So last week Kat from A Good Appetite won last month’s Royal Foodie Joust with her Brie Stuffed Maple Burger with Spicy Apple Bacon Compote. That got me thinking (and drooling, slightly) about burgers…and maple, one of my favoritest ingredients on the planet. She said that she thought that maple went really well with beef, so I wanted to see if it went just as well with buffalo. I suspected it did.

I love buffalo meat, it is leaner than beef and has more CLA in it, because buffalo must eat grass to survive. To read more about CLA, and why it is important, click here. I also love burgers and it is often our meal of choice for movie night. This meal accompanied the movie Appaloosa with Viggo Mortensen.

I am also a huge fan of caramelized onions. They go good with just about anything you can cook up. Seriously, I bet putting them on ice cream would be awesome. Ever had garlic ice cream? That stuff is fan-freaking-tastic. I only have had it once, but it is a food memory that has stuck with me for probably more than 15 years. So really, I might try the caramelized onion thing, but not today.

Back to the onions. Recently I had made cinnamon spiced caramelized onions to go on a spicy carrot soup. I didn’t blog about it, but the recipe is pretty much like the one I did for Yogi Times way back when. Just added some nice cinnamon to the onions as they were doing their caramelizing thing. They turned out pretty good, so I figured that adding maple to this batch would be worth trying. Top the burgers with these maple-y onions, some Vermont sharp cheddar and some local St. Augustine, FL datil pepper BBQ sauce, and see what happens. A burger of transition, one that features the local delicacies of our current and future homes.

Well what happened is that the sky opened up and…wait no, that didn’t happen… What really happened is that it was one of the best burgers either of us had in a while. Kat, thanks for the inspiration, and I am sure before the fall and winter is over, I will be taking a stab at your winning entry!

Read the rest of this entry »

I love the fall, it is certainly, without a doubt, my favorite season. So when Natasha, from 5 Star Foodie , winner of last month’s Joust, sent me her choice of ingredients for this month I was thrilled!

Apple, Maple and Cayenne are three ingredients that really exemplify fall fare. It seems that the Jousters felt the same way, because we had 17 awesome entries this month! Everything from soup, to seafood and salsa to caramel apples! Be sure to check out all the recipes and tantalizing photos here on the Foodie Blogroll forum!

We welcomed several new Jousters this month, who will hopefully become regulars, and welcomed many of our seasoned Jousters back, after a much deserved summer break! I hope this will encourage some of you to join us this month too! Things are always exciting, and changing in the Jousting fields! We have a fantastic group of ingredients this month too. I will announce them at the end of the post!

About the Joust:

The Royal Foodie Joust is an awesome and fun monthly peer voted competition that is hosted on The LeftoverQueen/FoodieBlogroll Forum! It gets better each and every month as the competition gets stiffer and more creative, as Jousters try to outdo each other! It is also one of the friendliest competitions I have ever seen. So please don’t be intimidated to come and join us this month in another round!

We don’t bite, unless of course there is real food in our faces

The only rules for the competition is that each Jouster create only one dish and each entry must feature three ingredients in common.

This competition has been referred to many times as the “Iron Chef” of the Food Blogosphere. Each month’s ingredients are chosen by the previous month’s Best Overall Entry winner. The Best Overall winner of each Joust not only wins the Queen’s favor, bragging rights and a cool icon to put on their blog, but is also awarded with a super awesome Royal Foodie Joust Apron! There are also prizes for the winners of the other two categories: Best Photo and Most Unique Interpretation

So what are you waiting for? Come over and join us this month!

If you would like to participate in this month’s Joust, be sure to submit your entry by 12 NOON, Eastern Standard USA time on the First of the following Month (Nov. 1, 2009)!

If you have an idea you would like to share about how to make the Joust a better community event, please join us in discussing it here.

Although there were so many awesome entries this time around, there can only be one winner in each category, and each month making that call gets harder! Onto those winning entries now!

This month’s Best Overall winner is Kat from A Good Appetite. Her winning entry is Brie Stuffed Maple Burger with Spicy Apple Bacon Compote .

Her recipe was inspired by a local restaurant, Blue Door that does some really interesting takes on the classic Minneapolis Juicy Lucy. Their most recent version stuffed with brie & topped with apple compote was only available for one day. Kat and Matt, couldn’t make it there that day so they decided to put their our own spin on it at home. “In our version the beef is flavored with a little maple syrup & then stuffed with brie. The apple compote is spiced up with cayenne, sweetened with maple syrup plus given a little saltiness with some bacon. Put it all together & you really have an amazing flavor combination. The apples go surprisingly well with the beef.”

