Norwegianne.net

Category: Other bits

  • Crown Princess Mary’s visit to Afghanistan

    Following in the footsteps of her husband, who visited Afghanistan and the Danish soldiers there last autumn, Crown Princess Mary was on a secret two-day visit to the country. She landed back in Denmark this morning, after visiting the Danish camps in Afghanistan. She was accompanied by the Danish minister of Defence, Søren Gade, as well as the chair of the Danish parliament, Thor Pedersen.

    They arrived in the Danish Camp Armadillo on Sunday, and moved on to Camp Price where they spent the night. The Crown Princess was shown how the Danish soldiers operate and live, and she met with the mayor from the local town, Gereshk. The group relocated to Camp Bastion on Monday, where briefings on the situation in Afghanistan were given, and a tour of the facilities was given.

    The trip ended in Kandahar, with a visit to the American field hospital and meeting the Danish personnel serving there.

    According to the Danish Ministry of Defence, about 750 Danish soldiers are serving in Afghanistan.

  • Seeking a team to support…

    During the state visit to South Africa last week, King Harald, who is known to be an avid watcher of football, was asked which team he would support in the upcoming World Cup. The World cup will take place in South Africa next summer, and the logical choice for the King – Norway – did not manage to qualify for it.

    “That is a good question,” the King replied before he concluded that he had not yet thought about it.

    The king also clarified that he would be watching the championships from home and not make another journey to South Africa.

    The latter will make for easier travel time to Stockholm to the wedding of his goddaughter, Victoria, which takes place around the same time as the group matches are played.

  • Norwegian cooking: Sitronfromasj

    Or, lemon mousse in English, of which there seems to be oodles of recipes on the internet.

    I think the first time I really made this dessert, was back in home ec. in seventh grade. I remember it, because the other dish my group had to prepare, boiled fish of some sort, ended up being inedible, and so it was really pure luck that the lemon mousse turned out splendidly.

    This time around, many things seemed to go wrong, and it did not turn out perfectly in consistency – the mousse refused to set properly. But as it tasted absolutely delicious, and tart, I’m still sharing 🙂

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  • Märtha Louise’s patronages

    Princess Märtha Louise decided to give up her HRH style, and her funding from the state, and focus on her career in entertainment in 2002. A few years after that, during a reorganization of the different patronages of the Norwegian royal family, the court also found that with a career of her own in entertainment, there would be a conflict of interest for her to continue her patronages with cultural organizations.

    Instead they devised a health angle to her patronages, focusing on the organizations for the blind, the deaf, people with rheumatism, people with epilepsy, people with muscle diseases as well as the Norwegian branch of the Special Olympics.

    Today Märtha Louise’s patronages are:

    Norges Døveforbund

    Foreningen for Muskelsyke

    Norsk Epilepsiforbund

    Norsk Revmatikerforbund

    Norges Blindeforbund

    Special Olympics Norge

    Märtha Louise will be taking the time out of her publicity rounds for her newest book on Angels (which just was printed in 10,000 additional copies, bringing the total so far to 31,000) to meet with all the organizations she is the patron for at the Palace today.

  • Healthy Cooking: Carrot patties

    After really binging this weekend (why, oh, why?) I felt the need for something healthy for dinner today. I landed on carrot patties – made from the same principle as hamburger patties, I guess, but without meat.

    If you have a food processor, this is not a time-consuming recipe. If not, like me, you’re going to be spending some time shredding the carrots and potatoes.

    Carrot patties (gives about 6-7 patties)

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  • Marie to become protector of UNESCO Denmark

    I have to admit that I already thought this was a done deal back in March, when she had her first engagement with UNESCO Denmark, but on the coming Tuesday, Princess Marie will be presented as the royal protector of the organization.

    In the months since the first engagement at the National Museum, Princess Marie has attended meetings with the organization to learn more about the way it is run, as well as participating in an UNESCO conference on school environment projects last month.

    The latter seems to reflect that while being a protector is, by and large, being a figure head – some knowledge about the organization and how it operates may also be required.

    UNESCO Denmark will be Marie’s third protectorate. In addition to her protectorates, the Princess will also be collaborating with the University of Southern Denmark – however, this role has not been quite defined as of yet.

  • Norwegian cooking: Pearl Porridge

    Growing up, I always loved going to my grandmother’s to eat. Not just the Sunday steak, where dinner was followed by dessert, which in turn was followed by coffee and cakes, but also for some of the more everyday meals. One of those meals was sago porridge, or pearl porridge as we used to call it.

    According to Wikipedia, an ever reliable source, I know, the sago is “a starch extracted from the pith of sago palm stems, Metroxylon sagu.” It is a small, round grain, looking like a pearl, that apparently can be substituted for tapioca pearls.

    This weekend, my sister and I decided to see if the porridge was as tasty as what we could remember from what we were younger, or if we just were idolizing the memories.
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  • Church and football

    The Norwegian football cup finals were played today, and King Harald is usually present at Ullevål to hand out the trophy to the winners. However, he had another task today. As head of the Norwegian church, he was present at the inauguration of the new bishop, Erling Pettersen, in Stavanger today.

    This meant that someone had to act as replacements at the Cup finals between Molde and Aalesund. Those someones ended up being the Crown Prince and the Crown Princess, who brought their two youngest children to watch the match.  Aalesund won, and Princess Ingrid Alexandra got to help her father hand out the player trophies to both the winners as well as the losing team.

  • Denmark: Regent vs. Chancellor of the Realm

    Currently, there is a Danish State Visit to Vietnam going on. This involves both the Queen and the Crown Prince – which means that according to Danish law, someone has to be home in Denmark to mind the store, so to speak. This time around, Prince Joachim was the fortunate one.

    The purpose of this is that there should always be someone in Denmark who can “lead the government.” These days the government can probably lead itself, but these are the kind of formalities that monarchies run on. Come to think of it, this is the kind of formality that governments in general run on.

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