It’s a little late, I know, since we got back from Finland almost a month ago, but better late than never I hope.
To state the obvious, Finland is very different from Mexico. Or, more specifically, our trip to Finland this year was very different from our trip to Mexico last year. It’s not that we expected it to be the same, but I think we had prepared ourselves for something as exotic, if in a totally different way. Matt had been to Denmark, but I’d never been anywhere that far north, and I think we both had some sort of “Nordic mystique” in mind. There may well be that sort of mystique, but in our quick two week trip we found Finland to be quietly lovely, very well organized and well groomed, civilized and dignified rather than exotic.
- Islands off Helsinki
Our first full day there, we did the tourist thing and took a boat cruise around the islands off Helsinki, taking way too many pictures and giggling about ridiculous things because we were ridiculously jet-lagged. Wandering around that particular harbor (Helsinki has many), we found my favorite building in Helsinki, the Uspenski Cathedral:
- Uspenski Dome
Somewhere we have a picture of the outside, I swear… But the inside really struck me, with its colors and symbols and refreshing lack of crucified Christs.
My second favorite building was a type– the markethall (kauppahalli), most often adjacent to a market square (kauppatori), filled with food and craft and other vendors, and inciting all sorts of greedy and gluttonous feelings:
- Kauppahalli
This one was either the Wanha Kauppahalli (Old Markethall) adjacent to the main market square, just called the Kauppatori, or Hakaniemi further north, in a neat section of town I think was called Kallio (after the famous church therein) that had a younger, hipper feel to it.
Of course, we focused on food during the entire trip, as per our usual. Our first incredible meal happened a few days in, when we went with my dad to Aino right off the Esplanade Park near the Kauppatori:
- Goose Liver Pate at Aino
This was a free range goose liver pate with sea buckthorn berries (one of my new favorite things) and greens. Matt and I had eaten a late lunch while we were wandering around Helsinki, so only ordered appetizers (he had a mixed fish plate– fresh, smoked and otherwise cured, several different kinds of local fish– that was also great). Feeling that we hadn’t done the place justice and hungry for more, we returned towards the end of our trip to have several more courses. It was just that good.
Our first weekend there, we took a daytrip with my dad to Porvoo, up the coast from Helsinki, a port town full of historic wooden buildings with a quiet glow to it, especially around sunset.
- Porvoo Warehouses
- Porvoo Church
- Porvoo Waterfront
Ironically, we had decent Spanish food for lunch in Porvoo…
The next day we took a day cruise to Tallinn. We boarded a huge cruise ship, both of our first trip aboard anything quite like that, and moved ponderously off through the fog across the Baltic to the city which Helsinki apparently was built to rival in trade. A city of colors and contrasts, Tallinn perched on the Baltic coast with its backside fore. Our guidebook had warned us about the Soviet era port, so we were prepared for the worst. Actually, it wasn’t that bad, but not very photogenic, so I’ll spare you and post prettier pictures of Old Tallinn instead:
- Red Roofs
We found the most touristy part right off, and saw our first mobs of European and American tourists of the trip, especially right around the Old Market, where we had an enormous lunch:
- Estonian Lunch
It was supposed to feed two, but it would have fed at least four hungry Americans, and we were trying to save a little room for dinner.
After lunch, we started to wander around Old Tallinn, amongst fantastic old stone buildings and up and down narrow cobblestone streets, walls and towers:
- Wall Stairs
The occasional vista would show us Old Tallinn against a backdrop of the modern business structures of New Tallinn:
- Tallinn
On a smaller scale, there were other photogenic contrasts:
- Old Car in Old Tallinn
It was a city of circles within circles, and in what felt like the innermost, we found the Russian Orthodox Cathedral:
- Russian Orthodox Cathedral
It rivaled Helsinki’s and was quite lovely, inside and out. Coming out the back door, we passed an elderly woman coming in, looking back over her shoulder, and at the top of the stairs just outside the door, we found a clue as to what she may just have been doing:
- Cat – Fish
See the fish? Lucky cat.
