embarrassing to admit or anything like that. It's better to just come clean at once and be over with it. 

Anyway the 3 books I've read this weekend is:

The Undomestic Goddess 

Really exciting book, that also made me rather embarrassed at the character a lot of the time, but it's funny.

It's about a workaholic attorney, Samantha, who's just made a massive mistake that will ruin her chances of partnership. She goes into meltdown and takes the first train out of London and ends up in the middle of nowhere. She goes to ask for directions at a big house and gets mistaken for an interviewee and gets offered a job as a housemaid. Her employers doesn't know that they've hired a lawyer - and Samantha doesn't know how to work an oven, bake a potato or even open an ironing board. 

Needless to say it's a really funny book, I laughed out loud quite a few times. It also made me rather hungry and want to cook in some parts.

Twenties girl  

I think this book is really different to Kinsella's other books. Depending on what you believe in it's not as "true to reality" as her other books.

It's about a girl, Lara, who is wondering if maybe she's lost her mind. She's being visited by the ghost of her Great Aunt Sadie - in the form of a bold, demanding, Charlestone-dancing girl. Sadie has one last request: Lara must find a missing necklace that Sadie can't rest without. Lara has also got other problems. Her startup company is floundering, her best friend and business partner has run off to Goa, and she's just been dumped by the love of her life. 

I do like fantasy books, like Harry Potter, Twilight and stuff like that, but I have to admit that I had my doubts when Kinsella wrote about a ghost. But I was pleasantly surprised. The book was very exciting and funny.

Remember Me?  

I couldn't put this book down, other that when I had to eat, so I read the whole book today. There are so many twists and turns that I really couldn't guess at how it would all end.

28-year-old Lexi wakes up in a London Hospital and is in for a big surprise. Her teeth are perfect. Her body is toned. Her handbag is Vuitton. She has just survived a car accident and has lost a big chunk of her memory, three years of it, and she's about to find out how much is changed. Somehow she went from a 25-year-old working girl to a corporate big shot with a sleek new loft, a carb-free diet and a surprise husband that also happens to be a multimillionaire. Lexi tries to adjust to her new life, when the biggest bombshell of all is dropped on her.

Can you understand how I couldn't put it down? It reminded me a little bit of that series that was on telly a couple of years ago, "Samantha Who" although I guess that's only because of the whole amnesia part, as the rest of the story wasn't anything like it.

My random thoughts of the day.

In my last post I wrote that I have just finished reading "Where Rainbows End" by Cecelia Ahern. The book made me want to be a hotel manager. I have thought about this before and have gone away from the idea as I don't actually like working with people.

If you've read my earlier posts then you know that I'm actually going to Australia to study accounting (if I can get the loan), so why am I suddenly talking about hotel managing? Well you see, the thing is, I haven't actually decided what I want to do with my life, I just found out that I don't want to work in crappy jobs for the rest of my life. So therefore I'm getting an education, and I thought why not accounting? Every company in the world needs accountants, which means I can work in which ever country I want as long as my degree is accepted there. There is also a good chance of earning quite a bit of money by being an accountant which means I might be able to repay the loan I have to get before I'm 500 years old. So I'm thinking if I ever find out what my dream job is (if it's not accounting) then I can study part-time while having a proper job.

I'm also going to start playing the lottery (no chance of winning it if not). So if I win a million or two I don't have to get a loan for my studies, I can get a licence and I can travel the world.

Money isn't everything, but it makes everything a lot easier.

Austen and Ahern

"It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife." In this way does my favourite book of all time start. It always makes me want to go back in time to experience it all first-hand.

I guess most people have read Pride and Prejudice, or at least seen the film. If you've never heard of it, then you must have been living under a rock for the last 200 years.

Although I have to say I don't like the new(-ish) film-adaption with Keira Knightly at all. On the other hand I really enjoy the old BBC version starring Colin Firth and Jennifer Ehle, I guess that's because it's a mini-series and they've managed to get most of the book in it. And also Colin Firth is a lot hotter than Matthew Macfadyen.

Anyway, this is one of the books I can read again and again, like Austen's other books. It's a lot more "sparkly" than her other books though, just the way I like them. This book should be on everybody's list of books to read before you die.

I have also finished reading the last book I had left to read by Cecelia Ahern (for now), Where Rainbows End. It's a beautiful story. By what happens in it I got rather impatient and exasperated. It really makes you not want to miss any opportunity, keep your eyes open and really think.

It was a little confusing to read just as I started, as the whole book is written in letter format, so I had to keep my eyes open to who each letter was to and from as it changed.

I think this book could be a beautiful film just like P.S. I Love You.

And now for the next author on my list: Sophie Kinsella.

books

I've just finished reading another two books. Neither of them Cecelia Ahern as someone else has borrowed it at the library.

Rosie by Alan Titchmash. It's the first book I've read by Titchmarsh and I really enjoyed his writing style. It made me want to read more of his books. It also made me want to visit the Isle of Wight.

It's about a guy, Nick, that has a grandmother that get's into trouble occasionally, because she doesn't act her age. The grandmother comes to visit and wants to help her Nick find a girlfriend, while Nick helps his grandmother find out about her past.

Although like many other books you can kind of guess what's going to happen at the end, but there were a lot of questions that didn't get answered until the end, which made it exciting to read. There were also quite a few surprises.


The other book I just read is The Notebook by Nicholas Sparks. I have also seen the film based on this book, and I think for the first time ever I don't hate the film after reading the book! I think it's because it's not really a very long book so they actually had enough time in the film to get most of the book in. Although I do want to say that if you like the film you should read the book as it kind of make you understand a little bit more  of it, after all; there are a few things that's not in the film.

I want to read Sparks' other books as well now. My list of authors I want to read is getting rather long.