I hope Knut would be proud. I made dinner tonight entirely out of the Kitchen of Light, a Norwegian cookbook based on a series by Andreas Viestad called New Scandinavian Cooking. We have a series on DVD. The parsnips baked with cumin and olive oil were the best but the way Viestad directed that the whole chickens were cooked was quite odd. After ramming them full of dill, butter and lemons, they were roasted for the first half but then add pot vegetables like leek, yukon gold spuds and whole garlic as well as stock turning the whole oven into a sauna. The chickens go back in lifted out of the broth by the veg. Is that it? Is that what I am supposed to understand? It must be as a plumper chicken never was.

I popped a Norse Porter by HaandBryggeriet which got more attention after the main dishes left the table. It poured a deep mahogany with a rich dark mocha head that revolved to a rim and foam. Plenty of dark dried fruit - fig and date - as well as licorice, espresso and a light smokiness that went well with the cheese and the plum spice cake. There is also a decent tang to the brew that sits between the smoke and the fruit. A really solid porter which, at ten bucks for 500 ml at Tulley's, qualifies as a worthy treat. BAers give strong support.