The Girl Who Ate Everything

Saveur's website doesn't actually have a giant happy face on it. That would be weird.

I know my blogging has become more and more crappy (i.e., less and less frequent) during the past few months, which is why I was so surprised to hear I was nominated in Saveur.com's Best Food Blog Awards 2011 in the category for "Best Restaurant/Dining Coverage." And when I say "so surprised" I mean I stared at my screen sort of blanked out while thinking, "What the heck?...[click]...wait, what...[click]...huh...what...how'd this happen?"

Thank you to anyone who nominated me for the award (and for reading my blog in general)! It's a great honor. An honor that fills me with motivation to get better at this—and fills me with the guilt and dread that I may never get better at this. (Not to dwell on the negative or anything, but that's how I roll.) And while I know that I should feel more confident about my blogging abilities because some of you felt compelled to nominate my blog and the saveur.com editors deemed it worthy enough to make it to the six finalists, I can hardly believe it got that far.

I'm far less surprised by the group of heavyweights I'm up against: Immaculate Infatuation, kevinEats, Skillet Doux, The Delicious Life, and The Ulterior Epicure. I realize the next thing I say will undermine the support you and Saveur have given me, buuuuut I think you guys should vote for one of those blogs, not mine. The support you've given me to get this far is enough to make me implode with happies. If I got a bunch of votes, I'd just feel bad about taking votes away from other blogs who are more worthy of winning. I hope that sounds reasonable. My god, I've only updated this blog ten times since the beginning of the year. What the heeeccckkkuuuuhhh.

As for why I haven't updated that much, welllll, in my head that post about Paris counted as five posts (I know, it totally doesn't) and I felt pooped out on blogging. A more recent reason is that Kåre has been in New York City since last Saturday (he's visiting me until next Saturday), so pretty much all of my free time has been going to him, understandably. And it's not going to get much better; I'm very likely visiting Sweden next month (more info on that soon), work is not going to get lighter, I'm falling behind on my photos, and....uh....crap, writing this all out makes me realize how much fail this blog is going to experience.

....So...anyway....[slowly tiptoes backward]...

Thank you so much again for your support! As a testament to how slow I am, the award nominations came out almost two weeks ago and I'm just blogging about it now. You have until May 12 to vote. Four more days. Um. GO VOTE NOW, GUYS. There are lots of great blogs covered in their 17 categories, so put your voting power to good use!

I visited Norway from February 12 to 19. Yeah, that was three months ago. ...Yeeeaaah.

Brown cheese time.

First meal of the day: brunost on bread. No trip to Norway is complete (and perhaps no Norwegian is complete) without brunost ("brown cheese"), a slightly sweet, dense, tacky, sort of fudge-like goat and/or cow milk cheese that gets its distinct flavor and color from the caramelization of slowly cooked milk. In the US I've found brown cheese at Whole Foods—they sell dainty blocks of Tine's Ski Queen brand—but the most fervent adoration of this cheese is confined to Norway, where you'll find over ten varieties of the stuff (variations of three main types: geitost, made from goat milk; guldbrandsdalsost, made from goat and cow milk; and fløtemysost, made from cow milk). Top a slice of bread with a thin shaving of brunost—shaved with the help of a Norwegian-invented cheese slicer—and BLAMMO! [insert puff of smoke], you've got breakfast. Or a snack. Or (part of a) lunch. It can be anything you want it to be, as long as you want sweet cheese and bread.

After our quick breakfast, Kåre and I rushed to the city center to meet up with our friends Morten, Petter, and Petter's wife Lina near Fløibanen, the funicular that goes up Mount Fløyen, granting you beautiful views of the city. But first, we ran into Morten sitting on a bench near the funicular's entrance.

Morten!

But not just Morten...

PUPPY.

OH GOD OH GOD OH GOD PUPPY FUZZY PUPPY FUZZY PUUUUUUPEEEHHHH!!??

A winner is me!

What I learned yesterday:

1. You don't listen to me.
2. Reverse psychology works.

Because how else did I win an award for "Best Restaurant/Dining Coverage" in the 2011 SAVEUR Best Food Blog Awards? Especially since I was all like, "Don't vote for me, guys."