I could certainly sink my teeth into this amazing burger! Congrats Kat for taking the win this month!

As food bloggers (and food appreciators) we all know that pictures speak a thousand words and this month’s Best photo winner goes to Peter, aka Protos Souvlaki for the Soul with Spicy Carrot and Apple Cakes with Maple Buttercream Frosting

For his Joust entry Peter made us some mini carrot cakes. He added the cayenne pepper to the “spice mix” which also included nutmeg, cinnamon and ground cloves. He added the maple syrup to a buttercream frosting that went on top. True to his Greek roots, he also used olive oil, Greek yoghurt and a combination of wholemeal flours and almond meal in his recipe. I really love the look of these cute little cakes!

The Winner for Most Unique Interpretation of the Ingredients is awarded to Joan of FOODalogue with her 3 Alarm Fruit Pizzette

This pizzette is an amazing combination of flavors! Joan says she always has bits of recipes and flavor combinations swirling around in her head that helps her to create her super flavorful dishes on her blog. This is what she says about her Joust creation:“It may make you sweat a bit, but the layers of flavors will totally entice. You’ve got heat from the cayenne pepper and jalapeño mustard; sweet from the maple syrup and apples; salt and gooeyness from the cheese; freshness from the cilantro, scallions, lime zest and starfruit; and crunch from the pumpkin seeds and toasted flatbread.” Unique and delicious indeed!

Thank you so much to our winners, all the participants and everyone who voted! Remember, even if you don’t enter the Joust you can still vote for your favorite entry on The Foodie Blogroll Forum!

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This month, here in North America, we celebrate Halloween! So for this month’s Joust, Kat has decided to use the colors of Orange and Black to inspire you for this month’s Joust!

Here are your ingredients:

Orange – Pumpkin (or anything other orange flesh squash, i.e. butternut, acorn, kabocha)
Black – Stout, Porter or other dark colored Beer (if you don’t want to use alcohol, you can substitute in cola)
Sugar

Please post your entries here!

Let the games begin!!!

Well another month is about to start which means that we have some new giveaways to announce this month!!!

Cupcake Provocateur Couture Chef Aprons

I am really excited to announce this month that we are working with Cynthia from Cupcake Provocateur . She is a member of the Foodie Blogroll, and sells her own line of really cute and durable kitchen aprons!  In this picture I am wearing the Perfect Pear Brown design.

Here are some of the staff members of Charm City Cakes (Ace Of Cakes) wearing their Artisan Chef aprons!!!!

So you will be in good company for sure!

I love this line of aprons and you will too! The winner will be able to chose their favorite Artisan Chef apron from her website. To be eligible, please post on The Foodie Blogroll forum which Chef apron you would chose if you were picked as a winner! Then we will choose a random winner from all those who comment.

To see the apron choices, please check out The Cupcake Provocateur

The winner will also receive “Cupcakes in A Jar” — decorative mason jars featuring some of her most popular cupcake flavors made into dry mixes!!!! This contest is available to all of our Foodie Blogroll members! So head on over to the forum today and tell us which apron is your favorite, for a chance to win!

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The Ginger People Halloween Recipe Contest

We have another exciting contest to share with you! Our friends at The Ginger People are back to offer a tasty gift basket of warming ginger treats, perfect for autumn baking to one lucky winner!

Entries due October 31, 2009!

To enter, please share with us, on this forum thread,  a Halloween themed ginger recipe featuring GINGER. One lucky participant will win an awesome 5 lb. Ginger People gift basket. As a bonus just for entering the recipe contest, all entrants will receive 20% off their order of awesome Ginger People products (good through November 15, 2009)!

Please post your Halloween ginger recipes here!

If you aren’t familiar with The Ginger People’s product line, please check out their webpage: TheGingerPeople.com . Their Ginger Snaps are my favorite cookies on the market, and their Ginger Gizer is a triple ginger energy drink. Perfect for keeping the cold, and any upset tummies away. Many more great products on their website! This contest is available for US residents only.

Don’t forget to follow The Ginger People on Twitter @TheGingerPeople!

