Oh my

Shopping for a bikini in a funky store by the beach made for fourteen year old SoCal girls with itsy bitsy boobs is a lot of fun. First they assaulted me and wanted to look in the other shopping bags I brought in with me containing books and a couple of t-shirts, and whined a bit over that for around five minutes. Then they wanted to know all about why I needed a bikini and where I was going. One of them then proceeded to hand me a dozen of pink, turquoise and leopard patterned tops, and send me into a fitting room. I managed to sneak in a couple of black ones without any glitter.

I got complemented on my ass (??!!) and they tried to sell me all kinds of slutty beach cover-ups. I managed to choose the most expensive bikini they had in there, and when I paid with my norwegian credit card showing a picture of my 16-year old self, the girl charging me started screaming at her colleagues (I swear, she was shouting all over the store) "You have to come look at this picture! It´s soooo cute! Did you ever, like, model or something like that?" Oh. Come ON. That´s the oldest flattering trick in the book, and I´m already paying for this right, so you don´t need to smother me in compliments. So this is the reason I normally shop at H&M. No customer service whatsoever. Me likes.

Ta-da! The briefs are from H&M actually. I couldn´t afford to buy new ones. But here´s a tip if you´re over 14 and over a B cup; Vix. Good support for aging women with fallen madonnas, if you know what I mean.



Brrrrrr

California dreamin´ on such a winters day... Yeah right. Because here it´s all hunky dory, rolling on the beach, surfing in the waves. Not so. It´s COLD. Under 40 Fahrenheit! I still don´t know what that means, but it does mean wrapping up in a huge scarf, a hoodie, etc etc to go for that horrible morning beach walk (sorry, I grew up in the 90s and am a victim of irony).

My nostrils don´t seem to like it either, since they´re out of sync. How FUN taking instagrams of yourself and discovering new flaws every day. Who needs a job.

Update: 40 fahrenheit is 4 degrees?!!!??? I´m moving to Mexico.



LA babes

So, after almost half a year in LA, I decided it was time to get lip surgery:

No I didn´t. I might have grown an adams apple though. So. Dear diary. Today it´s the 5th of December, and Mexico is only 19 days away, yay! I´ve realised we´ll probably have to sleep under the stars since we haven´t booked a hotel, but that´s a risk you have to take. We do have a room for the first two nights, here:

 With crazy Americano Daniel and his parrot. If it hasn´t died yet (the parrot, that is). I do not remember it looking like this at all, but things change in seven years I guess. I for one am a lot blonder, wiser and marrieder.

Palm sugar, sugar

Hello!

I just wanted to pop by and tell you a bit about palm sugar, or coconut sugar.

First of all, it's bloody delicious. It tastes like brown sugar, but better. Sort of caramelized.

Second of all, it has a GI of 35, which means it doesn't make your blood sugar go all hoolabalooza, whatever that means (sugar has a GI of around 70, honey around 60, and agave somewhere around 40).
And it's all natural, made from sap from the flowers of the coconut palm.

Here's a man climbing a palm tree to get us some sap:

And here he is on his way home, biking as fast as he can,

with the sap in little plastic cans:

...and somehow it ends up here:

... and I can use a ton of it on my buckwheat porridge on a Sunday afternoon, to the point where I get nauseous and promise myself I will never eat too much palm sugar again. Which we all know is a lie.

That was my weekend, how was yours?

Preparing for Halloween...

A spider bit my boob

...at least that's what my doctor thinks. Pretty cool, huh?

The pictures have nothing to do with that. Just wanted to show off my new scarf.

Brunost!

Look what I found in Whole Foods!

This is a Norwegian deilicacy, called brown cheese. Made of goatmilk. Very good, but extremely sweet and with obscene amounts of sugar. If that doesn't bother you, do try! I wonder if Ski queen (who the hell came up with that name?) tastes different than the original G35 or whatever it's called. One stupid little detail: the website directs you to Tines web, which is all in Norwegian. What's the point of that, I wonder.

Improvised bread bonanza

Got crazy cravings for bread, think it has something to do with the extremely gray weather we're having here. Reminds me of Norwegian autumn = rain, cup of tea, books, warm and freshly baked bread. With butter. MMMmmm. And for the first time in my long, long life, I managed to whisp together a superb tasting gluten free mass that could be called bread if you're not too picky. I'm not, as long as I can put butter on it.

 

This is what I used: Sesame seeds, pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, gluten free oatmeal, almond flour, psyllium husk, salt and water. Yup. That's it. As I said, this was all improvised so I have no idea how much I used of each of the ingredients. Probably around 1-2 dl oatmeal and almond flour, 1 teaspoon salt, 2 tablespoons psyllium, and 1-2 dl of a mix of all the seeds. Then enough water to make it sticky. Let it rest for half an hour, so the psyllium can do its magic and bind everything together.

Pretty pretty little bread wannabes. In the oven, 180 degrees, 45 minutes.

Smoked ham and cucumber, yes please. This is the ham over all hams (besides Jon Hamm). And butter.

Fab rasberry marmalade = Stirred rasberries with palmsugar

Did I mention the butter?

Tonight...

...we're going to Nobu. I found this pic here

Really? Can someone tell me what "tessler" even is? And why someone would pay 2250 dollars for it? We're going as part of something called dineLA, which means we get a fairly decent looking menu for 44 dollars. I'm guessing there won't be any tessler. I might ask for a job waiting tables though.

