Rick was really interested in seeing Cornelius and checking out our fresh seafood, the kitchen, and meeting Alf. First he spent some time in Bergen looking at everything in the fish market and the harbor. Then, he, Emily, and I bought ludicrous amounts of food and a huge whole fish from the market to make dinner for ourselves and some friends and family. We brought everything home and Rick spent two hours preparing the stuffing for the whole fish, a fantastic bean salad, some roasted potatoes, and a homemade aioli. It was delicious and such a treat for all of us! It really made me miss our BlackSalt staff feasts...
The next day I took Rick up Floyen and we spent time in downtown Bergen. We met a friend for some blueberry picking in the woods nearby my house and a long walk past some farms with Norwegian cows and sheep. It was a very typical Norwegian countryside afternoon.
Sunday! The day of our boat trip! Alf and his daughter, Karianne, had been telling me for weeks that we were going on a boat trip on Sunday with some family members down south to Tyssnes, where Karianne's family owns a lot of land. Rick was here during that time so he got invited to come along for the boat trip. We had absolutely no idea what we were in for, but it ended up being one of the most amazing days!
We had bought food in town for the trip and spent the morning packing and getting ready (Rick could barely sleep the night before because he was so excited!) We all met down at the boathouse and got on Alf's boat. It was Alf, his 19 year old daughter Karianne, her boyfriend Andreas and her friend Malin, Alf's son Stian who I live with, his daughter Gitte who lives next door and her 8-year old daughter Sofia and fiancee Arild, our cousin Tracy, another cousin Helge (they both work at Cornelius) and Rick and me. So we were 12, and our dog Hero. We set off with beautiful weather and everyone was really excited. We stopped for gas and snacks along the way at a very crowded boat gas station and continued south. The trip was gorgeous, we could see snow-covered mountains, passages out to the North Sea, and oil rigs! The water was crystal clear and Rick and I were in heaven sitting out on the bow of the boat watching the land go by and eating fresh Norwegian melon and berries.
Once we got closer we went into a very small inlet and before I realized the boat had stopped moving Alf was over my head jumping off the roof of the boat into the fjord, quickly followed by his 8 year old granddaughter Sofia. They swam for a bit, Arild and the dog got in as well, and then got back on the boat before the current took us too close to the shore and we were off again. We stopped like this a few more times as Sofia kept begging to jump in the water. She was fearless, diving 15-20 feet off the top of the boat into the fjords. There was music playing and she would stand on the roof of the boat dancing like an Egyptian and then leap into the water to swim with her grandfater. Alf took us through some other inlets and we finally tied up on a small island and took a short hike. Apparently there was an old English prince who kidnapped his young (11-year old) niece and took her to this small Norwegian island that they owned. He kept here there and we walked through the remains of their house and her small playhouse that still had an old miniature oven and kitchen set inside it. It was very very creepy, and my family members told us this incestuous story as we walked through the island.
We got back on the boat and went into a small inlet where we tied to a rock. Alf used to be a shellfish farmer in this part of Norway and we could see all the fences he had built and the leftovers from his oyster farms. We walked through a shallow and shell filled stream to another part of the fjord that was relatively cut-off from everything else. The water was so warm and clear and we all swam there for about half an hour. It was incredible. We followed Alf over to the bank and swam down where he told us to and pulled living oysters off of the rocks. There were hundreds of these huge oysters that had been living in this place for many many years. So we all picked as many oysters as we could swim back with and made our way back to the boat. Along the walk Rick and I picked up lots of clams and more oysters. We had quite the haul by the time we got back to the boat. Sofia had found a small crab and gave it to Alf for one of his tricks. Alf took this living crab, a little smaller than my hand, and put it in his mouth backwards so it couldnt pinch him. Once everyone was watching him, and had their cameras out, he bit right through the shell and ate the back half of the living, moving crab. Everyone loved it and was so shocked! While he still had everyone's attention, he turned to Rick with the rest of the crab and said, "alright American chef, want to taste some fresh Norwegian crab?" Rick obviously couldn't say no, so he ate half of the rest of the crab, which was 3 legs, a claw, and a quarter of the body. We all loved it! I was so proud, and Alf was just beaming!
