JANUARY:
07/01: My Spanish friend Vanesa invited (to our place) to celebrate the "Día de los Reyes Magos" (the Three Kings Day or Epiphany) tradition, the Spanish way - with "roscón de reyes" (three kings cake) and some rather viscid hot chocolate
08/01: Akershus Fortress by night seen from from board the Hurtigruten ship exceptionnally docking at Oslo harbour
10/01: winter plants on our balcony
FEBRUARY:
05/02: Beginning of February I was on "kitchen duty" at work. That means it was my week in the office to be responsible for the kitchen (i.e. making some basic shopping of general stuff we need, taking the garbage out, emptying the dishwasher and keeping the kitchen generally clean). But it also means having to organize the Friday's "fika". "Fika" is a concept in Swedish culture with the basic meaning "to have coffee" (or tea or juice), often accompanied with pastries or sandwiches. Our colleagues in the Stockholm office always had this "afternoon tea/coffee" tradition. Just some minutes to sit together in the office to socialize and chat. Not that we in Oslo were not social, but about a year ago, our boss introduced this tradition also in our office in Oslo. So, every Friday we are having some cake, biscuits, pastries or so with some coffee and tea. The one on kitchen duty is welcome to prepare a home-made cake or else sweet, but this is not a must. It is totally acceptable to just buy some stuff at the supermarket. But a few in our office really take this concept as an opportunity to make something home-made, try out maybe some new recipe or "show off" with a well-tried pastry.
So, in my case I baked a "Russischen Zupfkuchen" (lit.: Russian-pluck-cake), a rather dry chocolate dough base with a cheesecake filling.
26/02: And on the occasion of someone else's kitchen duty (who wasn't so much into baking), I prepared a "Bratapfelkuchen" (lit.: cake of baked apples).
27/02: spontaneous visit of my cousin Florian with his kids who were just passing Oslo on transit between Belgium and Tromsø - just an hour time to have some hot chocolate and biscuits
22/03: dinner with Kartoffelpuffer or Reibekuchen (fried grated potato patties) - it was too long time ago I made them myself
26/03: Winter is back! Within not even half an hour, our balcony, backyard and front street were covered with centimetres of fresh snow.
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29/03: Chef Marco: risotto agli asparagi (= with asparagus)
31/03: End of March we went to the peninsula of Bygdøy with the intention to photograph a nice sunset over the sea. By the time we had arrived there, the weather had changed quite a bit and no nice sunset was in sight anymore. However, we spotted some other "photo object" instead: someone who took the declaration of one part of the beach as nudist beach extremely strict. Even in march, at some maybe 4-7 degrees, without anyone around (except us), this guy was cleaning the nudist beach stretch - with nothing dressed but some rubber boots and gloves!
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19/04: We inaugurated the BBQ season at Sofienbergpark. So nice Jana was with us that weekend :-)
29/05: my former colleague Elisa was for a visit in Oslo...definitely an occasion to go out for a drink with her and my colleagues Stéphanie, Michelle and Franck - skål!
MAY:
03/05: time to prepare the balcony for summer and plant some flowers
06/05: Our new sofa :-) We asked our landlord to take his sofa back in order to be able to substitute it with a sofa bed which allows us to host guests more comfortably.
22/05: A business trip to Milano is always an occasion to do groceries in Italy to be imported into Norway. Mmmmm, quante cose buone :-)
25/05: Now that we have a new sofa, we also filled the wall above it with some photographs taken by Marco and developed on canvas.
JUNE:
07/06: view over Oslofjord from Frognerseteren
24/06: the light at midnight(!) at midsummer during the summer solstice
25/06: breakfast in the sun
JULY:
17-21/07: a very quick short break at home in Germany - being welcomed at home with a BBQ - fantastic!
AUGUST:
21/08: What is better than a "light" fruit tart in summer?
23/08: A day catching sun and playing "yatzy" on Hovedøya island with amore mio, Ines and Ricardo - and some sheep
SEPTEMBER:
12/09: The week before one of the trainees brought that chocolate cream cake to the office - which I immediately needed to try to copy
17/09: Strawberry-rhubarb-muffins which I baked for a finger food dinner at some friends' place
19/09: The occasions to prepare a cake never stop!
OCTOBER:
16/10: The baking continues: tried out a new recipe - baked apple roses.
27/10: autumn colours in Birkelunden park
NOVEMBER:
14/11: Pasteís or pastel de nata (Portuguese pastries filled with vanilla custard) during a games evening at our friends' (Hugo & Sona) place - mmmmm, I looooove them!
24/11: Marco trying for the first time the tiramisù recipe of his mother - and it turned out to be super delicious :-)
26/11: my turn being on "kitchen duty" in the office and thus responsible for preparing the Friday's "fika" - I prepared a plum yeast cake served with whipped cream
29/11: 1st advent breakfast
19/12: Christmas aperitivo at Ginta's and Hadrien's place
DECEMBER:
01/12: Christmas decoration
Let's see what 2016 brings us :-)
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