The weird world of Jack

2012-10-21T18:45:00.000+02:00

Today I made a new video of one of my coreos,

and I thought I should share it with you guys :)

New Core - Miss Fatty

2012-06-22T17:22:00.000+02:00

New coreo, kind of energetic one ;-)

Dragoon guarding my home

2012-06-20T10:10:00.002+02:00

Dragon the Dragon guarding my humble home

And here is my "house Dragon" Dragoon standing guard outside the entrance to my humble home.... I love this dude, ain't he just the cutest dragon ever? :)

The entrance to my house

And here you can see BOTH of my dragoons, even the white fury one :)

My two Dragons

(The white house in the background is my neighbors totally neglected cabin, and the wall I'm building will at least keep that ugly piece of property out of sight)

2012-06-19T12:33:00.003+02:00

These days my breakfast always consist of these components:

1 deciliter ecological milk

50 grams of ecological oatmeal

and some sugar

A total of 208 kcal

One of my Zumba choreos

2012-06-10T16:47:00.004+02:00

Be aware of the pig next door.....

One of my Zumba choreos

2012-06-03T17:56:00.003+02:00

Zumba - Ai Se Eu Te Pego with Jack the Viking

The sea of gold

2012-04-12T14:15:00.004+02:00

Helle, Tip of Lofoten winter 2012

Back from almost a fortnight in Lofoten... The fishing was plain incredible, there is almost like a carpet of cod on the seafloor. And it is normal to pick up from 400 to 800 kilos with cod each day....'

A bloody mess

Jack, Easter 2012

Reinefjorden Lofoten winter 2012

And the amount you get paid for, lets say 600 kilos of cod/a days catch at the fish processing plant is roughly 1700 dollars. Not bad at all....

But when we talk about money... The real money is in the Kingcrab catch in august outside Finnmark at the northern tip of Norway... The Kingcrab is paid 13-14 dollars a kilo... That IS a lot of gold coins when you know that there is insane amount of that particular crab on the ocean floor around August

Sørvågen, Lofoten-Norway

Healty food :)

2012-04-03T11:28:00.005+02:00

The last few weeks I have tried to follow a more healthier path when it comes to eating... And actually I'm kind of satisfied with my efforts so far..... The main focus has been on avoiding "white" carbs, and have a focus on pure ingredients...

Pepper beef with veggies and cauliflower stew

This meal is not many calories either.... But both healthy and more than tasty. Beef with onion and some veggies. And as "fill" I made cauliflower stew. Approximately 413 kcal.

Homemade Maki

And the other day I made myself a bunch of Maki rolls containing tuna and cucumber + some spicy chili sous. Delicious :)

Salmon and cauliflower stew lunch

And here is yesterdays lunch, cauliflower stew, veggies and fried Salmon...

And the result

2012-03-24T22:06:00.004+01:00

After a few hours.... Four Gunkanmaki got created by my humble hands...

Rice and seaweed with a stumix of Salmon, Chilisaus and Majones

Ready for Sushi

2012-03-24T18:50:00.004+01:00

I have just bought a LOT of sushi "stuff".... Who in their wildest dreams new that there were so many small and strange (and quite expensive) ingredients in Sushi...

And among the ingredients are:

Sushi rice (Not the common one)
Sushi Nori (Seaweed)
Wasabi Paste (The strong green stuff)
Gari (Ginger)
Goma (Sesame seeds)
Chilisous
Sake (You know what that is ;)
A special rice wine
A fruity white wine who works good to fish
Carrots
Avocado
A mild cheese (Philadelphia)
Egg
Majones
Salmon
Tuna
Scampi
Scallops
Fresh Asparagus

And finally a bamboo mat for making the Maki and some chopsticks

And I also invested in the "Easy home Sushi" book by Paul Løwe... And the book was actually very helpful and get you quite easy into the many mysteries of howe to make raw fish both tasty and delicious.

Walking the Great Wall of China

2012-03-17T11:30:00.005+01:00

I have always thought of walking the Great Wall of China as both a challenge and a wonderful adventure. And some day! I might even walk it. But when I started to do a little investigation into this "may happen" future adventure of my, I was in for a big surprise.

