Norwegian eplekake may not be as synonymous with Norway as apple pie is with the United States, but it’s definitely something I hadn’t really heard of before moving here. This week I had a ton of leftover apples on my hands, and with tomorrow being May 17th, Norway’s Constitution Day, I wanted to make a Norwegian dessert with my leftover apples. This recipe is adapted from Tine Kjøkken’s, with a few modifications.
Gratulerer med dagen!
(Disclaimer: I don’t speak for other Jews, any other person, or any group of people. The thoughts expressed here are my own, and are not intended to be malignant.)
Despite identifying as atheist, I was born and raised Jewish in New York City, and still identify as such. Being Jewish, for me, extends much further than just a religion: It is an ethnicity, and has its own culture. Despite moving to Norway and being non-religious, I still enjoy the traditions and foods that remind me of home, my family, my childhood, and my identity.
With everything that is currently going on in the world, I wanted to make a Passover dinner for my husband and I, to remind me of home. If you’re not familiar with Passover, I recommend reading more about it on Wikipedia.
A healthier alternative using protein-packed bread can help make this a nutritious breakfast! Plus, another excuse to justify your waffle iron.
With Thanksgiving being a huge tradition, I’ve surprisingly never had the opportunity to cook it! I have always been invited to the house of friends or family, and never actually prepared a turkey.
This year, since I’ve moved abroad, I wanted to be able to remind myself a little bit of home. Unfortunately, my fiancé is abroad for work, so there wasn’t an opportunity to share the holiday with him, so I decided to make my own “test Thanksgiving” to see if I could knock it out of the park before maybe inviting over some friends next year! From start to finish, I managed to cook Thanksgiving dinner in just under 2 hours. (Note: this does exclude some veggie chopping the night before, marinading overnight, and the cornbread I baked the day before. I also built a rough time table in advance so that I could get it all done!)
Curious to see how my first-time Thanksgiving cooking fared? Keep reading.
Click here to see more pictures and details of my first Thanksgiving abroad.!
Unlike many expats moving to a foreign country, I have several advantages. First off: I can speak the language. Sure, my grammar isn’t perfect and my vocabulary isn’t that diverse, but I can participate in and have conversations with others, properly express my feelings, thoughts, and opinions, get help when necessary, and even try to help others. I can follow most conversations around me, so long as it isn’t too loud and too many things aren’t happening simultaneously, or there isn’t a heavy use of dialect or slang.
QueenHawk has become ny2no in honor of my transition to an expat.
While recipes, photography, language, food commentary, and travel tips will still occur, it’ll also talk about my experience moving to a new country for the first time, and becoming an expat in Norway.
Pålegg is an important part of Norwegian cuisine, being a staple for breakfast, lunch, and even snacks. But what is it? The easy answer is that pålegg is most closely translatable to the English word “spread,” but not entirely just in the sense of something that is spreadable (i.e. butter,) but more along the lines of anything you may choose to put on top of a sandwich.
Going back and forth from Norway can be pricey, especially if done frequently. Whether you’re interested in going for a one-time trip or travelling back and forth, there are ways of finding more affordable pricing– even including direct flights!– if that’s what you’re looking for. Here are some of my tricks for finding the most affordable airfares. Read on to see my 5 top tips for finding affordable flights to Norway!
It’s time!
After a very hectic and stressful airport check-in– the line was an hour and a half simply to check baggage, and then about twenty minutes through security– I was happy to make it to my flight just as they were about to begin boarding on a Dreamliner plane. Those new Norwegian planes are so cool! They have digitally tinted windows, lighting that helps you be less jetlagged, and a console with an Android tablet built in. (Also, as far as airplane food goes, Norwegian isn’t the worst.)
The first destination on my first trip to Norway wasn’t the capital, Oslo, and it wasn’t the second largest city, Bergen. It was, in fact, to a small town called Ålesund, along the western coast of Norway, in the district known as Sunnmøre. With a population of only about about 45,000 people, it’s the 9th largest urban district in Norway.
The town has a distinctive architectural style, as most other locations in Norway. These differences mostly developed because before the invention of the trains, due to the divisions created by the vast mountains, it was difficult to get around, leading to the differences in dialect, culture, and cuisine. The city has a small airport, and is built over a series of small islands. It’s a major harbor that does lots of business in fishery. I recently saw an episode of New Scandinavian Cooking with Andreas Viestad that featured the Spanish, dried fish of Bacalao that was being made in Ålesund. The city center is small, and I mean small– I walked through the entirety of it thoroughly in less than a few hours on the rainy night I arrived. It has a beautiful, old architecture and bright, colorful wooden buildings. The streets in the majority of the center are paved still with beautiful old stones. (more…)