I had my final day at work today before the holidays, and ’tis the season to be jolly. My parents and I have just risked getting mad cow disease eating our favourite dish, steak tartare. But hey, we might even get jollier if infected :)

I am staying at my parent’s house because I am responsible for my cute little nephew pig this weekend. Considering that this little piggy believes he’s the boss even though I am ten times his size, I felt we needed to be a few people while taking care of him. Now he’s sound asleep, and Auntie, Grandma and Grandpa are proud of Finn the pig – and ourselves!

It’s great to be “home” for a while, drinking tea, chatting, relaxing. And rediscovering my talent within the making of “julekurver” (heartshaped Christmas baskets). I feel I am ready to move on to some advanced basket patterns now!

I have made my first pie ever – and it was actually quite successful. I have always thought making pie was very timeconsuming, and at the same time, it doesn’t always taste that much anyway… But this pie was ready to eat in about 45 minutes, and with broccoli, feta, bacon and garlic as main ingredients, it definitely became a tasty lunch! I feel all “housewifey” now. Any suggestions for next steps on the way to housewifeyness?

It was Andreas Viestad that inspired me to try out the pie for lunch :)

I am a pasta girl. I love making it, and I am always trying out new sauces from my brilliant Italian recipe books. But I have decided that I have to try to make some delicious couscous and quinoa dishes in the close future. I need to expand my horizon when it comes to food. Especially since it seems my traveling will be limited to the regions of Italy forever. For the 6th year in a row I will spend my summer in Italy. Definitely looking forward to it! But while waiting for the holiday to arrive, I will welcome other cultures into my kitchen. Does anyone know any good recipes?

About quinoa at Wikipedia
About couscous at Wikipedia

Some weeks ago, I shared with the world that I really want to learn backgammon. I got a lot of nice playdate offers, and I actually scheduled my first game to May 1st. This is the day I’m back in Oslo “visiting” my own home where Kjartan lives for some months. So Kjartan volunteered to be my board game teacher, but as he pointed out, that would be a difficult task without a backgammon board…

So now the not very fancy, but oh so magnetic and wonderfully pocket-sized board above is mine. But Eirik (one of my flatmates here in Bergen) and I could not wait to try it out, so my first backgammon game took place yesterday. Sort of. Considering that Eirik was just as new to the game as I was, our focus was more on reading and analysing the rules, than on the strategy. And still, we actually managed to overlook one rule while playing:

(WARNING! Backgammon nerdiness coming up!)

A player may not move any other checkers until all checkers on the bar belonging to that player have re-entered the game. Wikipedia: Backgammon

So we moved other checkers on the board while waiting for a good dice roll to free the checkers on the bar. Probably ruined the gameplay somewhat, but we actually had fun and tried to find good strategies at this point in the game. Later, when we were both at the bearing off part of the game, we felt there was no room for strategy. It ended up in a monotone “I roll the dice, remove two checkers, then you roll the dice and remove two checkers”, with only few exceptions where we were unable to bear off anything. Maybe we misinterpreted some rules there too? Oh well.

At least I have learned some concepts such as the home board, the outer board and the bar, and I do know in which direction I am supposed to move my checkers – although I easily forget. And no matter, we did have fun! My game version did not have a doubling cube “to provide an added dimension for strategy”. But I guess this dimension can wait until I learn to play the individual game according to the rules… Which hopefully will be with Kjartan tomorrow :)

Read more about Backgammon, the rules and common strategies at Wikipedia.

Now that I have my own HappyBook, I am constantly looking for new activities to put in my Activities list. Activities that would make me happy to do, that is. Not that I have that much time on my hand, but if I have some hours to spare, I want to make sure that I do something I really want to do.

In my Twitter-feed, I suddenly discovered that Kars learned to play Backgammon this weekend. I have always felt that I was missing out on something in the tabletop game department since I have never tried to play this game. I don’t know why the opportunity to learn it never has occured. When twittering to the world that I would like to learn the game, however, I got some nice playdate offers from friends that know this mystic game. Is it better than Ludo? Better than Chess? Does it make me happy? I will report back later about how it went!

