The problem with fruit desserts is often the fruit. Even in season it’s not easy to find varieties grown for flavour, or specimens picked when ripe enough to taste of something. There's cause for rejoicing therefore when one does find fruit that … [Read more...]
Rose geranium sponge cake
If you are a fan of the edible rose geranium, as I am, this is a beautiful cake with a herbal, floral note, supported by Cognac and the flavour of good butter and eggs. The leaves of this scented pelargonium add prettiness and a complex flavour. … [Read more...]
A Midsummer Night’s Eve potion
There is something so magical about Midsummer Night’s Eve that it calls for a potion -- something drawn from Shakespeare's green world to induce dreams of love and pagan revelry, safely resolved with all the right embraces after a dalliance with … [Read more...]
Bullet ice cream and other strawberry tales
The most enchanting strawberries I have ever tasted were Norwegian berries, bought from the grower in a gravel-strewn lay-by on a winding road along Sognefjord on Norway’s west coast. They were pale pink and I was suspicious of their anaemic pallor, … [Read more...]
Syttende Mai
Norwegians everywhere on this 17th day of May are celebrating “Syttende Mai” – Norway’s National Day of independence, the day in 1814 when its constitution as an independent nation was signed after over 400 years of Danish rule, following Denmark’s … [Read more...]