CHILI MAMA

My Mum was a first class cook. Quite simply. Now she's in a nursing home and doesn't cook any more, but she definitely still enjoys good food. Her signature dish for thirty years was an Indian curry that was nothing less than perfect, whether she made it with lamb, beef or chicken.

While we lived in Tanzania in the sixties my Mum made a lot of friends, and she particularly enjoyed the company of the many Indian ladies she met. I'm pretty sure they enjoyed her company too, her outgoing spontaneous personality, her adventurous mind and her curiosity for new experiences. She was invited to learn how to cook curry the authentic way. The ladies taught her, then sent her home again to Mwandu Lane equipped with all sorts of exotic spices and perfumed Masalas.

As I gradually acquired a love for cooking myself I wanted to learn how to make her curry. "Do you have it written down in a recipe?" I asked. "Stand next to me and watch while I make it," she said. So I did. I noted down her instructions as best I could, like a true chef's apprentice. And this wasn't the only dish she taught me over the years - far from it. (My Dad actually thought I'd never get married, considering I'd never done a cookery course!!)

Homegrown chili peppers - in France

Living in Dar-es-Salaam we quickly got used to hot and spicy food. The Indian population in East Africa was substantial and influential, and curries were everywhere to be had. On Sunday mornings - before it got too hot - we played tennis at the Gymkhana Club, then always reserved a table afterwards for their immensely popular and renowned Curry Lunch Buffet. My sister was too little to fully enjoy the buffet, so she had "chips with salt and vinegar." Which is what it was - French fries that you poured vinegar on and salted. But she too grew to become a curry lover, of course. She had no other option.

My husband learnt to love Indian curry the hard way. My Mum had made it for him at the beginning of our relationship, and she watched - somewhat deviously - while he devoured a whole chili pepper and consequently ran around on fire while shouting for water. "This is our family initiation test," she said. "You passed. But only just."

Wherever we go in the world we always end up at an Indian restaurant sooner or later. We seek them out in fact. London, New York, Jakarta, Sydney, Barcelona, Perpignan, even Sunny Beach, Bulgaria! And this last one was excellent!

A former employee from Iran always used to bring me back the BEST saffron  

Gotta go now and make the Raita!

Curry, Friday night and listening to really really LOUD music! Old timers! Squeeze, Fleetwood Mac & Aretha! What could be better?

BLOSSOMS, BOOTS & BYE BYE WINTER

I was looking through some of my pictures today to find a new one for my Facebook cover photo, and this one turned up - almond tree in bloom in France, in the Pyrenees - where we go for our mountain hikes. Mont Canigou is visible in the background, still snow capped. But this photo was taken in February! We have to wait another month here in southern Norway to behold similar sights. And they won't be almond blossoms, but apple, pear and cherry.

The last week or so has been sunny and warm here, with the exception of a few days in between, but I did spot a stripe of snow today! It was in a shaded area, but still!

The long cold winter this year has not agreed with my boot collection. The ice and snow are totally incompatible with high heels - it's simply asking for trouble. Broken bones, enormous bruises, twisted ankles. (I got a bruise slipping on the ice last year that was the whole size of one my, well... buttocks... and it turned all the colours of the rainbow during the six weeks it hung in there). This year the weather suddenly went from freezing cold and icy to warm and snow-free. So there was no time in between for all my high-heeled boots! I dug out a pair of blue ones today though, complete with almond blossoms, but it's really too warm already to wear boots. Well, if I have to choose between boot-weather and shoe-weather, I know which one I prefer!

Spring is also the time for clearing out stuff and driving off to the dump - for everyone, but especially for us this year. My husband's been cutting branches and stuffing them into plastic bags, Sophie's been rearranging all the spare bedrooms and throwing away a lot in the process. Her efforts inspire me too, so I've been assisting her and getting rid of a few things myself. She's really been working hard, and today she's practically finished a make-over of one bedroom into an office for her Dad, now that he doesn't have an outside one any more. Perhaps it's ready for a photo session tomorrow!

I think this poem may be my tribute to spring... I don't know. Or is it a straightforward love poem? Both?

Yes, Spring! Sun-kiss me!

ME & SISYPHUS

Big Mama in the oven

Oh, the irony of it all. Sometimes a feeling of irony - or even futility - takes me over completely. My life is suddenly ruled and overpowered by a certain Sisyphus, the mythological king who was doomed to roll a rock up a hill only to watch it roll down again. And so on - forever. For eternity.

As I have now said about a hundred times - we are moving to a flat in one and a half years and consequently downsizing. I have been twice already to meet representatives of the constructors - once to choose the bathroom interiors and once to choose the kitchen. I think this is the colour I want it to be - "dark clay," but there were hundreds of other little details as well, of course. Everything from cupboard interiors and handles to sinks and not least the placing of the fridge, cooker, oven, microwave etc. But this is fun!