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Stuffed Nation Giveaway

Don’t forget the Stuffed Nation Giveaway is still going on. Blog about your thoughts on obesity in the US or food policy and you will have a chance to win the book, by Hank Cardello. This is a huge topic that affects everyone, and food bloggers should be one of the many voices heard. We have deep roots in the food community, and with that comes a chance to speak up and be heard! So please participate. If you would like to learn more about this giveaway, please click here.

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Star Extra Virgin Olive Oil Giveaway

We also have Star Olive Oil giving away bottles of Extra Virgin Olive Oil and a recipe book!  For more details about this giveaway, and how you can win a trip to Spain, visit The Foodie Blogroll website!

Last week marked the first day of Autumn for us, in the Northern Hemisphere. The Autumn Equinox, Harvest Home, Mabon, or whatever you like to call it, is officially my favorite day of the year, because it marks my favorite season of the year. Autumn for me is like the beginning of a new year, a re-birth of sorts, a time for inner reflection as we turn inwards while hunkering down for colder weather. There is much to celebrate – cooler temperatures, fireplaces, time with family, cozy evenings sipping hot beverages, snuggling up in blankets and reading stories, beautiful colors, and seasonal fare. I feel like fall foods, are some of the most universally seasonal eating people do – hearty soups and stews, pumpkins and other winter squashes, roasted root vegetables, and fruits like pears and apples figure prominently for most people without even having to think about it. There is something about the crisp air that hearkens to change.

To celebrate the change of seasons, I always like to make a special dinner on that day. So for this equinox I prepared Apple and Swiss Chard Tart. You may remember me making this before, but this time, I prepared my own gluten free crust, using a combination of garbanzo bean, fava bean and rice flours. I also used Cameo apples, one of my favorites. It goes wonderful with a nice slice of sharp cheddar – another ingredient in the pie. We always have the Seriously Sharp Cabot Cheddar in our fridge. It is amazing to eat plain, but also goes great in cooking. It also makes us feel closer to the home in our heart, the state of Vermont.

Because this is such a comforting, yet healthy dish, I wanted to make it in honor of something else, besides just the changing of the guards so to speak. Just like last year, when I baked it for Breast Cancer Awareness. This year I wanted to make it for the O Foods Contest for Ovarian Cancer Awareness. This is its second year running and is done to raise awareness about Ovarian Cancer. The O Foods tradition is in honor of our friend, award-winning pastry chef Gina DePalma,  author of Dolce Italiano: Desserts from the Babbo Kitchen. Gina has been fighting ovarian cancer for the past year and a half, and in addition to physically battling the disease, she has also started the Cowgirl Cure Foundation to raise awareness and money for research as well. She is an amazing woman, and I wish her all the best. She will be judging this years O Foods Contest!!! But since I am posting this on the last day of the contest (and I apologize profusely for that), you can also participate by just donating money to the Cowgirl Cure Foundation.

We raised a toast to Gina and Autumn by sipping some nice and sparkling Italian Prosecco with our tart dinner! If you are looking for some delicious fall flavors, this tart has it all, apples, chard, cheddar and caramelized onions. For the recipe, click here . As for the crust recipe, I adapted it from a recipe on About.com. The flavor was amazing, but the crust did stick to the tart pan. So I would suggest using butter (I used oil) to grease the pan with. If anyone else has other suggestions for greasing tart pans, I would love to hear them!

The Royal Foodie Joust is an awesome and fun monthly peer voted competition that is hosted on The LeftoverQueen/FoodieBlogroll Forum! It gets better each and every month as the competition gets stiffer and more creative, as Jousters try to outdo each other! It is also one of the friendliest competitions I have ever seen. So please don’t be intimidated to come and join us this month in another round!

We don’t bite, unless of course there is real food in our faces

The only rules for the competition is that each Jouster create only one dish and each entry must feature three ingredients in common.

This competition has been referred to many times as the “Iron Chef” of the Food Blogosphere. Each month’s ingredients are chosen by the previous month’s Best Overall Entry winner. The Best Overall winner of each Joust not only wins the Queen’s favor, bragging rights and a cool icon to put on their blog, but is also awarded with a super awesome Royal Foodie Joust Apron! There are also prizes for the winners of the other two categories: Best Photo and Most Unique Interpretation

So what are you waiting for? Come over and join us this month!

If you would like to participate in this month’s Joust, be sure to submit your entry by 12 NOON, Eastern Standard USA time on the First of the following Month (Oct. 1, 2009)!

If you have an idea you would like to share about how to make the Joust a better community event, please join us in discussing it here.

