Baking Bread

22 May 2013

For a long time now I’ve been wanting to spend time in the library doing a little bit of family research on Kory’s father’s side.  I’ve had questions about the family farm and why it’s been so hard to find information on it over the internet.  Today was that day for me and I got all my questions answered in the little library in Ulefoss, about fifteen minutes drive from Kory’s family farm.  Turns out, about a hundred and fifty years ago, the farm was called something else, as it was part of a larger farm that got split up.  Research is the best way to spend a rainy day, and the fact I visited one thrift store and one antique store along the way didn’t hurt anything, either.

Kaleb noticed the difference in antique stores and thrift stores is just the price, as they both have the same kind of stuff but antique stores are two to three times what I’m used to paying in thrift stores.  And thrift stores here in Norway are very well organized and clean, versus antique stores are very cluttered and not at all organized.  I found a few treasures, but had to set myself on a budget and make tough decisions about what to buy since things were priced higher than I wanted to pay, but still, quite the bargain even by American standards.

We stopped and bought groceries for dinner tonight while we were in town, as Halvard has made an outdoor bread baking oven and he fired it up to bake bread, but also said it was great for pizza.  So pizza it was for dinner.  He invited his sister over and we all made our own pizzas and put them in the brick oven and nothing ever tasted so good.  It was quite an unusual experience to watch the whole process, as he set the fire inside the oven for one and a half hours to heat the bricks, then he scrapes out the coals and uses his own homemade broom with a type of fir tree branch to sweep it clean.  He says the needles make the bread taste better.  Then he lets the oven sit for an hour to disperse the heat more, then it’s ready to bake bread.

I must say, I haven’t met many men who make their own oven, pick their own berries, make their own jam, bake their own bread and hold down a full time job and run a farm.  Halvard is the second youngest of ten children and he said his father was strict, but he taught them how to work, so I guess he doesn’t know how to do anything else but work.  And work he does.

So we had a wonderful evening of watching this whole bread baking adventure and talking with Halvard and his sister, Ingebjorg.  Halvard showed us pictures of him last winter in the igloo he built up in the mountains, which took two hours of hard work, but provided a cozy night’s sleep.  He did it just because he likes to do those kinds of things.  His sister entertained us with her descriptions of daily runs topped off with nude bathing, year round.  Sometimes the ice is hard to break for her to find a spot to jump in the water, but this is her form of a healthy routine.  These Norwegians are hardy folk who apparently haven’t yet figured out life doesn’t have to be so hard.

We’ve already begun to plan Halvard’s time with us next summer, as he dreams of going to America one day, so hopefully next year he’ll make it.  He’s an easy to please guy so I imagine if we are double booked with guests he can just pitch a tent out in the yard and he’d be happy.