We untied and set off to our final destination. Along the way we saw a beautiful white sand beach so we stopped for some more swimming and to eat what we had collected. So Alf got his oyster knife and started opening all the oysters and feeding them to everyone. They were amazing. The ones we had picked in the lagoon were so big and so old. The more typical Norwegian oysters were rounder, flatter, and more delicate, but still delicious. The biggest one we found, Alf thought it was at least 30 years old and it was the size of my fist. It was reserved for Rick and he ate the whole thing in one huge bite! Meanwhile, Sofia was testing her grandfather's limits and brought him a starfish to eat, which he ate about half of but said it didn't taste good. Then she brought him a jellyfish to eat, he took a huge bite out of it and started chewing it before he had to spit it out because he said it was burning his mouth and throat, and he said that one, "wasn't meant to be eaten". You think??
So we got kicked off the beach because apparently it was private property and the owners weren't too happy and we finally arrived to our destination, an island that Karianne is the sole inheritor of. We cooked a huge barbecue with food everyone had bought and sat and talked for a long time, did some more swimming, and relaxed. After dinner we walked up to the top of the island where Karianne's grandmother has a house from the 1700's and we had coffee and dessert. We first got a tour of the house which is practically the same from the 1700's and her great-great-grandfather made furniture so it was filled with beautiful old wooden furniture, old books, old pictures of the King and Queens of Norway, and all sorts of other incredible antiques. Karianne's mother gave us the tour, except for Alf's contribution, which was to point out the room in which Karianne was made!
We had a tour of the tool shed where all of the furniture and wood carving tools are kept, many of which could be in a museum, of the old kitchen with the iron pot and butter churner, and Alf started to cut the grass with their old scythe. It felt like we had all taken a time machine back 200 years. We then were served coffee, fruit salad, and a fantastic Norwegian apple cake that the grandmother made. We were all pretty exhausted by this point and headed back down to the boat, but not before Rick said "thousand thanks for a great evening" in Norwegian to the grandmother, she loved it!
The boat trip back was beautiful and Rick and I sat on the front of the boat and watched the sky changing colors and the water and mountains going by. The whole day was surreal and we couldn't thank everyone enough when we got back home.
The rest of Rick's time here couldn't compare to that trip, but I tried to show him a good time. He spent one night working in the kitchen at Cornelius to see what it was like and loved walking out to the shellfish tower to "catch" his own shellfish whenever there was an order. It was really fun having him at work.
Two nights later, our last night in Norway before we left for Spain, we returned to Cornelius to eat. We had a trout and lobster tartar, then the crab and seafood soup, and then a massive shellfish tower with scallops, langostines, mussels, shrimp, osyters, sea urchin, that we ate for a few hours. Our boat back to town left before we had time for dessert so our server, my co-worker, set us up with our dessert on the boat and it was perfect! We had a fantastic meal and went to town to get the bus to the airport for Spain.
Rick's visit was wonderful and it was so nice to share the food here with him.
Here are some pictures from the boat trip!
Rick on the boat:
Heading down south
Some more views from the trip
The creepy playhouse for the kidnapped girl
Alf talking to Rick about the land and the fjords
Our catch!
The amazing water we were swimming in all day
The beach we eventually got kicked off of
The huge 30-year old oyster Rick ate and more of our shellfish feast
Rick, eating the oyster of all oysters
Alf, eating a starfish
The site for the barbecue and swimming
Me diving off the top of the boat into the fjord
Alf dancing right before he jumped in
Rick, me, Stian, and Arild
All of us having coffee and dessert in 1725.
A bad picture, but the old old stove with the iron pot
Alf doing a little yard work after dessert
The house on the island, with Sofia running through the yard
Me trying to be artistic by taking a picture in the window
A side view of the house, just to the left of this picture is the outhouse, complete with gossip magazines in the magazine racks on the walls.
The path back down to the sea
Alf wrestling with our dog, Hero, in the grass.
Walking back down to the boat
The oil rig in the distance as the sun starts to think about setting, about 10:30pm
On the boat ride home
The sun setting behind us, and a look into the boat as Alf drives home
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