St. Anne's Catholic Church

     St. Anne's is a parish church. Picture as seen from my window.

St. Anne's Catholic Church, rue de Tolbiac

     Construction begun 1894, finished 1912. Architect: Prosper Bobin (1844-1923). Style: Romano-Byzantine. The façade is called the "chocolate façade" because the money for its completion was provided by the Lombart family, who were chocolate makers. Due to the fact that an embankment of the former Bièvre River lies beneath the church, it had to be built on 71 stilts, reaching bedrock at a depth of from 16 to 22 meters.

Sankt Hans---a pretext for more gammeldagsmat

     The longest day of the year is Sankt Hans, otherwise known as Midsummer's Day (June 24). There are still many people who build bonfires on the evening of June 23, which is traditional. At the Heggstads, we celebrated with more gammeldagsmat including a dish that I had never had before: potete båller.

From top clockwise: mørpølse (two kinds), kålrabistappe (mashed rutabaga), boiled potatoes, bacon, and pinnekjøtt (rack of lamb cured in brine, etc.). Potete båll in the center. It's made mainly of potatoes and barley flour with a little piece of mørpølse (a kind of sausage cured in salt). Not pictured: a glass of buttermilk. Prepared by Johanne Heggstad.

Happy eaters of potete båller. From left: Ragnhild, Kenneth, Cornelia, Camilla, Asbjørn, and Annette.

Ålesund---miscellaneous photos

Camilla, Malene, Kenneth Holstad

Asbjørn, Nikolai, Sjarlotte, Annette Heggstad

Downtown Ålesund from Fjellstua. Ålesund is a very photogenic city.

Ålesund Football Club (AaFK) vs. Stavanger Vikings. Ålesund won 2-1.

Queen Mary II in Ellingsøyfjord

Sjarlotte Heggstad in cherry tree

Vidar and Elisabet Heggstad's modern style house in the midsummer night

With Heggstad Family, 1990

Sankt Hans bål

     Traditionally on June 23, the eve of St. John's Day (Midsummer Day), you have bonfires in many countries. Here in Ålesund, a pile of freight palettes, cleverly nailed together, forms the combustible material for a special bonfire.

Nearing completion several days before ignition

The fire is built on a small island in the fjord. In addition to the viewers on shore, the island is ringed by small boats.

Gammeldagsmat in Christiansund

    After a hard day of explaining the various features of the passive house, Kjell, Frank and I visit Smia (literally "The smithy"), a historical building that's been turned into a restaurant. Their specialty is klippfisk, a traditional food of Møre.

Smia in Christiansund

     Strictly speaking, I don't know if this particular dish is gammeldagsmat, but the main ingredient is klippfisk---dried, salted cod (also known as bacalao in Spanish and morue in French) that's been reconstituted and desalinated. Cod are fished off the coast of Norway, and Christiansund has always had a substantial cod fishing industry. Though the export of salted, dried cod only goes back a few hundred years, the preservation method is much older. My ration was served with carrots, rutabaga, bacon and a blue mussel. Seemed like typical Norwegian food to me.
     A glass of Dahl's pilsener was a suitable accompaniment.
     The menu featured various other dishes made from klippfisk, including bacalao.
   

Museum exhibit showing a traditional method of making klippfisk. There was a sign in English and German, saying "Please don't touch" and a sign in Norwegian saying "Please don't touch or taste."

     Next morning, we partook of the usual brobdingnagian hotel koldtbord. Two features of note were gravlaks med sennepsaus (corned salmon with mustard sauce) and pickled herring in sour cream.

Round 1 at the koldtbord

The Passive House

     I met Cousin Kjell in Christiansund to see a passive house. What is a passive house? "The limit for energy consumption in a passive house is 15 kWh/m2 per year. A passive house is a construction form where the energy consumption is minimised as much as possible via passive initiatives."
     Kjell's company (http://www.grunnmur.no/) provided the foundation. They are probably one of the few foundation subcontractors who could do this because their unique polyurethane/concrete product is designed so as not to lose any heat to the ground.
   

The wall insulation looks thick enough.

The house has two floors.

Solar panels heat water which is pumped through the floor of the house.

A large part of the top floor is deck.

All of the utilities are found in one small room on the ground floor.

The house has such modern features as control of household appliances from your smart phone.

The continuing saga of gammeldagsmat

Clockwise from top: kjøttkaker med brunsaus (meatballs with gravy), tyttebærsylte (lingonberry jam), steamed cauliflower and carrots, ertestuing (mashed? dried peas), boiled potatoes, by Johanne Heggstad.

Lingonberry (Vaccinium vitis-idaea; Norw. tyttebær) grows wild in the mountains in Norway. They won't be ready to pick until late summer.

Johanne makes svele on her flatbread griddle

Svele probably looks like a pancake to you Americans out there, but actually American pancakes, Norwegian sveler, and Norwegian pannekaker are three different things. Here I haven't been able to resist smearing sour cream and strawberry jam on my svele. Sveler were originally a regional specialty of this area of Norway (Sunnmøre).

Gooseberry wine made by my second cousin, Asbjørn Heggstad. Asbjørn is no longer with us, but he left behind this excellent wine, among many other things.