Gray, gray, gray. And a tsunami

Last night I laid awake for hours. Couldn't fall asleep. And there was this sound outside, like it was really windy, but the leaves outside our window weren't moving, so it couldn't be the wind. The more I thought the louder the sound got. And I realised it had to be the ocean. Yes, we live two minutes away so maybe I should've noticed this before, but I haven't. Anyway, in my head, the ocean was going to come swallow us all, I could even hear some people screaming if I concentrated enough. There were scenarios of a huge deadly wave, us running for the car and driving as far up as we could. In our pyjamas. I had to wake up P. "Hey. Hey. HEY!! Are you awake?" Stupid question that one, no one is ever awake before you actually ask it. He murmurs. "Can you hear that sound?" He claims it's distant traffic. What do you mean distant traffic, we live in what could be considered a little village. I make him get up and come look at the ocean from the window with me. I even open the front door to listen to the waves. I think I stand there for over ten minutes. The ocean has never been calmer. I go back to bed with earplugs. If there really is a tsunami, I think I'll have to react faster.

This pretty much sums up the weekend

No it doesn't. But taboo-playing, sushi-making and cava drinking does. Not much more to say. A bit tired. Should go practice my standing bow pose. And eat less chocolate cake.

Happy feet

I realised, while almost fainting in yoga, that my feet looked like shit. So I walked across the street and got a pedicure. I hate it when people touch my feet, so I usually just do this at home, and I was struggling there for a bit, but now I'm really happy with my newly painted toes! Pedicures are so cheap here it's ridiculous, and you also get a quick foot massage which is heavenly. Happy weekend everyone! *wiggling my toes*

Americana

Put on my baseball shirt to go shopping. At the super, I get asked approximately five times if I'm finding everything all right. I smile and say, Yes, thank you. People pass me with their trolleys, Excuse me, oh sorry, thank you, no problem! At the checkout, the bag guy (yes, we have people bagging our groceries here, I was thrilled to find out!) screams that he loves my pants, we chat about cars, he asks me if I found everything all right. I smile. The cashier interrupts; Did you find everything all right, miss? Yes, thank you! I nod and smile. The bag guy asks if I need any help out today, I smile and say No thanks, I'm good! He smiles and says, great! Have a great day! I smile and say, you too! The cashier says Thank you for shopping with us, enjoy your evening! I smile and say Thanks, enjoy yours too! Do you want me to take the trolley for you miss? Says the bag guy, I smile and say Thank you! We all wave and smile at eachother. I walk home with my brown paper bag with no handles.

Now I'm making chocolate cake! Woooo! I smile and say bye.

Ps I'll give you the recipe later, it's a bloody good chocolate cake. Thank you!

Crowded morning walk

Get out of my waaaaay!

Spex

“All it comes down to is this: We feel like shit but look great.”

"Listen, you'll have to excuse me. I have a lunch meeting with Cliff Huxtable at the Four Seasons in 20 minutes. "

“Greed is good. Sex is easy. Youth is forever.”

“And though I can hide my cold gaze, and you can shake my hand and feel flesh gripping yours and maybe you can even sense our lifestyles are probably comparable... I simply am not there.”

"Not quite blonde, are we? More of a dirty blonde."

"This is not an exit"

All kinds of trucks

They're obsessed with selling things from trucks here. They drive around and you can find them all over the place, they even have a bunch of maps and pages for you to find out where the different trucks happen to be at a certain time. Like this or this. Or twitter.

You can get hotdogs...

cheesesteaks...

flowers...

Or Jesus! Yeah ok this is not really a truck, nor is it selling anything. But it can probably help you establish a relationship with Christ.

The beach is full of balls

Do you have a wok?

We do. Tonight we threw in some scampi, veggies and a bit of rice. I wanted to make sushi, but the guy behind the fish counter or whatever you call it in the super wasn't very trustworthy.

-Do you have anything I could use for sushi?

-Eeeeeeee. I dunno. (He thinks. For a long time) Maybe this salmon.

-Has it been frozen?

-Yeeeeah. It usually has.

-So I could eat it raw.

-Eeeeeeeee. I don't know about that. I think it's fresh.
-But you're sure it has been frozen.

-Naaaaaah. It usually has.

-Ok, I'm just gonna get this scampi for now.

P's working the chopsticks. We downed a bottle of cava, discussed healthcare, anti-depressants and diabetes, and then I beat him in a game of escoba while we listened to David Guetta. Just a normal Friday evening.

It's the thought that counts

So, P just came home. He's smiling at me and hiding something behind his back, saying: I got you something! All excited, thoughts speed through my mind: a new pair of shoes? A camera? A cashmere sweater? All of Patricia Highsmiths books? A baby? Thriumphantly, he reaches out his left hand, slowly opens it while looking expectantly up at me, and reveals...

A toy car!

"We had a meeting with Mattel today, and could choose any car we wanted! They also had the fancy ones, but I figured you'd  like a Volkswagen". Let's just hope he wouldn't use the same reasoning if he were to choose a real car for me.

No, really. Thanks so much! I love you!

Something from the weekend

Grass, sun&palmtrees, a space ship, my twisted view of the US of A (as later corrected by P), new bouncy sneakers. P got his california drivers license, I spent the weekend making kitchari and taking a lot of facials, we're watching season one of 24. Next weekend: great food, good wine, lots of beach and socializing.