collaboration: friends of lysverket 5… (qui)

– If the clouds are just so, and if you happen to look at the right time – just before midnight in a mid-calendar month – the skies over Bergen, Norway will appear as if they’re on fire. Summer had arrived on the northern brow of the world, and the sun had become restless, lingering well past bedtime. But I wasn’t in […]

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collaboration: friends of lysverket 5… (qui)

– If the clouds are just so, and if you happen to look at the right time – just before midnight in a mid-calendar month – the skies over Bergen, Norway will appear as if they’re on fire. Summer had arrived on the northern brow of the world, and the sun had become restless, lingering well past bedtime. But I wasn’t in […]

Continue

travel: toward a facile familiarity…

~ The Norwegian Airline strike was a refrain during the latest Friends of Lysverket weekend in Bergen.  It came up repeatedly in conversation. The strike had gone on way too long, keeping thousands of people, including me, suspended in travel limbo.  I had two connecting flights on the airline that week: one to Copenhagen, and one to Oslo, where Christopher Haatuft […]

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travel: toward a facile familiarity…

~ The Norwegian Airline strike was a refrain during the latest Friends of Lysverket weekend in Bergen.  It came up repeatedly in conversation. The strike had gone on way too long, keeping thousands of people, including me, suspended in travel limbo.  I had two connecting flights on the airline that week: one to Copenhagen, and one to Oslo, where Christopher Haatuft […]

Continue

friends of lysverket: people meeting people…

– A leading voice in the international black metal movement. A high-end furniture designer from Copenhagen. A Scotsman who dives for a living off the North Sea coast above the Arctic Circle. An American hardcore punk drummer-turned pastry chef. A group of Norwegian women preserving the craft of bread making in a remote village in the fjords. And an […]

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friends of lysverket: people meeting people…

– A leading voice in the international black metal movement. A high-end furniture designer from Copenhagen. A Scotsman who dives for a living off the North Sea coast above the Arctic Circle. An American hardcore punk drummer-turned pastry chef. A group of Norwegian women preserving the craft of bread making in a remote village in the fjords. And an […]

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collaboration: friends of lysverket…

– Bente Getz has returned to her family’s farm, situated high on a steep rake that rises almost vertically from the fjords of Samnanger, Norway.  She left her homeland as a young woman to travel the world, a hippie who hopped around the globe, starting in the United States, then to Spain, and finally settling on a kibbutz in Israel, […]

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collaboration: friends of lysverket…

– Bente Getz has returned to her family’s farm, situated high on a steep rake that rises almost vertically from the fjords of Samnanger, Norway.  She left her homeland as a young woman to travel the world, a hippie who hopped around the globe, starting in the United States, then to Spain, and finally settling on a kibbutz in Israel, […]

Continue

the best of 2014: the restaurant edition…

~ The sheer splendor with which my year in dining unfolded made the task of identifying my ten favorite restaurant meals from 2014 an especially difficult one. However, forcing myself to narrow that “wide and rich field” (as I described it in an earlier post) – a process that at moments seemed merciless, requiring me to eliminate extraordinarily good meals that in any other […]

Continue

the best of 2014: the restaurant edition…

~ The sheer splendor with which my year in dining unfolded made the task of identifying my ten favorite restaurant meals from 2014 an especially difficult one. However, forcing myself to narrow that “wide and rich field” (as I described it in an earlier post) – a process that at moments seemed merciless, requiring me to eliminate extraordinarily good meals that in any other […]

Continue

best desserts of 2014…

– My parents, who immigrated to the United States over forty years ago, said that, when they first arrived on these shores, they had no concept of “dessert.”  In Taiwan, where they had spent most of their lives until that point, there were bakeries that sold sweet pastries, and confectioners who made candy. But most of […]

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best desserts of 2014…

– My parents, who immigrated to the United States over forty years ago, said that, when they first arrived on these shores, they had no concept of “dessert.”  In Taiwan, where they had spent most of their lives until that point, there were bakeries that sold sweet pastries, and confectioners who made candy. But most of […]

Continue

travel: leapfrogging…

~ Another year is gone, and I’ve barely written about it.  This is especially sad to me, since so many wonderful things happened. Every year, I pause at calendar’s end to record and remember the anxieties and adventures that made the preceding months memorable, including an accounting of all the restaurants I visited, and my favorite meals and dishes among […]

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travel: leapfrogging…

~ Another year is gone, and I’ve barely written about it.  This is especially sad to me, since so many wonderful things happened. Every year, I pause at calendar’s end to record and remember the anxieties and adventures that made the preceding months memorable, including an accounting of all the restaurants I visited, and my favorite meals and dishes among […]

Continue

12 days: on the tenth day of christmas: holmboe bang… (2014)

~ It had been raining every day for two weeks.  California was finally finding some much-needed relief from a severe, two-year drought. So, when a rare window of blue sky opened up one morning, Cameron Cole Rahtz, the forager for The Restaurant at Meadowood, jumped on the opportunity.  He grabbed Esben Holmboe Bang and me, we grabbed our raincoats, […]

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12 days: on the tenth day of christmas: holmboe bang… (2014)

~ It had been raining every day for two weeks.  California was finally finding some much-needed relief from a severe, two-year drought. So, when a rare window of blue sky opened up one morning, Cameron Cole Rahtz, the forager for The Restaurant at Meadowood, jumped on the opportunity.  He grabbed Esben Holmboe Bang and me, we grabbed our raincoats, […]

Continue

travel: sui generis…

~ At its highest, the Bergen Rail Line climbs 1,300 meters above sea level, making it the highest elevated rail line in Europe.  Running over 480 meters (300 miles), the line anchors at both ends on the coast of Norway. When I last left this blog, I had boarded the train on the west coast in Bergen, […]

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travel: sui generis…

~ At its highest, the Bergen Rail Line climbs 1,300 meters above sea level, making it the highest elevated rail line in Europe.  Running over 480 meters (300 miles), the line anchors at both ends on the coast of Norway. When I last left this blog, I had boarded the train on the west coast in Bergen, […]

Continue