However - the key word here is DOWNSIZING. This means having to get rid of A LOT of things. What we definitely don't need now is having things BACK into our house. When I went to meet the tenant in Julie's flat earlier this week he made it clear to me that he didn't want any of the stuff there - his wife is moving from northern Norway with a truckload of her own things - so this afternoon I went there to remove it all. With removing follows cleaning. He also pointed out that neither the oven nor the shower were properly cleaned by the previous tenants, so I came armed with detergents. I felt like one of those "Clean up your house" TV-ladies. They'd have been proud of me! What a comfort on a sunny and warm spring Sunday afternoon!

Before

After

But what to do with all the things he doesn't need? Advertise the furniture - which I took pictures of today - but the rest came to our house. As has Sophie's stuff.

Sisyphus - I'm sure you cried a few times as you pushed that stone up the hill. Can I cry too? Can I scream and shout in frustration when every time one item leaves this house ten more come in?

I have a huge and invaluable gift though. It's humour. It's positivity. It's my skewed and crazy way of looking at life. And I'm good at pushing through and finding time-outs. As I was fighting my way through one of my spare bedrooms last night to arrange a little space on the bed where my granddaughters could sleep - a room where things are such a complete mess that I'd scare people if I photographed it - I felt absolutely exhausted. Totally pooped. A wreck. And the sweet little girls caught the signals. "Good night, Mimmi! We'll go to sleep straight away!" (Which they don't always do...)

I kissed them goodnight and came downstairs to listen to music. (Husband away this weekend, so I could play really LOUD). I laughed - kind of hysterically I must admit - and shook my head at the irony of it all.

Time-out with Grete Saturday afternoon - walking & talking - therapy.

Self-composed scampi dish this weekend

URBAN ROOTS

This evening I went for a stroll in my neighbourhood. It takes me about five minutes to walk from my house to the sea. In the above photo you can see my shadow on the walkway across the road down to the path that runs alongside the small yacht harbour.

My walks often start here, because I'm always drawn to the sea. Not only have I grown up in this area of Oslo, I have also lived here with my own family for nearly thirty years. And when I move, in one and a half years, it'll be just down the road, as close to the sea as I am now. Talk about having roots after all, even though I keep claiming I could make my home anywhere in the world!

I was dying for a take-out coffee, so I made my way down the pathway to the commercial centre at the end of the harbour, where I found only one out of three coffee shops open at 7.15 pm! Well, this is a typical office and lunch area, but it's still under development, and just before Christmas a whole new range of shops opened. Among them is the fantastic Maschmanns Food Market, which comprises a bakery, a vegetable market, a cheese shop, a meat counter and a fish counter. Plus a Brasserie, where we met for Johanne's birthday lunch in December, just after it opened.

In the place where I got my coffee - the newly opened Karen's Café - I was told that they do "Happy Hour" Thursdays and Fridays between 5 and 9 pm, with wine and beer at a give-away price! Hmmm.... I wonder if this too is going to become a regular haunt for me...

Big Mama plugged into Spotify & coffee while walking

The old train station building at Skøyen

The area of Skøyen - where we live - is under a lot of pressure because it's so close to the city centre. It's a junction for trains, buses, business and one of the main roads out of the city. We can catch the bus or train here for two different airports - in walking distance from our house. A lot of flats are being constructed - without the necessary upgrading of the infrastructure. Hmmm.... Can't get started on that....

For six years we ran our Gourmet shop in the above pictured building, which I passed on my walk. Every day I looked out on this statue across the street - here in her winter coat (coat? What coat?) and summer nakedness:

I think this is the ugliest time of the year here in the northern countries: Pre-spring. Everything is brown and grey, and hibernated leaves and grass are rotting. But we've finally had some warmth - if you can call ten degrees warm - and the snow's been melting quickly.

Newly washed car - which gets dirty again immediately! Better take a pic now! 

(It's a wonder this car's still got its antenna - Sophie forgot to remove it in the carwash yesterday... and tried to dodge in and out of the car while being shouted at by Big Mama over the phone. Finally she had to throw herself into the back seat as the brushes came thundering. However - it was flexible and survived. The antenna that is).

A stripe of snow still in our front garden

I just HAVE to show the dress I'm wearing today - I suddenly remembered it and found it in a wardrobe. It must be nearly ten years old but very cool! This photo was taken at 9 pm - YES! 

We're heading the right way.

SORRY MAC

When my husband was in Florida two years ago he brought back an iPad for me as a surprise gift. At the time I didn't really know many people who owned one, and I hadn't used one before, but very quickly my Pad 'n' me became inseparable - well, at least closely attached. It came with me on every trip I made, and when we went to New York later that year it was the only "computer" we brought with us. It was all we needed!