The Great Wall of China is not "a long regular wall" It is in fact lots of walls spread around the country, and some of the bit's are in fact as far apart as Northern Korea, Russia and Mongolia.

Map of the Great Wall of China

As you can see on the above map, large bit's are spread out over quite a bit of land. And the total mileage of all the parts of the wall is an incredibly 8 851,8 kilometer long... That is almost insane to think of, and it is also the largest human made building on the earth.

This picture is taken in 1907

The building started in 200 BC by the first emperor of the hole of China, Shi Huangdi, and the last parts where finished as late as in the early parts of the 1600 century. And contra to a popular myth, it is NOT possible to see the wall from the moon, it just to narrow...

A restored part of the Great Wall near Beijing

Zumba specialities

2012-03-11T19:31:00.005+01:00

Just a little proud and happy to finally have gotten all the Zumba specialities except the new Sentao... But even though I have taken the courses, it's a long long long way to go to also master them all... But sometime in the future, who knows? :)

Draagon the Dragon

2012-03-08T10:33:00.007+01:00

After a long flight and customs officers who repeatedly put Draagon the Dragon back and forth trough a X-Ray machine for about 15 minutes at the Trondheim airport, I finally got my new Dragon back to my home. For now he's spending his days in my living room, but I will find a place for him (yes, it is a he) somewhere in my garden when spring/summer arrives.

Draagon the Dragon

Hi weigh 15,2 kilos and is about the size of a big cat, and rather cute, right ;)

And by the way... Some of these old and small town houses up in the Peak is just fabulous.... Take a quick look at some of these marvelous houses and places...

Villa in Bradwell

Town Center Recreational Park

A beautiful entrance

Bradwell Methodist Church

Northern-England March 2012

2012-03-04T18:50:00.003+01:00


Jack Morten

The Peak Castle

2012-03-04T18:43:00.009+01:00

Peak Castle, Castletown, about 1100 AD

This is a model of how the layouts of the castle was around 900 years ago. It had steep hills on all sides and was probably more or less impossible to conquer without a long siege ahead of taking the castle itself.


Peak Castle 2012

This is what it looks like now


Peak Castle 1106 AD

And this is what it probably looked like when it was new


Peak Castle, the main building 2012

Garden Dragons

2012-03-02T10:49:00.004+01:00

This days I'm in Peak District National Park in Northern England, and I am using some of this days to visit gardens centers to get inspired and to by one or several dragons for my garden at home in Norway. Take a look at some of the dragons I have been looking at :)

Since my wall around the entrance of my house is starting to come along quite well, I really do think that some dragons behind rusted iron spikes, situated in small cells/rooms in the wall would look pretty cool and amazing....

Zumba Instructor Conference London 2012

2012-02-27T14:09:00.008+01:00

As usually with Zumba there is a lot of fun and dancing, and the London conference did not fail to live up to its expectations this time either.

Jam sessions, Salsa and Merengue mash-up and a lot other nice things one truely must love. And beside, finally I got around to take my Zumba Gold license, something I should have done a loooong time ago...

And for a few days I will let my body rest and spend some time with my wonderfull son who is running around screaming dady, dady, dady all day long :)

Back in Trondheim

2012-02-22T14:27:00.005+01:00

Finally I'm back in Trondheim. It has been more than three long months away. And I have really missed my house and everything else about being at home.

The cat was indeed VERY angry with me when I arrived home, and it used at least a couple of days to forgive me for being away this long. But now we are good friends again :)

But we did share a good meal, he actually loves human food and especially dishes with tomato sous in it like the dinner I made yesterday. That was Swedish meatballs with home made potato stew and a milky tomato sous.

This weekend however I will attend the Zumba instructor Conference in London for some dancing, and learning the Zumba Gold speciality, and won't that be great :)

Masterclass in Sweden

2011-10-30T14:57:00.005+01:00

Then I am almost ready to do 30 minutes of a Zumba Masterclass i the Swedish City of Uddevalla.... They have a montly happening called "The monthly Carrot" where members who participate can win some nice prices...


Click on the Carrot!

Anyway, I will mostley do my own coreos since they usually are more popular then the Zumba Originals. And as usal with everything around Zumba, it will probably be a lot of fun :)

Orchids

2011-10-27T09:45:00.001+02:00

Some year now I have had several Orchids in my living room, and finally after all these years one of them did another blooming.... Both beautiful and magnificent at the same time...

