Ceci n'est pas un blog

Last night was the company holiday party.

220 people went and everyone had on their finest finery ranging from sneakers and an untucked shirt with a tie to a full tuxedo. The man in the red shirt with a bolo tie and Texas-style suit jacket had the perfect Continental Club look. Before we left, pockets of men in suits clustered in the hallways to begin the pre-party drinking.

The women were in cocktail dresses, evening make-up, and high-maintenance hair. I have to say that all of the color and curlers and crimping and spraying did several of the women a dis-service as they seem more elegant, to me, in their work clothes with a more simple look.

Overall it was a typical corporate party. There were some speeches, some prizes, some humorous photos followed by the smokers fleeing out of doors, the dancers taking to the floor, and the drinkers collecting unused tickets and heading to the bar.

One thing that placed us squarely in Norway was the "skål" toasting. At several tables it began as low rumble, building like a Tibetan chant or a collective Mongolian throat singing, into one long sustained syllable rising to fill the room. Often the people would rise with the sound and at one point a table of 10 were all standing on their chairs to keep rising with the sound. To be fair, there was the traditional "skål" and looking at each person in turn, then drinking but there was also this deep multi-tonal, minutes-long, Ohm-like "skoooooooOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOlllllll". It was very impressive.

The dinner itself was quite nice. Since the location and menu were all secret, I had requested a vegetarian option. The planners made a sign with a cut out picture of a carrot that would stand like a flag at our place so the waiters would know. Kenneth thought this was a riot and made a sign for his place in the shape of a steak so they would know he was carnivore. However, I learned the menu before dinner and as it was all safe for me, I bequeathed my carrot on a stick to a strict vegetarian who had forgotten hers.

The dinner came in 3 courses. We started with a small halibut lasagna on a bed of greens. It was very light, no cheese, and about the size and shape of a normal cut of baklava. It was served with a nice but not outstanding white wine from Alsace. Very minerally, not too sweet. The young German next to me thought it was served a couple years too soon. He was quiet until the conversation turned to wines from the Mosel and Alsace region near where he grew up. He was pleased that Americans seem to be discovering Rieslings and expressed his distaste for Liebfraumilch and embarassment that this was what Americans associated with German wine.

Our fish course was followed by duck. The large portion was served with a, rather safe traditional, rich brown sauce and accompanied by a stuffed mushroom and slice of a cucumber-sized squash that had been hollowed out and filled with a vegetable puree. The duck was cooked very well and the fat just slip away from the meat. It was so dark and without the greasy quality that duck sometimes has that several people at the table thought it was beef. This was served with a red wine that was quite appropriate to the meal, rich without being overbearing.

Our dessert was a layer of white chocolate mousse over dark chocolate mousse with our logo on it. Served with coffee. Each table came with Christmas crackers (the kind that pop when you pull them with a joke and crown inside) and bubbles. Conversation was good and all over the map with a surprising shortage of geek-speak.

I met the young man from Bombay who is working on fixing the problem many of you have had leaving comments on this site. He's an interesting fellow, reads Dostoevsky, Somerset Maughm, and re-reads Sidhartha by Herman Hesse every year. He said his copy is in tatters.

I took the early bus home and had a nice visit with my boss on the way back. And then I learned an important lesson ...

If you ever don't take your phone somewhere, it will be the one time there is hold up with the dog shipping and your wife has tried 16 times to reach you. The dog shipper needed me to confirm with Lufthansa Cargo here in Oslo before everyone had the all clear for the dogs to come. My wife told the shippers, "he can't do it today on account of being surrounded by drunken Norwegians". Could there be a better excuse?

I confess. It didn't take much to be convinced to go to Mucho Mas with a co-worker. And just hours after I said I would save such an expedition for the icy depths of a potential future homesickness.

We went to the one in Grünerløkka near the office. The clear warm day had turned into a cloudy and cold night and my teeth chattered a bit on the way there.