It’s getting late for me tonight, so I’m going to split this post and leave you with a cliffhanger: That evening in Tallinn, Matt and I had quite possibly the most incredible meal we’ve ever had, involving things like sea buckthorn berries and phusalis (guess, just guess, what rare fruit that might be in English), rabbit and duck, and such a heady good feeling throughout and particularly after the meal that we found ourselves giggling at unexpected moments (yes, without enough wine in our systems to explain it away). More (with picture) later!
Filed under: Travel
I haven’t had time to blog from here, and unbelievably, we’re already leaving, after a trip that seemed far too short. We’re now at the airport– at a completely ungodly hour– waiting for our flight to Dusseldorf and then home. More later after we’ve unloaded pictures, etc.!
It’s been a while, but we’ve been busy moving! And since we leave for Finland tomorrow, I thought I’d better try and get in a last post Stateside.
Thanks so much to all of you who made it out to our last-minute, midweek, late-night, 3rd annual goodbye party week before last. It was great seeing you all and witnessing the unexpected combinations of folks. I hope some of them were fruitful. And yes, I may have posted revealing pictures of some of you on Flickr.
The last few days in NYC were rather hectic, and I’m sorry I didn’t get to see more of you before we left. I’ll miss you all.
The drive from the city to Madison took 21 hours (rather than the 15 Google crossed-its-heart-and-hoped-to-die swore), but Basil took it rather well, I’d say:
Basil Trucking
Don’t ask how Matt got that shot while driving. I’d rather not know myself. We arrived, exhausted but relieved, last Sunday night, and Basil shamed us all by zipping about Matt’s parents’ house in a fit of energy and completely taking over:
Settling In
We spent the last week unpacking very slowly, but mostly trying to get a couple of little gardens going. The flat we rented is nicer than we remembered, and we’re pretty charmed by it, especially the backyard, sunroom and basement (including a pantry room and even a root cellar with exposed earth). We’ve sullied it with piles of boxes and junk that we won’t sort out until we get back, but nevertheless, it’s lovely.
Having done very little about unpacking, we’re now packed up again (on a much, much smaller scale) for Finland. We leave late morning tomorrow with charged cameras and mp3 players, a backpack full of books, four jars of maple syrup and a gift box of baby socks. Perhaps some clothes. We’ll arrive almost a full day later in Helsinki. My biggest concerns? I haven’t booked transportation and hotels for a weekend trip to one of the archipelagos (haven’t even decided which one yet), and I’m almost finished with the only knitting project I have packed…
Teeny Tiny Bootie
I guess I’ll just have to pay attention to Finland.
Wish us luck!
Filed under: Food
First of all, I have to say that this is my idea of a perfect meal, and Matt cooked it for me = swoon.
The andouille was from High Hope Hogs, one of the many products of the Blew family, and I have to know who processes their meat, because their sausage recipes are great. Nice and spicy.
We opened a bottle of a new wine to go with the meal, which we were introduced to by the friendly follks at Moore Bros., and it was quite good. I have to say that I think we bought it solely because we found out that they farm biodynamically with horses, but it also came highly recommended for taste, so we picked up four bottles, and it definitely came through. It was from Mas de Libian, and if you’re at all into draft horses or beautiful women, you should go flip through the pictures on their site, because both the horse, Nestor, and the owner/farmer/vintner, Hélene, are decidedly attractive. The wine was so dark it was almost black (and I have to say that’s the color it left my tongue), and it was well-balanced and rich.
The star of the meal, however, was the gluten-free cornbread, the recipe for which I found online. We made a few substitutions based on what we have on hand– masa instead of corn flour, a little honey instead of the sugar and piima cream thinned with whey for the buttermilk– and melted some butter in a cast iron pan before pouring in the batter and throwing it in the oven. It was absolutely delicious. I hadn’t eaten cornbread since I stopped eating gluten, I really missed it, and I have to say that this may well have been the best cornbread I’ve ever eaten.
Check out that crumb! If I hadn’t helped make it, there’s no way I would believe it didn’t have gluten in it.
Moral of the story? Make this cornbread. It’s killer. Go out and get a few bottles of the 2007 Mas de Libian from Moore Bros. And having a sweet, wonderful guy around to cook it for/with you, and to enjoy it with, wouldn’t hurt, either. Eat and drink well, and enjoy.
