FROM THE ARCHIVES: BREWMISTRESS:

Brewing up a Norwegian tradition (Alan Cowell, December 24, 2004, The New York Times)

In the fancier hotels here, and in many homes, this is the time of year when the prosperous people of one of Europe's wealthiest nations gather for celebratory dinners consisting, by long-standing custom, of dishes devised to withstand the long Nordic winter - cod soaked in lye and served with mustard, cured mutton doused with fat and other such robust sustenance.

It is a time, too, in this Lutheran land of 4.5 million - whose angst-laden totems range from the plays of Henrik Ibsen to the paintings of Edvard Munch - when tradition insists that families celebrate in the old ways, with church bells, huge meals and the seven different kind of cookies that must be offered on the eve of Christmas.

And for Olaug Flakne, it is a time to show how Norway's new ways blend smoothly with the old, specifically, in her case, through the brewing of beer.

(Originally posted: 12/24/04)