It came to my attention that Amnesty International Norway (a bit contradictory name..) have a freedom of speech day, namely today. Several of the blogs that I frequently read have posted some thoughts on the topic – so I thought I would set of and both think and write some on the topic.

Freedom of speech is probably one of the foundational human rights that we have, at least in the western world. The internet as we know it is based on this – everyone can say whatever they want and reach out to everyone else. However that is somewhat misleading. Cencoring of the internet is sadly an increasing trend. Governments, ISPs and even small scale businesses cencor pages. Although most of us agree that some pages on the web should be taken away it is not that easy to decide who should take this decision – is it the majority, the elected government, the unelected government – or is it someone else.

The Pirate bay (spec)trial is raging in the news – everyone has an opinion, and everyone should be entitled to one – but are they? Are everyone entitled to externalize and publish their thoughts? Well, the plain answer is, sadly, no. Why? Well, fear is probably the most common reason, secondly greed. Fear that someone may get information that you hold secret. Secondly a desire to have at least what you have, or preferably even more of what you have.

A bit on the philosophical lane there – anyway. I support strongly the freedom of speech – but also the freedom to choose! If someone utter something I don not want to hear, then I would like to have the freedom of choosing not to hear them – however I would like to have the possibility.

End up in having the feeling that I haven’t covered anything in this post, but probably some of my thoughts on freedom of speech is captured here:)

Today I read Atle’s blog post on food and the poor economy of students and how he would like to spend more money on food if it was available (both money and good food). This inspired me, or more triggered me, to write about my interest in food or more specific the creation of food.

The past years I’ve come to realize that I (reluctantly) can be put into the category of a hobby cook. I enjoy cooking, for several reasons, it is relaxing, it is fulfilling in the sense that you get the satisfaction of actually producing something physical and a sense of accomplishment, additionally it (sometimes) releases those gorgouse endorphines by tasting good:)

Okey, now I’m on a rambling streak.

Atle’s post indicated a notion that good food have a strong coherence with the amount of money you spend on it. I disagree in this coherence. One of my satisfactions in cooking is to produce good, primarily healthy, food, that do not cost that much. This can seem trivial, but as Atle pointed out, it isn’t that easy to find good ingredients in the local shops – at least with the limited mobility of a student eagering to get home quickly.

To constrain it even more – making dinner on a regular week day should consume a fairly limited amount of time.

Combined this makes cooking a challenge – but an interesting an fun challenge:)

To sum up. I strongly believe this is possible to achieve and in my quest for this I collect recipes in my wiki (norwegian). Prices are not included as this should not be the primary goal, but a guiding constraint.

Some ending tips. Fresh ingredients are preferred thereby gearing towards making food bottom-up (ie. traditional style). Combined this often leads to a limited price tag and certainly very good tasting. Try it! :)

As for the post’s title – it is misleading, but hopefully attracting – don’t blame the player, blame the game:)