The Spirit of the Sea
— A Kinfolk Gathering

On Norway’s 200th National Day, May 17th, 2014, we hosted a dinner on behalf of Kinfolk. The theme of the evening was l'ésprit de la mer – the spirit of the sea– so we headed out to an island in the Oslo Fjord, while other sea inspired Kinfolk dinners were going on in many different corners of the world.

Kinfolk is more than a magazine, it’s a growing global community of people interested in enjoying good food and each others company, as well as taking the time to enjoy our surroundings. Since 2012, Kinfolk workshops and dinners have been popping up all over the world, bringing people with a love for small gatherings together. The Kinfolk events in Oslo have previously been hosted by Growlab Oslo, and this time Food Studio, Blomsterbloggen and friends joined in and camped out for the weekend to create a celebratory dinner for our guests, and spend time together.

Growlab Oslo

Growlab Oslo is a design office consisting of Mads Pålsrud, Eva De Moor and Tabea Glahs, working with urban food culture. Using food as a tool, the aim is to engage, inspire, enable and educate citizens to re-think their everyday life. Urban food culture means the practice of growing, cooking, preserving, recycling and enjoying food, the culture of meeting and sharing knowledge, and daily life and urban as in city development and how we together can create better and more sustainable cities.

Blomsterbloggen

Blomsterbloggen is the online home of the florist business of Marie Sofie Nesset and Eirik Slyngstad. They want to inspire people to see all the opportunities one has to create beauty and meaning in their everyday life by just taking a stroll in nature, be it the city or the forest. Untrained as florists, but using their background from art, fashion and photography, they work with wild flowers, creating seasonal bouquets for a wide range of settings. Marie Sofie and Eirik also deliver their creations by appointment to shops, restaurants and private customers.

All of the guests met up at the harbour close to Bygdøy, where we greeted them with ice cream – it’s the 17th of Mai after all! After trip with the boat crossing the Oslo fjord in the sun, they arrived at Kjeholmen about an hour and a half later, a small island just outside of Snarøya. We were waiting with freshly made rhubarb juice and bread rolls. Marie Sofie from Blomsterbloggen took the guests on a walk on the island, explaining them when and how to pick flowers – or anything that looks beautiful to you. Everybody made their own flower arrangements that we used to decorate the tables and the buffet stairs. Afterwards, everybody sat down to enjoy the 17th of Mai buffet and celebrate Norway’s birthday. We had a lovely evening, with a beautiful sunset, a couple of swans visiting, and many conversations and laughs. Kinfolk is about enjoying evenings with new and old friends, and a couple of weeks later we were invited into the homes of a couple of our guests, to enjoy a home cooked meal!

Film by Alex Asensi
Photographs by Svein G. Kjøde
Text by Eva De Moor and 
Mads Pålsrud

A special thanks to

Marie Sofie from Blomsterbloggen
Sara and Victoria from Gunzler Polmar for letting us use the Marble Cups
Roislien Gård for honey