One gram of saffron!

I bought one gram of saffron at the pharmacy, as

my mother once told me that was the place to

buy it. It is called safran in Norwegian.

She used it for some of her Christmas baking.

I want to use a tiny bit of it for Yellow Salmon Soup

and a little bit for double-braided loaves.

One gram!

Many years ago I was told saffron is more expensive

than gold.

This one gram cost 126 Norwegian kroner - around

21 US dollars, I estimate.

Will it be enough for the soup and the bread?

:-)

Will I have some of it left for further projects after that?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saffron

Makes you wonder

In my second country I still have two rooms filled

with my personal stuff.

Mostly books and files with paper information

I have collected over many years.

A few pieces of furniture I would put in another home

if that home was in my second country.

But I will not bring that furniture to Norway.

Too expensive. Not worth it.

But the books and all those documents, what to do?

And what I really think about, is that after three years

I cannot really remember the details of what I have there.

Makes you wonder how much of it I could get rid of,

without feeling too much of a loss.

Moving in general, but also moving from one country to

another, is very much a mental exercise in defining

your own life, and therefore very exhausting.....

Helpdesk in Medieval times

As one of those in "the older generation" who often

feel a little lost with the PC, the mobile telephone etc,

and who still remember the beginning of my life with a

computer, I loved this Norwegian film clip from 2001

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pQHX-SjgQvQ

Yes, moving from scrolls to books also had its

challenges........

Halloween 2009

As I have already mentioned, my experience of

Halloween is seeing it celebrated in American movies.

Now I know that Kate will grow up with Halloween,

it gets more real.

Here she is in her first Halloween costume.

When we were kids here in Norway there was a custom

for children to dress up (nothing fancy like this costume,

just grownups' clothes) right after Christmas and walk,

in a group of children, from house to house.

I think I participated once. We were the children

from three neighbouring families living a little

outside the village.

We knocked on the doors of each family.

There was some element of scariness , and I really

don't know why.

Because it was dark and cold and we were outside?

We sang some Christmas carols when the door was opened.

We then received an orange, I think.

This custom was called to "walk as Julebukk" (gå

julebukk).

Who or what was Julebukk? A Christmas goat?

Was this some old Norse tradition?

I don't know, so I just looked it up on the internet.

It seems to have been a custom to slaughter a goat for

Christmas, and then children would dress up with a

mask of a goat's head, covering themselves in a piece

of skin with the wool on, and walk from house

to house getting some treats from those who could

afford to give treats.

Do children in Norway still do this?

One internet source told that these days children dress

up in whatever they fancy when they "walk as Julebukk",

and that this custom is probably more prevalent

in rural areas than in towns.

Thinking about now, it seems to have some slight

similarity to Halloween.

Grand Hotel, Moss

In the 1920's a friend of my father came to work in

Moss. He first lived at the Grand Hotel, close to the

railway and the canal.

I don't know when it stopped being a hotel, but these

days there seem to be apartments on the upper floors

and businesses on the street floor.

The end wall was recently replastered.

Did it also get six new windows or were those

there before?

I am not quite sure.

Autumn in Moss

Kirkeparken with the statue of the elk / moose

in the background.

Simple fun

This is a copy of the cheese slicer my Norwegian

grandmother had in her home in Oslo.

I have now bought a copy of that cheese slicer.

It looks beautiful, and every time I will use it,

I will fondly remember my grandmother.

Simple fun.