It's definitely not a fast food place. In an old building with high ceilings and maybe a dozen tightly packed tables, it has a warm and cozy vibe. We waited about 5 minutes for a table.

I didn't even look to see whether margaritas were on the menu, settled instead for Frydenlund pils on tap. My shrimp tacos were quite good with beans, rice, and salad on the side. It's not true Texas style but the food was good and the atmosphere quite nice. I think when the weather is a bit warmer they put a few tables outside and you can people watch and sit in the sun.

Hans had a burrito as big as his head. They are clearly not meant to be picked up, a knife and fork are required.

In other news I did get very good tickets to the Oslo Filharmonien this week. Previn is conducting Beethoven's Ouverture Coriolan and Symphony no. 4 and Mozart's Violin Concerto no. 5. I'm not familiar with these pieces but it should be a good crowd and the Oslo symphony has a great reputation.

I had the option to go to a contemporary dance piece in a small venue near by that looked quite interesting. It had a great title, "and on that night I found her quite alluring". It was a tough decision.

I'm looking forward to seeing what the citydoes with the new opera house they are building down by the old castle. The plan is to make something dramatic that will be as well known and as associated with it's city as the Sydney Opera house. The one here is planned to have a low, gently sloping roof that people can walk up on and look over the water. If this pic is accurate, I'm not entirely sure it will make the dramatic postcard and cinematic statement they hope for. Check out the Pictures link on the right for more renderings.

Mostly there's been no new news here.

Many of my colleagues are away on holiday, work is progressing fairly well, the apartment hunt continues to be drawn out by our first choice's owner hestating about the dogs and waiting to see whether anyone else is as interested in her place as we are, and still no word on selling our house in Texas. </sigh>

S is juggling single motherhood with a job, dogs, house showings, and a little girl who is acting out and testing her bounderies because she is three and because things are changing all around her, and because it gets attention. S is amazing; still, I wish there was more tangible I could do.

I left my unmbrella at an apartment visning and am getting by dry enough in my raincoat but I mention it because I learned a greatr Norwegian expression today: there's no bad weather, just bad clothing. It's a good idiom for a wet and mostly cold place, not sure it applies in Texas. The other great Norwegian expresion is "it's like peeing in your pants to stay warm" which basically means the same as the English "penny wise, pound foolish".

One nice thing that happened this week was that my Swiss roommate went home for his father's 80th birthday and left me his Kylling (chicken) and leeks and milk and so on. Chicken is amazingling expensive here, so this was a nice treat. My boss and I were speculating that it's more expensive because they do not have the poultry factories that we have in the States, growth hormones are also not allowed. So the cost to "grow" a chicken is higher and they yield less meat per bird. Karla also pointed out that they have less of a tradition for it as eggs, historically, were sustainable while eating the chickens, less so.

Anyway, made a couple of nice little dinners with sauteed leeks and onion in butter with chicken and hearty bread.

When most people hear mash-up they think of something like the JayZ|Niles Barkley remix combining their songs, which, not that it matters, I rather prefer to either of the songs alone. But there is another, more established, form of the mash-up. In more classy establishments it might be called fusion.

Then there are those dishes, now famous, that seem to come from one country but were invented in another such as chop suey, which was invented in San Francisco. Crypto-cuisine being my neologism for such creations.

And so we come to my story of the Tikka Masala Calzone I had for dinner in the mall after buying a simple iron for the equivalent of the GDP of Peru. Tikka Masala having been invented in Glasgow in the 60s or 70s and not a strictly Indian dish and the Calzone, a staple of Italian American pizza shops.

A beautiful example of a crypto-cuisine mash-up in a handy portable and quite palatable form.

Speaking of Norwegian cuisine, my immigration consultant came by yesterday and was talking to me about all the things we need to do when she got on the subject of food. She said, "if there is one staple in the Norwegian diet, it's the frozen pizza." She said it is a matter of great national pride and you must never mock it.

I think we'll do OK here.