Now onto the winners of this month’s event. The ingredients for this month were chosen by last month’s Best Overall winner, Raquel from Cafe Nilson with her Spicy Banana Zucchini Balls.

She chose, Papaya (ripe or green), Tarragon and Cheese . Many people struggled with these ingredients, but having a challenge sometimes pushes us out of our comfort zone and allows the creativity to begin to flow! This is pretty much the point of the Joust – a fun time expanding our culinary take on different ingredients in a competitive yet friendly environment where doing something different can be very rewarding!

But there can only be one winner in each category, and each month making that call gets harder! Onto those winning entries now!

Our Best Overall and Best Photo Winner is awarded to Natasha from 5 Star Foodie. Natasha is on an incredible foodie mission to eat at all the Michelin 5 Star restaurants in the United States. Her blog features reviews of those restaurants and also recipes that she has been inspired by her 5 Star experiences to create at home! So this girl knows good food, so it is no surprise that her blog is so popular and her recipes so good! Her winning dish was Tarragon Lobster Cakes with Spicy Papaya Queso Blanco Sauce

They sound absolutely delicious – sweet and spicy, and the photo is mouthwatering!

The Winner for Most Unique Interpretation of the Ingredients is awarded to Dhanggit from Dhanggit’s Kitchen .

Her winning dish was Papaya Brioche with Cheese and Farm Eggs Omelette with French Tarragon Bearnaise Sauce

I was impressed with this combination of flavors. I mean who doesn’t love brioche? Adding papaya to it brings it to a whole other level! Then adding the omelette and tarragon bearnaise really makes this dish something very special and unique!

Thanks again to all the participants for another great Joust!

If you would like to see all the entries please check them out here!

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Now for this month’s ingredients. Natasha has set us up with some really beautiful autumn inspired ingredients!

Apples
Cayenne Pepper
Maple Syrup

Now that the foodie blogosphere is coming back from vacations, holidays, and quiet time, I am looking forward to an exciting Joust this month! If you have never participated, now is the time! These are some great ingredients that most people always have on hand, or are readily available! So please come and join us for your chance to win a Royal Foodie Joust Apron or Royal Foodie Joust Mug!

Welcome back everyone! Summer is usually a quiet time in the Foodie Blogosphere with school and family vacations. Much needed time to spend in the outdoors, traveling, relaxing and spending time with loved ones. Usually around the beginning of the school year, bloggers start coming back to make their regular rounds. I know I haven’t been around as much this summer as I normally am. We had my lovely stepdaughters here with us for about a month in June and July, and my brother in law, just left to go back to Italy after being here for about 3 weeks.

But now that our house is empty one again (besides me, Roberto, Pepino and Nimue, that is) we are ready to get back to work! This summer, in between (and during) visits, Roberto has been hard at work on a new (and MUCH improved) version of The Foodie Blogroll website! We have been working on this new version for almost a year, and will hopefully be unveiling the new version soon. It will be a much more interactive website and we are really looking forward to launching it!

To celebrate being back from summer holidays, we are going to be giving away a lot of great stuff this month to Foodie Blogroll members. So if you are not a Foodie Blogroll member yet, what are you waiting for? Come on over and join over 5,000 food bloggers who are already part of our wonderful community! Now for the giveaways!

CUBE ARTISAN:

(photo courtesy of Cube Artisan)

Our first giveaway, I am pleased to announce is from Cube Artisan. Cube Artisan Foods is a line of 100% natural frozen foods inspired by best-selling menu selections at Cube Cafe in Los Angeles.

Each item produced under the Cube Artisan label exemplifies Cube’s goal of offering foods that feed a healthier America. Ingredients are simple and flavorful, and Cube Artisan products never contain any artificial colors, flavors or preservatives. A portion of the profits from Cube Artisan sales goes back to Cube Foundation, the company’s non-profit arm working to create garden-to-table projects for underprivileged youth. Cube Artisan Foods can be purchased nationally at the Cube Marketplace! .

The winners of this giveaway will receive a four-pack of products from Cube Artisan Foods, including their Velvet Tomato Soup, Roasted Kabocha Soup, 4 Cheese Mac & Cheese, and Triple Berry Cobbler.

I promise you, these frozen meals (and dessert!) are phenomenal. When I got my sample pack in the mail we tried the Kabocha soup that day, and it was so good. Now that our company is gone, and we don’t have to share…I can’t wait to dig into the other boxes!

