It is amusing being a foreigner!

There is a typical Norwegian fall dinner dish I always get a craving for when the outside temperature starts to drop and the mornings are growing darker.  It is a simple casserole made of cabbage and lamb called Fårikål, which literally means "sheep in cabbage", and the secret is to cook it long enough for the meat to fall apart and the cabbage to taste like lamb.

Today I decided to make Fårikål, and since Turkey has lots of delicious lamb, and cabbage season is here, I thought it would be an easy task.  I walked up the hill to the local butcher and thought I could point, smile and pay like I usually do - but today was different.  The butcher's glass counter didn't have any meat displayed that looked like what I was looking for, so I used my limited vocabulary and asked for lamb's meat.  At which, he opened his big refrigerator and took out a whole carcass of lamb.  When you buy meat for Fårikål in Norway, you just ask for 'Fårikål-meat', so when the butcher asked me what part of the lamb I wanted, I had no clue.  I tried to tell him to just give me the cheapest part, the leftover cuttings, it was after all going to be cooked for about two hours, so I didn't need the tender, gourmet cutlets.  No matter how many ways I tried to say my two Turkish words, kuzu (lamb) and ucuz (cheap), the friendly butcher just did not understand where Fårikål-meat is located on the Turkish lamb!  Finally he gave up and asked me to come with him next door to the liquor store.  He did not want to have a drink with me, he just introduced me to his friend, the wine seller, who happened to speak perfect English.  "Dinner is saved" I thought, while I listened to the wine seller tell the butcher what this crazy woman wanted.  I felt very ashamed when I told them how little meat I needed for a dinner for three, because the ordeal had been so complicated that I felt I should have bought the whole poor lamb.

It so happens that the local butcher also sells the best fruit and vegetables, so while the butcher was cutting a little sliver of Fårikål-meat for me, I walked  outside to the vegetable man and asked for cabbage.  I actually didn't know that cabbage is called "lahana" in Turkish, but the cabbage was easy to find because they were the biggest cabbages I have ever seen.  I asked the vegetable man if he had any smaller ones, but he just shook his head and said, "maybe tomorrow".  I thought I could get a smaller cabbage at the regular grocery store, so I said, "thank you" and went inside to pay for my meat.  I noticed  the butcher had spices for sale, and remembered I needed whole, black peppercorn for my Fårikål, and managed to ask if they had any.  The butcher looked, and looked, but could only find ground pepper on the shelf. He then took out a big package from under the counter, took out a styrofoam tray and asked how much I needed.  I smiled, showed him my thumb and index finger almost closed, and said, "çok az" (very little).  He knew by now that I was a cheap one, so he poured in two teaspoons, and I thanked him and paid.

Over at my regular grocery store I went straight for the vegetable section and looked in horror at the big cabbages, thinking, "who buys cabbages the size of a hot air ballon?"  I would have to go back and buy the whole lamb if I was going to cook Fårikål with a cabbage that big!  I had a dilemma, because I had the chunks of lamb and bone in my bag and had no idea what else to make from it but Fårikål (I am not an adventurous cook!)  There was one cabbage that looked pretty small compared to the other ones, so I asked for that and carried it over to the scale.  It weighed 3,5 kg (almost 8 lb.)

Good thing I was carrying a backpack today, and the cabbage barely fit!  Last time my backpack was this stuffed was a year ago on Thanksgiving Day when I carried home the smallest Turkey I could find.

Walking into my kitchen I realized that I probably didn't have a pot big enough for cooking Fårikål, but I managed to squeeze in 1/4 of the cabbage between the meat, and in the end my two boys are not very interested in eating the cabbage, but they loved the Fårikål.