Coffe

2011-10-16T08:58:00.005+02:00

Some three years ago my girlfriend of that time took me to a Starbucks Coffee Shop in Prag, and that was the first time I tasted Starbucks Coffee. At that time I did not think it was anything special about it, and in fact I kind of dislike most big American food chains like McDonald's, Burger King etc because they are not concerned by health, but only by profit and by that reason alone I frequent those establishements rather rarely.... But that's another story...

My morning ice coffee

Anyway... Starbucks do not proclaim anything else than that their coffee is quite good and actually IT IS, expensive but good. In Norway my "daily morning ice coffee" cost exactly 4 dollars...

FOUR DOLLARS

anyone claiming that Norway is expensive? They are quite right....

Attending a Salsa beginners course

2011-10-14T17:15:00.004+02:00

Well, then I have finally paid the intuition for a beginners course in Salsa starting the 25 of October. Personally I think I will benefit from it in several levels, both socially (a lot of nice and fun people dance) and professionally, in the way that I get to learn more of the "real" Salsa and not just the "ZumbaSalsa"

Anyway... As I have written earlier in the blog, I will attend the Warsaw Salsa and Zumba festival in November so I guess it will prove weather the course in Norway was "Money well spent" :)

From Wikipedia:

Salsa dance movements originate from the Cuban Son dancing of the 1930s more specifically through the beat of Son Montuno with strong influences from the dance of Danzon, Mambo, Guaguanco and other Afro-Cuban folkloric dancing.

Today there are many various styles of salsa dancing because of geographical dispersion and cultural syncretism. The most well-known styles are Cali-style (from Colombia), Cuban-style ("Casino"), LA-style, New York-style, Puerto Rican-style.

Salsa is typically a partner dance, although there are recognized solo forms (Floor Shines/ Shines), line dancing (suelta), and Rueda de Casino, where groups of couples exchange partners in a circle. Salsa can be improvised or performed with a set routine, choreography and freestyle.

Fishballs

2011-10-13T19:24:00.016+02:00

The plain dish... In perfect harmony between white and yellow


The best brand, Vesteraalen

Fishballs is my favorite dish in the world.... I just love it, and yesterday I made the dish when I got home from work.

And the dish consist mostly of balls made from fish, milk, potato starch and salt. Add some potatoes and of course a thick white sous.... And the evening is perfect, just perfect :)

You could make the balls yourself, but I prefere to by the very good quality balls from Vesteraalen, but here is the recipies if you want the challenge of making them yourself, but remember the "Thick homemade white sous is the best" and it will only take you 4-6 minuttes to make the sous.

Preparation: (If you make the balls yourself)
Remove bones and skin.
Cut into strips.
Rinse and dry with paper towels.
Sprinkle with salt and grind in
food processor until you have
a firm consistency.
Sparate eggs (retain egg whites)
Add yolks, cream, milk and
cornstarch intermittently.
Hand whip egg whites.
Add to mixture with the white pepper

A nice variation with brocoli and curry sous

Bring water to boil in a wide pot and reduce to medium heat.

Place 1 tablespoon mixture into pot for 5 minutes to test if you need more salt and pepper. For larger size nuggets/boller, use a larger spoon for forming. Cook for 10 minutes. Will freeze well. I usually freeze them in some of the fish stock I cooked them in and use that stock to make a cream sauce.

If you want a real quick meal, open a can of Norwegian Fiskeboller and make a white sauce.

Serving curry sauce or plain cream sauce with shrimp and colorful vegetables makes this a very appetizing and tasty dinner.

Ingredients:
1 lb haddock fillet
Shrimp (optional)
1 scant cup (2 deciliter)
half and half cream
1 scant cup milk
2 eggs
1 tablespoon cornstarch
1-teaspoon salt
1/8-teaspoon white pepper

Woow :D

2011-10-12T09:57:00.002+02:00

Since I'm a dude.... This is just pure happines to look at...
(Click the link below)

Spartacus Vengance Trailer

One incredibly sexy dance video...

2011-10-12T08:34:00.003+02:00

I just love this video it's just amazing,

I truly wish I was able to dance as good as this....