Try and Try, Again.

I can't explain my motivation, but I have been cooking and baking A LOT. I cook everyday, but it hasn't been anything to brag about, until now.

I've learned that the weirdest thing about cooking is that it's exactly like life: you don't know what you're capable of until you try.

Was I capable of making a pumpkin pie, stuffing, and turkey (okay, fine, turkey filet) a week ago? Probably, but now I know for sure. Was I capable of making a marinade and then baking a chicken in it? Most definitely. I found that out the other day. I tried a recipe for teriyaki chicken (from dearest Fran), that was, in a word...delish! Soy sauce, butter, brown sugar, water, and chicken...they all had a party in my oven, and then a party in my mouth. Mmm.

Am I capable of making a "perfect roast chicken" (recipe courtesy of Flo). I think so. That's next on my to-try list.

All this cooking comes with a learning curve. Today I Googled "bulb of fennel" because I truthfully didn't have the slightest clue as to what that looks like, and there are just some things I won't ask of a Norwegian grocery store employee.

I learned my lesson of knowing when not to ask when I was looking for 'shortening' - which Google Translate translated incorrectly, which I then horridly mispronounced. As sweet and helpful as the guy was trying to be, he ended up walking away dumbfounded. I wandered the store for another 20 minutes, mistook a can of anchovies for a pot of Crisco and miraculously stumbled upon Matfett -directly translated to 'food fat'. Right - the only combination of words I didn't try. I was practically playing Taboo with the poor guy. I tried: fat; white fat; white fat that comes in a can; fat that you cook with; lard?; uhm, it's greasy when you touch it...and it's white. He didn't know. I tried my 'phone a friend' option, which was my mother-in-law, who was equally perplexed. So now I do my research before going shopping.

I baked cookies last night, too! Delectable cookies...and I got the recipe from Auntie Diane. She always makes the most amazing platter of Christmas cookies every year, and she gave me the recipe for my favorite one: Peanut Blossoms.

For my bridal shower this past summer, all the women brought a recipe to give me. I took a picture with each woman, and the pictures and recipes were put into a book. This book (I apologize for my terrible photography!):

This was Auntie Diane's page with her Peanut Blossom recipe:

So I set off to baking. The recipe calls for Hershey's Kisses, but I can't get those here, so I had to make do with Freia's Melkerull chocolates. Not nearly as charming as the Hershey's kiss, but there's something incredible about Norwegian chocolate that only your tastebuds can tell you about.

Ready for the oven!

My Norwegian chocolate substitution.
'Et lite stykke Norge' means: A little piece of Norway. 

Finished! Missing the 'kiss' look, but just as tasty! 

I realized after these came out of the oven that the recipe called for 48 chocolate pieces...I had just baked 12 cookies and used half the dough. Needless to say, I made the cookies smaller before putting them into the oven.

These were...heavenly. And happiness - all in one bite.

Thanks Auntie Diane!!!

(I took them to work and they were a big hit!)

Darkness, Mostly.

I knew it was was going to be dark here during the winter, but it genuinely surprises me most days when I get up before the sun comes up on the horizon.

On the weekends I sleep in, and if I'm not sleeping, I'm hanging out in bed with a cup of tea and a fresh Facebook newsfeed of California-happenings during my nighttime (remember I'm 9 hours ahead of California!). This morning, I didn't get out of bed until well after 9, and it was just barely starting to look like day break instead of the middle of the night.

I kept busy all day with a thorough house cleaning while Stian worked on fixing stuff in our apartment (how 1950's of us!), and when all that was done, the mister and I went to a museum. It was actually the local children's science museum, but I'm not going to deny how much more fun that is compared to a museum geared towards adults (you know the kind: it's silent like a library and everyone is walking around reading tiny placards that give information, albeit interesting, about something in a glass case in front of them).

I can appreciate a grown-up museum, but at this place we blew bubbles, built a dam, drilled for oil (I was incredibly bad at that!), played the drums, camouflaged ourselves like zebras, and learned that a human heart is capable of squirting it's own blood over a meter into the sky with every beat.

I wish I had pictures to share, but realized at the Bybanen stop on our way there that I had forgotten my camera (I was so busy tidying up that I put the camera in the drawer instead of my purse.. :( so sad!).

The point of telling you about the awesome interactive museum was that when we left (about 4 o'clock), it was already dark. We walked through the park to get to the center of the city, and by the time we got there...it was really dark!

