Ever since I've worked in a "normal" office with normal office hours in Norway, I've noticed some things are different from Singapore. For example, lunch hour in Norway is not exactly an hour - it's half an hour. That's because Norwegians prefer to finish the day early and fast so that they can get home early, relax or enjoy the summer sunshine before it's gone for the day. Full-time work in Norway is a strange 37.5 hours, unlike most countries where it's 40 hours per week. So it turns out, a lot of Norwegians begin their day early and have their dinner at home at 4 pm or 5 pm, something almost unheard of in Singapore, and certainly not in Spain, where most working people get home at 8pm or 9pm.
Time for lunch is "normal" enough at 12pm. Lunch is called "lunsj" in Norwegian, with the same pronunciation. Which incidentally brings me to the strange fact that Norwegians call their dinner "middag" which means "midday" and "ettermiddag" for afternoon, so in Norway "ettermiddag" comes before "middag". Strange, huh? I haven't figured that one out yet.
Unlike Singapore, where food is cheap (yes, I know Singaporeans complain all the time that food prices always go up, but wait till you see the prices on food menus here, my friends!), Norway is horrendously expensive to eat out everyday. So what companies offer as a benefit or part of the package deal for the employee, is a canteen with subsidised or free food, or office lunches in the pantries of smaller companies. Of course, employees still contribute a small sum of money per week to office lunches, but as I was earning puny money as an intern, I get to eat for free.
Office lunches in Norwegian offices can be a rather monotonous affair, but they do try to spice it up every Wednesday and/or Friday. Norwegian lunches are usually simple and not served hot. Most offices I've been to for lunch, serves bread with a variety of spreads, "pålegg" (which means something to have on top), and fruit. Juices, milk, tea and coffee accompany the food, as most (western?) Norwegian people like to have coffee or tea after their meals.
A typical Norwegian lunch with brown cheese
My office serves the usual but there was a brief period of time when yours truly added spice in their lives. We were in a temporary office for 3 months where there was a stove and an oven, and we could work wonders - pizza, thai phad thai noodles, pasta salad, risotto, scrambled eggs - you name it, we make it. I say "we" because when I first came, there was another female intern in the office from Finland who is preppy, funny and has a British accent. She was the one who urged me to cook outside the lunch box, within a time limit of 30 minutes. That was when I saw the benefits of frozen broccoli, fast-to-cook pasta and rice, and ready-to-eat chicken salad.
I've come to realize that frozen vegetables are usually pre-cooked half-way and all you need to do is to dump boiling hot water into a bowl, throw them in and voila! Cooked broccoli in 5 minutes! Very useful when you have tomatoes, onions, cucumbers, paprika to cut up otherwise, while watching the pasta boil in another 5 minutes. My Finnish cooking-comrade (FCC for short) used to almost exclusively cook most lunches, even though according to our company's rules - there is a "chef roster" that rotates among the colleagues per week. I think she just likes to take care of food for everyone and somehow all the could-be chefs got lazy and relied on her.
Maybe the men are just waiting for a woman to serve them! hah.
I don't know why but after I started my first try at cooking thai curry noodles for lunch, I seemed to get special requests every time lunch comes around. Usually they are quite subtle... they start by discussing something special that they would like to have at around 10am. Then they ask very nicely, "Har du lyst til å lager mat?" (Have you lust to make food?)
Usually because I love cooking and feeding people, I wouldn't say no. But I do remember one day being so tired that I said very succinctly, "Jeg har ikke lyst til å lager mat". I remember how disappointed the girls looked though. I guess sometimes a girl's going to have to take care of herself first before others!
My challenge during such "Asian" lunches is how to shorten the preparation time and cooking time to just 30 minutes. With lots of stress and sweat, of course. It helped that my FCC is a superwoman when it comes to speed of chopping, slicing and peeling, because she turned out to be my sous chef on more than one occasion. I loved frying the garlic and onions while preparing the meal, but at the same time, I had to be conscious to not be too near the food and air out the kitchen while cooking. That's not easy because when I opened the window during winter, -15 degrees celsius air swooped into the kitchen.
The reason I had to be conscious about how I smell is because the first few times I cooked, I remember going to my Norwegian language class after work and feeling apologetic to my neighbouring classmates that I stink/smell like fried garlic.
I really had no desire being remembered as the "garlic girl".
So anyway, my green and red thai curry noodles was a big hit. So were my stir-fried tofu with grill spices and spring onions. A few times I recall getting compliments on my cheese, mushroom and onion omelette too. There were a few times when I was the sous chef and helped my FCC with her famous pesto pasta with sun-dried tomatoes, feta cheese, olives and cherry tomatoes. That was really good because it lasts for two days in the fridge.
Thai red curry
The last time I remember cooking an Asian lunch for my colleagues is an adventurous phad thai noodle. It's challenging because I've never cooked it before, and I have to do it within 30 minutes. My kitchen was also appliance-challenged, because all we had are two pots - on a magnetic induction cooktop. With an induction cooktop, I have difficulty lifting my pot and flipping my noodles, omelette etc up like a normal Chinese chef does, because induction works by contact - no contact, no heat. It didn't help that we didn't have a saucepan and proper frying ladle too, so I was working with limited tools.
But at the end of the lunch, somehow even my most amateurish attempt was praised. I think Norwegians are just much more appreciative towards a sincere effort.
Those were the days, my friend - I thought they would never end. But they did. I have just left this job as my contract ended and before that, I was preparing "normal lunches" again because we moved to an office with no stove or oven. So I tried to be creative - buy the meats that my colleagues liked to eat, broccoli salad (just additional hot water, pine nuts, raisins needed), avocado as a "pålegg", different cheeses, fruits, lemons, smoked salmon etc. Somehow I think I had gained a reputation of making good lunches, which is a nice reputation to have.... just because I like to feed people well. I remember my colleagues tried to name who is a "feeder" and who's an "eater" in our company, and I was a feeder like my Finnish cooking-comrade!
I'm going to miss those guys, but probably not the lunches, because it gets monotonous for a vegetarian like me. It's hard to get vegetarian "pålegg" in normal supermarkets so I had to stick to vegetables and cheese all the time. Most pålegg for Norwegians mean boiled egg, liver pate, ham, kaviar, some canned fish, cheese and chocolate spreads, especially Nugatti. I don't like the chocolate spreads and seldom take egg, so I get limited options.
Nugatti Air - a airy favourite for the boys
Well, that's that. I'm going back to Singapore for two weeks this coming Saturday, so I'm looking forward to a gastronomical party! Rojak, laksa, rice dumplings (all vegetarian of course), here I come!
:P' ' '
pixy
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