This contest is available to all members of the Foodie Blogroll who live in the United States due to overnight shipping.

THE FRUGAL FOODIE COOKBOOK:

This awesome cookbook that contains 200 gourmet recipes for any budget was written and created by Alanna Kaufman and Alex Small, founders of the popular blog Two Fat Als, who are also members of The Foodie Blogroll! Their cookbook offers you 200 mouthwatering recipes that will please your palate and pocketbook, such as:

* Pomegranate Fig Bites

* Balsamic Grilled Artichokes

* Honey-Thyme Pear & Goat Cheese Sandwiches

* Seared Tuna with Fennel

* Apricot Brandy-Baked French Toast, and more!

Cookbook is complete with tips on how to affordably stock and maintain a frugal pantry, as well as price breakdowns for each serving, this cookbook shows how to eat well—without breaking the bank!

Keep an eye open for The Foodie Blogroll Monthly Newsletter where we will be featuring a few delicious recipes from the cookbook!

This giveaway available to all Foodie Blogroll members!

STUFFED: An Insider’s Look at Who’s (Really) Making America Fat:

Our Stuffed Nation Giveaway, in conjunction with author and former former food executive turned anti-obesity exponent, Hank Cardello, will be starting next week, on September 11, 2009 and will be running for 8 weeks. I will be discussing this giveaway in greater detail next week. This is going to be a much more interactive giveaway where bloggers are encouraged to discuss their views on food policy and the obesity problem. This is a way to get people talking about the very important issue of escalating obesity and diabetes (as well as other health related concerns). As two-thirds of Americans struggle with being overweight or obese, nothing has worked to take off the pounds. Diet plans, Food Pyramid Guidelines, package nutritional labeling, and five-a-day fruit & vegetable programs have all failed to arrest America’s increasing girth. Hank offer’s solutions in his book, but we want to hear your thoughts and ideas as well! Stay tuned for more information on that.

FOODIE BLOGROLL TOTEBAG:

We are also still featuring our awesome Foodie Blogroll Totebag for one more month!!!! Take it to the grocery store with you, on a picnic, or a super oversized purse! LOL! Totebag is 100% cotton canvas and have plenty of room to carry everything you need when you are on the go. They include a bottom gusset and extra long handles for easy carrying.

* 10 oz heavyweight natural canvas fabric

* Full side and bottom gusset

* 22″ reinforced self-fabric handles

* Machine washable

Again, this giveaway is available to all of our members!

The Royal Foodie Joust is an awesome and fun monthly peer voted competition that is hosted on The LeftoverQueen/FoodieBlogroll Forum! It gets better each and every month as the competition gets stiffer and more creative, as Jousters try to outdo each other! It is also one of the friendliest competitions I have ever seen. So please don’t be intimidated to come and join us this month in another round!

We don’t bite, unless of course there is real food in our faces

The only rules for the competition is that each Jouster create only one dish and each entry must feature three ingredients in common.

This competition has been referred to many times as the “Iron Chef” of the Food Blogosphere. Each month’s ingredients are chosen by the previous month’s Best Overall Entry winner. The Best Overall winner of each Joust not only wins the Queen’s favor, bragging rights and a cool icon to put on their blog, but is also awarded with a super awesome Royal Foodie Joust Apron! There are also prizes for the winners of the other two categories: Best Photo and Most Unique Interpretation

So what are you waiting for? Come over and join us this month!

If you would like to participate in this month’s Joust, be sure to submit your entry by 12 NOON, Eastern Standard USA time on the First of the following Month (Sept. 1, 2009)!

If you have an idea you would like to share about how to make the Joust a better community event, please join us in discussing it here.

Now onto the winners of this month’s event. The ingredients for this month were chosen by last month’s Best Overall winner, Betherann from Kitchen Courage who has been a regular Jouster for quite some time, and is currently training for her first trialthalon! The ingredients she chose were Banana, Honey and Tumeric. These ingredients were a little on the exotic side for some Jousters, but isn’t that what the Joust is all about, getting creative? What better way to get creative then by working with some new ingredients and combinations?! As a result, we had a lot of very interesting entries! But there can only be one winner in each category, and each month making that call gets harder! Onto those winning entries now!

The winner in the Best Overall Category is Raquel from Cafe Nilson with her Spicy Banana Zucchini Balls.