We went into the city to go to the Pepperkakerbyen (gingerbread city), which I've been desperately wanting to go to, but things keep getting in the way. Today, there was a line which we didn't want to wait in and we were getting hungry...so we went home. Ah well, I'll be sure to bring my camera next time! I know you'll need to see pictures of it!

The days fly by, and the nights drag on, but what can you expect as we're approaching the darkest day of the year (December 22nd)?

Thanksgiving in Norway - oh, Bieber Invaded This Day, Too

I'm going to say something that I thought was obvious, but clearly isn't since I get this question so often: No, Thanksgiving is not celebrated in Norway. It's very American. To people in every other country in the world, "Thanksgiving" is just another Thursday - everyone is waiting for it to be Friday so it can finally be the weekend again.

I've been in Bergen for 4 months exactly (to the day!). I've met wonderful people doing wonderful things and I'm finding life to be pretty good here.

I'm part of a "tapas group" with some wonderful Norwegian ladies that I met, oddly enough, in line for the toilet in a bar just after arriving in Bergen. I think I've mentioned in another post how Norwegian's can be quite cold and unwelcoming at first - but these girls blew me out of the water because they talked to me first. I think just minutes after meeting them I might have said something like "I don't mean to be rude, but you're unusually friendly for a Norwegian girl." And I meant it. I've noticed that many girls are nervous to speak English, especially in front of friends or significant others, and then can seem a bit standoffish (which is rarely how they actually are, most of them are probably the nicest people you'll ever meet once you get to know them). I get it. I have to muster up lots of courage to try out my Norwegian, too.

Anyway, these sweet girls have kind of  'adopted' me, and somehow it came about that we should have a Thanksgiving dinner at my house.

I was looking forward to it, but I will be the first to say that I've only ever watched the meal being made; never really took part in the cooking.

While I was in California, I stopped by the grocery store with Grandma and bought a can of pumpkin pie mix and a can of condensed milk. I brought it back to Norway and set out to make the crust.

(I love to bake, but I've never, ever made a pie).

All I have to say is that I'm thankful for Skype so that my mom could offer up some suggestions. Once it was rolled out, I laughed because I had dreams of a perfectly circular crust, and this is what I created:

It was then that I realized I didn't have a pie pan. Tart pan, yes. Kiesh pan, yes. But not a proper pie pan. Oh well, I made do and it looked pretty normal:

Then I added the pumpkin mix and put it in the oven. Looked normal, smelled divine. The smell actually made me the slightest bit homesick. Before that smell, it was just another Thursday...after that smell, it was Thanksgiving in California and I was missing it. 

While the pie was in the oven, I needed to get started on the stuffing. I was doing this all the day before our Friday night Thanksgiving celebration. The stuffing recipe called for 2 loaves of white bread, torn into small pieces and left out for a day. So I began tearing...and tearing...and tearing...until my thumbs started to hurt from ripping the crust. Over a loaf in, I realized something important when my thumbs really began to ache: 

HELLO!!! YOU HAVE KITCHEN SCISSORS!!! USE THEM!

Sometimes I could kick myself for always doing it the hard way first. 

I finished prepping for the stuffing, made a plan for the big day, bought the rest of the dinner...like the turkey (yep, waited til the last minute on that, too), and well....it went swimmingly. 

Here was what the table looked like (the day before..unfortunately I didn't take any pictures on the day of): 

I didn't find a whole turkey nearby until the day before, which wasn't enough time to defrost it, so I went with the turkey filet option...I'm so glad for that! It tasted great and it was easy. A little butter and some seasoning and viola! Dinner! The stuffing was good, but really needed the gravy to make it great.

It was sort of a potluck Thanksgiving, so the girls brought the cranberry sauce, green beans, mashed potatoes, candied yams, meat pie, and an extra cake (we just weren't sure how people were going to like the pumpkin pie...). It all came together and it was really fun. 

Oddly enough, Bieber invaded Thanksgiving, too. How this boy has weaseled his way into my life, I'll never know. It came up because someone had a dream about him, perhaps as a result of reading my previous blog post, and then we started talking about what we actually knew about the guy. Collectively, this is what we found out: 

1. One of his songs goes something like " baby, baby, baby, oooh" (I think?)

2. He may, or may not, have gotten someone pregnant at some point in his life. 

3. He sang some song with another famous artist...Ludacris? 

And to top it all off, we watched a few Justin Bieber YouTube videos together. I think that might have been the strangest part of the night - not bad, but definitely strange. 

It was a good Thanksgiving. 

I was (and still am) thankful for new friends, pumpkin pie, skype, family (near or far) and not stressing too much about trying something new. 

Already looking forward to next year!