The results from the aforementioned piima cream experiment (wherein I try to culture cream with viili) are in:
On the left is a jar that contained a very high proportion of viili culture to raw cream. This produced a very thin, more kefir-like beverage (in the bowl on the left), quite tart. On the right is a larger jar that contained much more cream in relation to viili culture (I just poured in enough viili to coat the sides before pouring in the cream). This produced a much thicker, very mild-tasting and lovely slightly soured cream (the bowl with the spoon in it) which immediately made me think of ice cream, so we stuck the inner chamber of the ice cream maker in the fridge in preparation. I've never tried piima cream, so I can't judge the results properly, but my guess is that the one on the right is most like piima.
About 48 hours later, the ginger water kefir that I set up on Wednesday was nice and tart (although still thin-tasting, a general complaint I have about water kefir), so I bottled it Friday.
Due to inadequate closure of the little baggies of water kefir grains, some of the grains had gotten loose and were floating among the pieces of grated ginger (a hazard of putting the ginger loose in the sugar-water rather than laboriously juicing it).
Other than that, the process went pretty well, I felt, so I set up another batch, but first I cleaned off those loose grains, then emptied out the bags of grains and cleaned those and separated them out in smaller amounts into more bags because they were looking a little crowded…
Here's a look at all the things I had going in the kitchen Friday (that being the cooler of the two "fermentation stations"):
Now the kefir (back right) is strained and in the fridge, as are the two jars of experimental piima cream (wherein I try to culture cream with viili) in the front.
Yesterday, I spent a good part of the day making something I’d been collecting ingredients for for quite some time: Mexican Chocolate Bars. My stepmom Sarah, who also doesn’t eat gluten, emailed me the recipe after Matt and I had been in Flagstaff visiting them for Christmas and talked food for a while (as usual). I don’t know where she got it. I might make a couple of minor adjustments next time, but really I’d say it was an unqualified success. Here it is:
Mexican Chocolate Bars
|
1 lb. Mexican chocolate (such as Ibarra)………….. |
In heavy saucepan, cook over low heat, stirring occasionally, until melted. Set aside to cool. |
|
1/4 c. strong brewed coffee…………………………. |
Make coffee and set aside to cool. |
|
1 c. whole almonds…………………………………… |
Process in Cuisinart until very finely ground, 1-2 min. |
|
6 egg yolks……………………………………………. |
Combine all ingredients in large bowl and mix thoroughly. Add coffee, then almond mixture, and then chocolate mixture. Blend well after each addition. |
|
6 egg whites………………………………………….. |
In another large bowl, beat egg whites until soft peaks form. Gradually add sugar, beating until stiff peaks, 1-2 min. Then fold into chocolate mixture. Lightly butter a 10×14 cake pan. Pour chocolate mixture into pan and bake at 325° for 50-55 min. until set. Cool completely, at least 1 hr. |
|
1 c. whipping cream…………………………………. |
Combine cream, sugar, and cinnamon in chilled bowl, and beat until soft peaks form. Cut bars into individual servings. Spoon whipped cream over each. (Another option is to skip the whipped cream and just dust the top with powdered sugar and a sprinkle of chipotle chili powder.) |
|
sliced almonds……………………………………….. |
Sprinkle sliced almonds on top and dust with chili powder. If desired, add a few whole strawberries to each serving plate. Serves 12 to 20. |
My recent experiments with water kefir have been mixed. Of the first two batches, the one with dried apricots did quite well– a little thin-tasting, but nice and tart and a little carbonated– while the one with dried cranberries turned muddier and muddier (the rapadura I used lending itself quite nicely to that) with an unpleasant thickness to it, and the grains became quite murky and mushy. Note to self: no more dried cranberries. I put those grains in sugar water in the fridge to rest for about 24 hours, and they actually made a very tasty drink out of the sugar water.
In the meantime, I put the other batch of grains into another batch of sugar water with the same apricots. This batch fermented to tartness very quickly, without much depth of flavor. Note to self: don’t reuse dried fruit.