While in NYC we went to the Apple Store on 5th Avenue to buy two MacBook Pros - one for our daughter Julie and one for me. Oh, how I loved my Mac! Several steps up from the Pad, though they're both useful, and the Pad was still my travelling companion No 1.

Then came a Sunday in February last year. I had been out walking with my two beautiful granddaughters in the faint winter sun, and we were looking forward to cooking dinner and having a cosy time at my house.

Cooking, talking, running around, having some wine, serving my granddaughters something to drink - did it strike me that Mira was watching a series on my Mac? I think it might have. While I was busying myself over the saucepans, Mira came up to me and said in her quiet way, "Your new computer has stopped working now, Mimmi." "Why?" I asked. "Because I spilt my drink in it," she said, frank as usual.

I screamed. I tore at my hair. I hyperventilated. I went totally hysterical. I bolted upstairs where my husband was packing for his annual golf trip to Florida. He barely managed to decipher what I was blubbering, and when he did he pointed out: "Your own fault. You should know better than to give them a drink when they're next to a computer. You yourself spilt white wine in one, remember." "But that one survived!" I cried. "PCs can take A LOT more than Macs! Macs are so sensitive and delicate! And you should take pity on me, not scold me!!"

ANYWAY. Long story short: 1) After the initial shock I held Mira close and explained that I was sad and upset, but that it was basically my fault for giving her a drink next to my new Mac. 2) The Mac would cost more to repair than to replace. 3) It turned out we had some kind of super-insurance and I got nearly two thirds of the money back from the insurance company. 4) This taught me NEVER to serve either food or drink anywhere remotely close to electronic equipment.

These kind of mishaps are educational too. They make us put things into perspective. They actually force us to philosophise on what's important in life. Two of the people closest to me said this to me after the decease of my Mac (I definitely needed therapy):

My husband (on the phone from Reykjavik on his way to Florida): "Put it behind you. It's only materialistic. It's replaceable. It's not a matter of life and death. No one's harmed." Always pragmatic.

My soulmate Grete, on my terribly guilty conscience after "blaming" Mira: "Allow yourself to be angry and upset. It's normal. And you didn't blame Mira - the first thing you did after you'd finished being hysterical was to explain and to comfort her. Life goes on, my dear."

The stream at the bottom of my garden today - proof of melting snow! Bleak and grey pre-spring, but the snow has finally disappeared from my neighbourhood.

It's water under the bridge now, but it's a good story, because everyone can identify with it. We've all had similar experiences, we've all had accidents and mishaps. My dearly loved grandmother always said to me when, as a child, I broke something, spilt something or lost something: "If this didn't happen, we'd never get a chance to replace it."

(By the way, the dead Mac was resurrected. By Grete's son William. In fact, I think it's still alive).

REGULAR CUSTOMER

In November I discovered a new café in my neighbourhood, and it's since become my regular haunt, my sanctuary - where I take friends or daughters, or simply just myself. Next to Café Malou in this wonderful old wooden building are two shops - one selling children's clothes, the other full of lovely gifts, furniture, accessories and clothes, including a corner of second hand stuff.

The building that houses these enterprises is called Schlägergården. It dates back to the start of the 19th century, bought at the time by a glazier called Johan D. Schläger, who let the buildings out to small artisan producers. By 1865 there were seven inhabited houses here, and from 1920 onwards manual labourers from the district made their home here. The houses are protected by the government, and they have been reverently renovated and restored by today's owners.

The café is incredibly cosy, with a fireplace and lots of different types of wooden furniture in several rooms. Hardly any of the tables and chairs are alike! And the soups! They are so good that even a soup-cooking expert like me is full of admiration. Today for lunch I had cauliflower and broccoli-soup with olive bread and aïoli. Sophie had a quiche that I know is yummy too!

The tables and chairs are decorated and laid with some of the treasures you can buy in the shop, candles, candleholders, lanterns, trays, bowls, sheepskins, blankets, all complete with price tags - a great way to tempt you further into the crooked little rooms and eventually to the grand lofted hall of treasures!

This one is mine - bought at Malou's!

Ooo - how I'd love one of these pairs! My birthday's coming up soon... It would almost be fun to wear glasses!

My kinda boots

From Malou's, these belong to me too - leather purse and peace pendant - the latter one was my trade mark when I was a teenager - I always wore one dangling around my neck!

I heard today that Café Malou has been granted a licence to sell wine - so this will now cease to be just a lunch café for me. Evenings too! 

Make sure that if you're in the area you'll drop by - you won't regret it. And if you see a blond Big Mama in the corner, that'll most certainly be me!