Margarita Kareva is a frisky addition to the photography world, from Russia, with love. She´s only been doing it for 3 years, but her portfolio is amazing already. She uses female characters to depict princesses and witches, adding surreal details to her fairy-tale pictures. Enjoy! 
Author: ghetran
Me-time
It´s Friday again and this week has been glorious. New couch, new String shelf, lots of coffee and dinners with friends and plenty of me-time. 😉 I´ve managed to do my nails (hate it), read a book- The Coffee shop of my Lost Youth by Patrick Mondiano, made some moussaka and gave away a couple of things we don´t need anymore on the internet.
Today I went to work early, just to be sent home again when the defendants failed to show up. Well, well. I have the whole day to myself and I get paid for half of it, too.;-) Cuddling up with Mr. Beo (the cat) and watching some good old Netflix, I reckon.
Have a lovely Friday!
Brunchcity by Andrea G.Portolés and Bea Crespo
Too cute not to blog about it! A photographer and an illustrator went together to make a series about what people across the world eat for brunch. What an ingenious idea! I´m sure you´ll recognize most of them! What do you have for brunch where you live? In Romania you´d probably grab some pastry while in Norway you´ll most likely have a raisin bun. 😉 Enjoy!
Living room update
Money can´t buy you happiness, that´s a fact. They can´t buy you style, you either got it or you don´t. They can´t even buy you a decent couch, you need a trained eye to pick the right one. 😉 We found the perfect couch on the internet yesterday and now it´s ours! So here I am, bragging about my trained eye! 😉 haha! Take a look!
Lentil soup with cusk fish
It took me about 12 years to liberate myself from recipes and put together my own meals. That doesn´t mean I don´t enjoy a new dish from time to time, but I also don´t need to rush to the store if I don´t have the exact same spice as in the book or tomato paste, for that matter.;-)
Lately I´ve discovered lentils, they work wonderfully in small quantities, both in soups and in salads. Today I tried to replicate a soup from Adams matkasse, a delivery service that brings us groceries and meat for 5 meals once a week. But since I didn´t have all the ingredients, I ended up “creating” this. Hope you´d like to try it!
A bit of inspiration
We´re getting a new couch today and the living room looks like an empty battlefield now. I used to work with autistic people years ago and I must be a bit like them ´cause whenever things out of place I get into a bad mood. So before working out the courage to take Sam for a walk and then start on today´s fish soup, I let myself dream a bit on Pinterest.
1. Winter stew. I can almost smell it! 😉
Snowy weather
These days have been slow and good for the soul. I´ve been cooking, decluttering and selling a few items on the internet, walking Sammy and dreaming of sunny holidays.
Friday I only worked for a few hours and it proved to be a lot of fun, we were several interpreters waiting for an hour or two in the Court House lobby and had a blast discussing beginner´s errors and such. Later on I had some drinks with a friend at Café Amsterdam, discussing professional pitfalls (how you can avoid laughing when the situation is soooo comic), Norwegian-born husbands and Romanian inhibitions. I wrapped up the day with Mr Selfridge on Netflix. I love that series! 😉
Saturday we went for a never-ending hike (6km) in the snow with Sam, part of it on the ski-lane (no fun), but it was so beautiful it almost hurt my eyes! Istagram doesn´t do it justice, I´ll give it a try anyway. We walked and walked and it felt we´d never get there. In the end it was so foggy we couldn´t see more than a meter in front of us, so we had to ask hundreds of times for Frognerseteren, where we had dinner and a beer. 😉 Tired and beat, we took a nap before some friends came over and we had some laughs over take-away pizza and Prosecco.
Thursday off
I had a couple of days in court outside Oslo, meaning I was away from home for 10-11 hours, and now I´m beat. Although that used to be my daily routine, I reckon I´m getting too old for that. 😉 Today I only want to take Sam for a longer walk, make myself a spinach salad with chicken and parmesan and read a book by the fireplace. Hoping it´s the winter blues, I long for lighter days and more sunshine. Here are some pictures from our latest “adventures”.
Foccacia
I´ve been making focaccia for a while with the occasional tapas, but it was never the real deal until I checked out this recipe. For my Norwegian followers I recommend this blog: www.frumaela.no
For my English-speaking readers here it goes:
1kg flour
1 small bag of dried yeast
2 spoons of honey
1-2 spoons of sugar
1-2 spoons of salt
7-9 dl finger-warm water
It´s important to sift the flour and the yeast twice, so the dough gets more fluffy.
Assuming that you´ve baked before, I go straight ahead. You make the dough, you put it on the washing machine and wash some clothes while you´re at it, close the door so the cat doesn´t get curious and then leave it for an hour to rise.
Meanwhile mix some olive oil with rosemary, oregano, thyme and basil. You can also chop some sun-dried tomatoes, feta cheese or olives if you´d like the focaccia to be more consistent. Have a glass of Prosecco for the best result!;-)
Before putting it in the oven, make some pits with your fingers and pour in the olive oil and herbs. If you add some tomatoes, olives or cheese, be sure to stick them into the dough. Cut the foccacia then into square chunks. Use a sheet of baking paper under and let the dough rest a while. Bake at 220 degrees C for 15 minutes, then take it out and let it rest for 15 min again. Voilà!
Saturday
Yesterday I was out for a stroll in the neighborhood with Sam. We stopped by Reprise, my favorite second hand shop in Oslo, where I found a gorgeous cashmere shawl from UK and chatted with the owner about reviving our street. We then crossed the icy park without falling (actually Sam did, but I was lucky not to), heading to Kampen, a quaint area with small and colorful wooden houses, where we bought a birthday card in a pretty flower shop. Further up the street, I had cauliflower soup at Lille Kampen, while Sam waited patiently outside, since dogs are not allowed in eateries in Norway. It was dusk time and the colors were so pretty I almost failed to notice the cold. We should do this more often, we told ourselves.
life in a bubble 