I read that water kefir grains seem to love ginger best, and we love ginger beer best, so yesterday, I decided to try making ginger water kefir according to Dom’s recipe. We couldn’t find fresh young ginger, so I used what we had, but otherwise followed the recipe to a T, even adding the blackstrap molasses despite the fact that I was using rapadura as the sugar (because that line of the instructions got hidden at the top of a following page of my printout). Baking soda, check. Eggshell, check. Spring water, check. Dried Turkish fig, check.
Ginger Water Kefir: Batch #1
I mixed it all up, put a lid on it, and came back to stir it after about 24 hours, then stirred it again later this evening and tried some, only to discover that just about all the sweetness was already gone! Drat. So… what to do? I bottled it, in four beer bottles, and I’m keeping an eye on those caps.
I mixed up another batch right away, but first I checked on the grains.
Little Baggies of Water Kefir Grains
Both batches were looking OK, the mushy ones that had been in with the cranberries a little less so but still not as pristine-looking as the others–
Water Kefir Grains: Batch #1
Water Kefir Grains: Batch #2
– so I took them out of the tea bag and rinsed them in a piece of cheesecloth under running filtered water to get rid of some of the mush. I realize that a lot of that mush may have been new young grains, but they didn’t strike me as very healthy new young grains, so down the drain they went with the water. I was surprised by how nice they turned out after their bath, shave and a haircut. Almost exactly like the other bag of grains.
Rinsed Water Kefir Grains
So in they went together in the new batch of ginger, which varies from the first in that I left out the molasses and decided to put the grated ginger straight into the liquid rather than bothering with the arduous, dirty-dish-making process of juicing it with sugar.
Last week, I was feeling discouraged by the state of the uneaten viili in its jar in the fridge and decided to try to make cheese out of it. We’ve made “farmer’s cheese” or cream cheese– a simple, soft, spreadable cheese– out of soured and clabbered milk before, and I followed that model. I poured the viili into a cotton napkin over a jar and let the whey run through, leaving the viscous solids behind. This took a while, and I transferred it to the fridge after a bit. Normally, what runs out into the jar is just translucent whey. In this case, there was quite a bit of more opaque, white viili that ran through, too, and I let it, squeezing the napkin every once in a while to make sure that all that was left behind was what was really solid. When it was quite dry, I transferred it to a bowl and mixed in salt, pepper and herbes de provence.
I accidentally made it a little too salty, but otherwise, it’s quite nice, with a very nice, silky texture and mouthfeel.
Encouraged by that success, and having started a new batch of viili to replace the old (I’d reserved some as a starter), yesterday I went looking for something to make more cheese out of. I knew I’d be picking up dairy from Pennsylvania today, so I needed to clean out the fridge and make a bit of room anyway, and the last batch of PA milk was too sour to enjoy on its own, so I took that out and let it finish separating on the counter, then did the same thing, letting it drip overnight in the fridge before mixing the solids with the same herb blend this afternoon. Since I started with more milk than I had viili, there was more whey and more solids. Believe it or not, I added a little too much salt again, but other than that, it’s good again, without quite the same texture but otherwise similar. It’s interesting to me that there isn’t more difference, actually.
In the annals of our fermentation efforts, Matt and I don’t have many stories of non-spontaneous ferments, ferments which need introduced starters to go– except, of course, kombucha, viili, yogurt… So OK, a few. But today I started a new one. I’ve been on the lookout for kefir grains, for both dairy kefir and water kefir, for a few weeks, and yesterday, I received a package in the mail from a friendly Brooklynite with water kefir grains (and information and advice) to spare.
For one batch (the one on the left in the pic below), I dissoved 1/3 c. of rapadura in almost a quart of Fiji water (which the donor of the grains said the grains like best) and added dried unsulphured organic apricots. For the other (the one on the right), I dissolved the same amount of sugar in almost a quart of Whole Foods brand spring water and added dried organic cranberries.
They look rather odd with the bags floating in the foam of the unrefined sugar.
The trick now is to wait for 24-72 hours, until the water kefir tastes properly fermented. Can I do it? We’ll see.
I’m interested in finding out why the kefir grain scoby’s are said to do better in water with high mineral content. I’ve done a bit of preliminary research without finding out much, unfortunately, but there’s a lot of information on all sorts of aspects of kefir here: http://users.sa.chariot.net.au/~dna/kefirpage.html#alternativekefir
More when the water kefir is finished!