Are there other things I should try while we’re at it? My Activities list is very location based so far, considering that there are tons of things I need to do here in Bergen before I move back home to Oslo. I have some mountains to climb (Løvstakken, Damsgårdsfjellet and Vidden), a couple of cafes to visit, and I want to take a swim both at Sentralbadet and Nordnes. But what else? Suggestions for must-see movies or must-read books or even must-eat food also appreciated. But please, shut up about the sushi. I really want to like it, but I just don’t. But I do love steak tartare and carpaccio, so I guess I’m covered in the raw food department anyway.

Well, bring it on! Fill my HappyBook – and your own for that matter :)

Etter å ha lest artikkelen til Aaron Swartz “HOWTO: Be more productive”, så ser jeg at det ikke nødvendigvis er så vanskelig å gjøre fritid til kvalitetstid. Egentlig var det imidlertid min venninne Sigrid (populært kalt Prog-Sigrid eller Vær-Sigrid) som først delte en glimrende idé i forbindelse med kvalitetstid i kommentarfeltet på den ene bloggposten jeg skrev. Hun fortalte om sin lille, alltid nærværende notisbok der hun kunne skrive ned bøker hun vil lese, ting hun vil gjøre, mat hun vil lage og lignende. Har man en ledig time, kan man dermed bare slå opp i boken og plukke fra godsakene.

Jeg har lenge skullet gå til innkjøp av slik en bok. I påsken ble boken endelig min, etter å ha tafset på alle Moleskinebøkene min utvalgte bokhandel hadde å tilby. La meg presentere min aller første Gladbok:

Det måtte jo bli en Moleskine “used by European artists and thinkers for the past two centuries, from Van Gogh to Picasso, from Ernest Hemingway to Bruce Chatwin”. Med fem kategorier kan jeg fylle sidene med filmer jeg vil se, bøker jeg vil lese, musikk jeg vil sjekke ut, aktiviteter jeg vil gjøre og mat jeg liker å lage. Online artikler og blogger og slikt får ikke plass her – både fordi URLer er mye mer praktisk å lagre på nett slik jeg gjør i dag, og fordi det delvis er min nettavhengighet jeg skal kurere med denne gladboken. Kanskje savner jeg plassen til en 6. kategori – idéer. Samtidig fortjener gjerne de o store idéene mine (i klasse med Hemingway sine) en helt egen bok.

Ellers er jo fine lister over gode filmer og bøker og slikt noe som jeg gjerne skulle dele med allmuen på denne bloggen her. Frem til jeg får meg en portabel og praktisk digital gadget som kan støtte meg når jeg leser interessante bokanmeldelser på café, eller plutselig kommer på at det er år og dag siden sist jeg lagde pannekaker med pepperoni, pesto og fetaost, så er det den analoge gladboken som blir fast veskeinventar. Jeg kan imidlertid med det samme informere om at gladboken til nå har fungert optimalt:

I går ble det pannekakemiddag med sambo Stavelin:

I påsken fikk jeg med meg venninner på et frossent fotosafari på Sagene (som dog endte mer som café-til-café-tur):

Jeg har dessuten sett Juno på kino, og kjøpte “Saman er ein mindre aleine” som togbok for turen over fjellet tilbake til studier i Bergen etter ferien. I nær fremtid har jeg dessuten planer om å bestige Løvstakken, og å komme meg over Vidden. I den forbindelse fant jeg ut hva jeg kunne bruke den overdimensjonerte dosen med påskegodt til – et ekstra spark bak:

Man kan på en måte ikke åpne en KvikkLunsj hjemme i sofaen når den er behørig merket med sin destinasjon.

Akkurat nå kom jeg på at jeg veldig gjerne vil se “Få meg på, for faen” på Det norske teatret neste gang jeg tar meg turen til Oslo. Gladboken er ved min side, klar for en ny aktivitet. Jeg har dog glemt penn. Det skal ikke være lett.