I am happy to admit that she got my vote! I thought that her creative use of ingredients, to make something that would be really delicious and original was spot on. Congratulations Raquel! I hope you enjoy your apron!

The next category was for The Best Photo! As we all know food photography is a major skill for food bloggers, and so in this category your photo has to be good enough to eat. In this case, it was decided that the entry that most fit that category is Sweet Banana Curry Shrimp by LK from Healthy.Delicious.

Her multi-layered dish really looked good! Perfect for fresh summer eating!

The final Joust category to be voted on is Most Unique Interpretation of the ingredients. This is where people can really get in touch with wild creativity and try something new. Rob aka gfron1 from The Curious Blogquat won this category with a Pacific Martini.

If you have never visited The Curious Blogquat, I will tell you that it features a lot of interesting food ideas and techniques, inspired by molecular gastronomy. So you can guess that this recipe was rather intricate, indeed, and a wonderful summer cocktail!

Thanks again to all the participants for another great Joust!

If you would like to see all the entries please check them out here!

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Now for this month’s ingredients. Racquel has chosen another set of really interesting ingredients:

Papaya (ripe or green)
Tarragon
Cheese

I know these ingredients may be a challenge for some of you, put I do suggest to take this as an opportunity to really take your cooking skills to another level  and just have FUN! So please join us here !

My blogging buddy, Siri from Transplanted Baker hosted an exchange program a few months back. The purpose was to share your regional farmers market finds with someone from a different part of the country, or the world!

As any reader of my blog knows, I am a HUGE fan and customer of my local farmer’s market on Anastasia Island, here in Saint Augustine, Florida. But I also love reading about other bloggers’ farmers markets on blogs throughout the world! I think that farmers markets offer such a unique variety of products that you can’t even find in your local grocery store – made by local people, using local ingredients. You can learn a lot about a place from what is grown and produced there, and farmers markets are a great way to find out more about any area!

My exchange buddy was none other that Siri herself! This excited me greatly because I used to live in Norway and I always love getting goodies from Norway that remind me of my time there.

Sometime last week a lovely package with international stamps arrived at my doorstep (I now have a doorstep since moving from the condo!!). Inside was a cute purple box with green tissue paper – and inside were lots of lovely treats!

I got 2 different chocolate bars from Freia – the biggest chocolate company in Norway. Their slogan is “Et lite stykke Norge“, which translates to “A little bit of Norway”. The first variety, and most famous, in the cheery yellow wrapper, is Melkesjokolade, or milk chocolate, and the one in the blue wrapper is Firkløver, a milk chocolate bar with chopped hazelnuts! I can’t wait to eat these!

The next two things in the box that I recognized were two packages – Bergensk Fiskesuppe, Bergen Fish Soup and Raspeballer, or Potetball which are Norwegian potato balls. The soup I have never had before, because Bergen is on the west coast of Norway and I lived in the central part of Norway. However, anyone who knows anything about Norwegian food, knows about fish stews and soups. Generally creamy concoctions with a variety of seafood. YUM. Siri suggests that I cook it with some shrimp or mussels. Local Florida shrimp, here I come!

The Raspeballer are sometimes served with a piece of smoked meat in the inside. But they are often served just as balls of potatoes, sometimes fried, sometimes simmered in broth – all ways delicious! Norwegian comfort food at its best!

Then there were a few products that I did not know about. These were made by local producers close to Siri’s hometown of Førde. The first is Borgny’s Rose Gele, which is rose jam. I am very much looking forward to trying this, as I have never had a chance to try it in the past…anyone have good suggestions for what to eat it on?

Next was another product from the same herb farm that made the rose jam, and it is a mix of beautiful dried herbs – Applemint, Bee Balm and a few others I wasn’t able to translate – Siri, can you help me out with “Temyn” and Ryllik?

Anyway, the mixture smelled so good when I opened the bag that I actually just ate some straight from the bag! But I am pretty sure it is meant to be brewed into tea!

Siri also sent me a few post cards – one of the town of Førde where you can actually see her house! and also of a painting of birch trees (how did she know those were my favorite!) by a very well known painter from Sunnfjord named Nikolai Astrup (1880- 1928). The trees are from his small farm that overlooks a lake. He kept this farm as a way to create traditional and picturesque fodder for his paintings. The farm is now run by a historical society that uses it as a museum to display his work.

Anyway, I really want to thank Siri for all of these thoughtful gifts and would love to exchange again with you in the future! Thanks for putting this together!