The Captain Is Home....

Well my darling husband has come home to us safe and sound this afternoon. After picking up pizzas on our way home (original plan was for me to make pizza but after a long day I was glad to have this cheap and good alternative) we came home, ate and he passed out his goodies he brought with him (see photo above). Candy corn, tootsie rolls, M&M's and beef jerky and some grown up goodies (Bacaradi Razz and Bailey's with coffee flavour...mmmm..). Now he is sleeping soundly, dead exhausted after being on the road since 11 yesterday morning. Anyone who has made that trip knows how knocked out you are and I think coming this direction is harder then going over there but maybe that is just me?

Before we picked Stig up we stopped in Kid Interior which is an interior store here and I bought some lovely and again CHEAP curtains which will do nicely in the holiday season but at the same time don't have the little nisses and such on it so I can't have them up now...I rarely buy new curtains so I just had to share with you. It looks so much nicer here in person, it's such a warm glow around here with the wood and the red color...and with a roaring fire...it's very inviting.

I baked earlier this morning, three times a Nestle Toll House recipie and the cookies did get a bit flat but were still very good. I made them kinda big and still had TONS of cookies, can't imagine if I had made them smaller! It took me about 3.5 hours to complete my baking and I was going to leave thinking she would be fine on a Thursday, probably get a slow trickle of customers but noooo...when she opened at 11 there came a bus with older people and then several other customers came in as well. It was really hopping and she needed help with putting coffee on and setting out a cake plate which displayed the baked goods available for the day. So I helped with that and chopping some nuts and chocolate to put on the different pastries and cakes and then I left. I had gotten a message that we were having a meeting at work today so I went straight there from the cafe. I had only eaten a bowl of yoghurt and a banana so I was famished when I finally got home. Grabbed four Knekkebrød and some mackrell in tomato sauce....just one of the interesting foods I've become accustomed too and actually like since moving here. Although I admit it took one pregnancy to get me to try the mackrell as I always thought (and still kinda do) that it looks like kitty food. But it's actually really good with mayonaise and it's healthy!!! I've eaten some weird things since moving to Norway...any of you other expats eating things you never thought you would? I've eaten Cod tounges...did you even know fish had tounges? That was a new one for me...I actually would have liked those had no one told me what it was....but the thought of eating a tounge was too much for me. I have also tried whale and have to admit that what I tried was very dry, not to my liking but everyone assures me I must have gotten badly prepared whale because it's actually very good....hmmmmm...When we lived on the coast we ate fresh crab, lobster and shrimp often...WONDERFUL...although my dearest husband isn't the greatest fisherman, he did manage to catch some over the years and the rest we got from his brother who often caught much more then his younger brother ever could. I think that is one of the the things I miss most about living on the coast, the fresh seafood. My mother in law brings us fish balls (yeah...I'll let you ponder that one a minute) and fish cakes when she comes to visit and sometimes sei filets. I'm not sure what Sei fish is in English...anyone know that one? Well, Fish balls are basically like a meatball but made with fish, you get a similar consistency and you can eat them with sauce or you can use bacon. We get both white balls (made with a lighter fish) and grey looking balls which are made with Sei and she puts bacon in the balls sometimes...it's really good....TRUST ME...I am a very finicky eater but I've tried to open myself up to new experiences here. We had an unspoken rule in our family growing up that if my dad didn't eat it we didn't touch it either. Well, one time when I was maybe 12 or something we had an exchange student from Norway named Ingunn and we were in Pennsylvania visiting my mom's mom and we had been warned before going to her house that anything we took on our plate we had to finish...or we would insult her and it would be bad manners. Fair enough, so we are all sitting around at breakfast one morning and my grandmother sets out what looks like a plate of sausages along with other yummy looking things...so Ingunn and I help ourselves to two or three sausage patties and then we notice that some of the others around the table are putting syrup on their sausage patties???!!!! Then we noticed dad...who was sitting over in the corner with his hand covering the huge smile on his face, belly jiggling from the internal laughter he was trying so hard to control and then we looked at each other....what in the world had we put on our plate? We took a bite and the taste was generic...almost like eating cardboard or something...dad continued laughing internally almost falling off his chair. We asked what it was we were eating and grandma said Scrapple...(at least I think that is how it's spelled) it's all the leftover pig parts after the butcher takes the GOOD stuff....my dad had a grand ol' time telling us what all was in these patties and poor Ingunn had to make a quick run to the bathroom!

A similar situation happened one year when I was again around the same age....we were at a fancy hotel in Wichita Kansas, my Dad had gotten a promotion and we were going to celebrate. My mother who always liked weird foods (probably inherited from her mother's weird food taste) ordered Escargo...and insisted we all try it, including dad. Dad got to go first and his face was twisted and wretched and he made all these horrible grimaces....I ran several times to the bathroom and once I was crying and a woman in the bathroom asked me what was wrong? I said my mother wants me to eat a snail and she said, Oh honey...keep crying...ugh!!!!! I ended up having to taste the snail and honestly was so worked up I couldn't tell you if it was any good or not, all I remember is having to go to the hotel room because I had such a headache from all the crying!!! I'm pleased to say I'm not that strict with my kids...I like them to try things but not to the point of making them sick!!!!