Food Studio

At the moment I am sitting overlooking the fjord of and the mountains of Saltdal having a winter break in the north of Norway. There is a peaceful quietness after a storm yesterday. The sun is slowly waking up in the winterlandscape, breaking through in dots on the mountains around. One of the most valuable teachings of last year has the importance of this rest, this silence after a storm. How this is where we regenerate, where we charge, and get ready for the next round.

2019 var året Oslo fikk status som europeisk miljøhovedstad. 675 miljørelaterte arrangementer rundt om i Oslos gater, bygg og natur. I desember var det duket for det avsluttende festmåltidet og Food Studio stod for veiledning av meny og dekor. En blanding av lokale beboere, politikere og arrangører strømmet inn hovedinngangen til Rådhuset 16.desember.

WWOOF is a worldwide movement bringing people to a more sustainable way of life. By linking volunteers with organic farmers and growers to promote cultural and educational experiences based on trust and non-monetary exchange, thereby helping to build a sustainable, global community. This summer Linda Bovo and her friend Davide Carminati joined our first season at Vefall Neset farm in Drangedal as Wwoffers.

Can silence be a superpower? What is the potential of slowing it all down and diving into the practice of listening? Poet and researcher Olga Lehmann has studied what silence can do to us, our multi-layered health and everyday wellbeing.

The medicine that changed my life. Four years ago, on one dark, melancholic winter’s eve, I found myself lying on the couch watching Netflix. Sounds familiar, right? The problem was, for me at that time, it felt like the only thing I could muster.  Yes, I went to work. Yup, I did the dishes and the laundry. I prepared food, showered and walked my dog. But compared to what I used to be able to do--and what I longed to do--it felt like all I did was lay on the couch, barely processing what I was watching.

« Where you tend a rose my lad, a thistle cannot grow. » Francis Hodgson Burnett. To awaken your imagination, I’ll begin this piece with a brief recount of the story of ‘Mary Mary Quite Contrary’ in Burnett’s 1911 children’s classic The Secret Garden. The protagonist, Mary Lennox, is a sickly, ill-tempered young orphan who is sent to the Yorkshire countryside to live with her estranged uncle, Master Craven, a reclusive hunchback who is paralyzed by grief after the loss of his wife.

My love for wild plants as food and medicine started when I worked as a budeie, or a milk maid, at a sæter (summer pasture) in Hemsedal in the middle of the mountains. There I stayed in a small cabin without any electricity, water or toilet. I would wake up early in the mornings to milk the cows with the owner. We would make heavy cream and sour cream with a hand-powered milk separator and we would repeat the process after dinner.