KARIKJØSNES: August 2010

August 29, 2010

ME AND THE PENGUINS

Foto: BRITNEY ANNE MAJURE

After I helped BRITNEY by modeling and style for one of her assignments for the German magazine ZITTY BERLIN I said that I would post some of my favorites, that they didn't print in the magazine. I forgot all about it, but then when I was looking through some of my picture folders to day I found this and thought it was in some ways a perfect Sunday picture. So yes; here is ONE OF MY UNPRINTED FAVORITES.

RAIN RAIN RAIN, LISTENING TO GERMAN LANGUAGE COURSE

August 28, 2010

SING BLACKBIRD

Some friends of mine, TASHA and DIANA, just opened up a new store/café, SING BLACKBIRD, on SANDERSTRASSE 11 in NEUKÖLLN, BERLIN. They opened on Sunday but because of my bruised foot I could not go so I was really happy to finally being able to go yesterday. They have nice vintage clothing and delicious cakes, and generous opening hours, 09.00 AM-11/12.00 PM. Pay them a visit!

August 23, 2010

NO PROBLEM STAYING CLOSE TO HOME WITH A CHEF AS MINE

Yesterday we had chicken breast with chorizo, stone mushroom risotto and a green/orange salad for dinner. I had not had a warm meal since LINA and LINDSAY came and cooked for me on thursday, me being disabled after my bike crash, and we had sushi yesterday, so I was thrilled about the thought of chicken and risotto. It tasted great and I thought that it was maybe about time I revealed some of the behind the scene action that goes on before we eat all those delicious dishes I post pictures of on my blog. I will not claim that I made the meal you see in the pictures, BUT I was sitting on the kitchen bench drinking wine, watching, making comments and observing when it was cooked.. so.. If anyone would like to try this at home.. I'm not well wandered in the language of cooking, at least not in english, so bear with me.. but here is some observation input on how to make this if you want to taste it not just see it.

CHICKEN BREAST Cooked slowly in the oven, low temperature, rubbed in dried tomato paste and cooked with chorizo the last minutes under higher temperature.

RISOTTO Risotto is easy but all about the patience. It takes about 20 minutes and you have to watch it all the time. At least that is what ERLEND does and his risotto tastes fantastic. So you take garlic, shallot onions and good butter. Add the amount of risotto rice you wish. Stir for a couple of minutes before you add some white wine. Stir till the wine has absorbed into the rice.. then you add chicken/bird fond (or whatever fond you prefer, depending on what you are eating it with and what taste you want to add to your risotto), stir, and wait to put more in till it's absorbed as well. This you repeat till the rice tastes and looks just right, we prefer 'al dente', if that is expression one can use about rice.. Then you add whatever you would like of extras.. we used stone mushrooms last night. The last important ingredient: parmesan. So yes the last time you add fond.. it's smart to take the risotto away from the heat when it's still more 'wet' then you want it, and then add the parmesan, because it makes it dryer.

SALAD Ruccola, orange, red onions, balsamic, olive oil, salt and pepper. This is the one part of the meal that I actually prepared. A tip: just learned from LINA to put the onions in water if you want them less spicy. Perfect for onions that go in the salad. Kind of embarrassing to see how small this point is compared to the others, so add this notion to make it look better.

WINE Normally we would probably eat this with some heavy red wine, like a nice Barbaresco, but yesterday it was 30 degrees here so we decided to try it with a white instead. We had a wine that has been going under the name 'honey wine' since we had it at LINA's place some weeks ago. It's an italian wine, from the tip of the shoe, named LAMEZIA, STATTI. It's made out of two grapes GRECO BIANCO and MALVASIA. MALVASIA is a grape often used to make very sweet dessert wines so the LAMEZIA tastes sweet, but the GRECO BIANCO balances it and gives it a bit more spice.

If anyone found this observational cooking recipe any helpful or entertaining, I will try to do it more often, so let me know.