Thank you for disobeying my commands and voting for my blog; it means a lot to me. ;) I didn't mean to pull the ol' reserve psychology trick though; I am not that crafty. And I certainly didn't expect to win. Your support blows my mind, guys. The impact is so strong that it has turned my brain into jelly. Jelleeeuhhfmmgfflggulgspootlepip

Ok my brain has reformed itself. And I've sort of rewarded you with a new post I put up about an hour ago! Alas, it has little to do with the category I won in, but it features numerous photos of a cute puppy, so...so...you will like it, maybe!

Thank you all again! You've all rightfully earned an (optional) giant plush manatee hug.

I needed something Swedish to put here and this was pretty much all I had.

...If so, I will be entrenching upon your soil from June 4 to 11.

Ok, more info. Thanks to Volvo and the Swedish Tourism Board, I'm getting a free trip to Sweden to promote this CAR + VACATION contest (what a charmingly straightforward name) through the power of food blogging (to come on Serious Eats). I hope that isn't seen as selling out, although if I ever drop, "I LOVE VOLVO, YOU MUST BUY A VOLVO NOW!" into conversation for no reason, now you know why.

Seriously though, the woman I'm in contact with on Sweden's tourism board has been super helpful and is working on making a food itinerary based on the kinds of food I like. This isn't like other press trips where a tourism representative guides you from restaurant to restaurant. Oh, another thing that makes this trip awesome: I was allowed to bring a guest, and Kåre secured a week off work to come with me and be my driver (in a Volvo, of course).

I know, I'm insanely lucky. I get to spend a non-vacation week with the boyfriend I sparingly see in a country I've wanted to visit for years, all without going broke. I figure the luck will be equalized down the road by cancer or a natural disaster or something.

I don't know our exact itinerary, but I've been told the general driving route: start in Gothenburg, go up the Swedish West Coast, turn back south, stop again in Gothenburg, go further to Skåne, and end somewhere near Malmö. We'll go to Copenhagen to fly home since there we can get direct flights.

Sooo...I doubt I have many/any readers in Sweden, but I figured I'd check if anyone is in those cities. I don't know what we're eating, but I do know it wouldn't hurt to have extra eaters! :)

(On a random but Swedish note, this is probably my favorite Swedish song, brought to you by Håkan Hellström.)

I visited Norway from February 12 to 19. Despite that that was over three months ago, I'm determined to cover it all. Even if it apparently takes me forever. You can go back to Day 1 and Day 2 if you'd like.

Here is a hot dog! To appear later in this post.

"Ohhh, you're going to be in Norway on February 14...did you plan it that way?"

I forgot how many people asked me that question, so it must've been a lot. Or at least three. And the answer is no, although I'd be lying if I didn't find it just a wee bit exciting that for the first time in my life I'd have a legitimate reason to do something Valentine's Day-y on Valentine's Day. The last time I remember participating in the holiday was in elementary school, second or third grade, when the front of every kid's desk featured a pocket made of red construction paper, cut-out hearts, and doilies not-so-dexterously bound by gobs of Elmer's glue, in which every other kid would drop a card. And you had to make a card (and to most kids "make a card" means "rip apart a perforated sheet of cards") for every classmate; imagine the trauma of turning over your Valentine's Day folder and having nothing fall out. Forever alone. That's a bit heavy for an eight-year-old.

So past the age of requirement, I didn't have much reason to celebrate Valentine's Day. But here it was! I got to celebrate it! With Kåre! And we started off by indulging in one of our greatest, more carnal desires....

SLEEP. SO MUCH SLEEP. (That's what you thought I was going to say, right? Good.) Irresponsibly large amounts of it. Not unlatching myself from my pillow until 3 or 4 p.m. "Oh, is it lunch time? But...but I'm sleeping. Lunch doesn't beat sleep."

Actually, Kare probably did eat some sort of snack around lunch time because his furnace-like body burns calories like crazy, but I didn't because my body is like a stagnant lake thick with algae.

We acknowledged the 14th by not really acknowledging it. The plan: Uh...what plan? But I did give him a gift: a fluffy white Poofy, quite like this one I made five years ago. Poofy plushies, based on my old comic Adventures in Poofyville (the content of the comic is about as creative as its title), aren't that difficult to make, but I almost never make them these days because they take too much time (I mostly made them in high school when I had too much time). Poofy plushies aren't about the end result as much as the effort they represent. ...Except I just said they're not difficult to make. Um. Wait. I mean, they're full of my precious finger sweat from all the hand sewing; that's gotta count for some signification amount of affection.

Kåre also had an affectionate gesture up his sleeve. He's no noob.