31 May 2012
What I drew today
29 May 2012
The Unbearable Lightness of Summer
I´m not a big fan of summer. That´s what I always say but as soon as I get my hands on treats like fresh cherries or rhubarb I change my mind... I love making pies out of fresh berries or rhubarb. The world is so much better place after making a pie.
Why wouldn´t I like summer? Because it´s so short and everyone´s so aware of it all the time. People here in the North take summer very seriously. As soon as the sun comes out and the temperature goes up to +15 Finns put on their shorts and tees. Whereas I´m shivering in my scarf. In summer you must eat as much ice cream as you can, stay at a cottage somewhere by a lake, swim in the lake, grill sausages and mushrooms wrapped in bacon, lie on the lawn with a magazine, get a tan, wear sunglasses everywhere, attend music festivals and a half marathon... There´s so much you got to do in 2-3 months. So many expectations. My reaction is to make rhubarb pies and wander in the forests.
Even thought summer is short you can store it in so many ways for the winter. I do it by photographing and collecting whatever wild food I can freeze of dry for later use.
Another thing I always say is that Finland is the bect place where to spend summer. In central Europe it´s too hot and crowded, in Asia it´s probably monsoon or something. In Finland there are enough forests to roam for everyone and it´s never too hot! (Pun attended.) I hereby advice everyone to enjoy the Finnish nature. Probably the most magical place I know is any forest near water in a light summer night.
More amazing things you can take advantage of in summer: wearing anklets and flowing dresses, painting outdoors, walking barefoot, picking flowers, keeping windows open, having pie (!) for lunch on a terrace or balcony, putting flowers in a vase, birds singing, smell of hot asphalt, hot asphalt workers, flowers, birds, flowers and birds, water, sea shores and sand under your feet, sailing, gardening, vegetable market and the big big blue sky... Did I mention birds?
With love and strawberry pies.
Why wouldn´t I like summer? Because it´s so short and everyone´s so aware of it all the time. People here in the North take summer very seriously. As soon as the sun comes out and the temperature goes up to +15 Finns put on their shorts and tees. Whereas I´m shivering in my scarf. In summer you must eat as much ice cream as you can, stay at a cottage somewhere by a lake, swim in the lake, grill sausages and mushrooms wrapped in bacon, lie on the lawn with a magazine, get a tan, wear sunglasses everywhere, attend music festivals and a half marathon... There´s so much you got to do in 2-3 months. So many expectations. My reaction is to make rhubarb pies and wander in the forests.
 |
| Peacock butterfly |
Even thought summer is short you can store it in so many ways for the winter. I do it by photographing and collecting whatever wild food I can freeze of dry for later use.
Another thing I always say is that Finland is the bect place where to spend summer. In central Europe it´s too hot and crowded, in Asia it´s probably monsoon or something. In Finland there are enough forests to roam for everyone and it´s never too hot! (Pun attended.) I hereby advice everyone to enjoy the Finnish nature. Probably the most magical place I know is any forest near water in a light summer night.
 |
| Officers club in Hamina |
With love and strawberry pies.
24 May 2012
Day 4
Seuraa blogiani Bloglovinin avulla
Breakfast: banana, mixed berries, flaxseed and oat milk
Lunch: salad at uni: lettuce, cucumber, tomato, pickled onion, jalapeño, raisins, dried onion and peanuts
**Had to pass beetroot because it was obviously boiled.
Afternoon coffee: chocolate-banana-vanilla-oatmilkshake
Dinner: salad; cabbage in vinegar, romaine, tomato, olives, yellow peas, sunflower seeds, garlic and pea shoots in olive oil; pineapple
**Peas were boiled because they didn´t really sprout and tasted bad. I´ve noticed that pineapple is quite filling - I recommend!
Lately I´ve been walking outside a lot checking out the flora and looking for wild food to eat. Not much luck by far, excpet for the nettle. But aimless walking is always relaxing. One of my favourite sites in Vaasa is this sea shore near the hospital. It´s perfect for admiring sunsets and why not for meeting late night dog walkers.
Summer is here and even if it´s just something like +18 I see people wearing shorts and t-shirts. I´m still sticking to my scarf... Summer is the smell of freshly cut grass, crowded baseball games, chairs outside cafés, people riding bikes everywhere, flowers in bloom, boats being scrubbed and repainted, music from an open garage...
Food-wise today went well but I´m not liking this thing anymore. It´s already proved that it´s possible to live on raw food but who knows about the long-term consequences? Raw food keeps you energetic and you can keep going all day without napping. But there are just too many cravings..! Today I´m craving for crisp bread and herring among other things. I think I´m going for a burger tomorrow...
Breakfast: banana, mixed berries, flaxseed and oat milk
Lunch: salad at uni: lettuce, cucumber, tomato, pickled onion, jalapeño, raisins, dried onion and peanuts
**Had to pass beetroot because it was obviously boiled.
Afternoon coffee: chocolate-banana-vanilla-oatmilkshake
Dinner: salad; cabbage in vinegar, romaine, tomato, olives, yellow peas, sunflower seeds, garlic and pea shoots in olive oil; pineapple
**Peas were boiled because they didn´t really sprout and tasted bad. I´ve noticed that pineapple is quite filling - I recommend!
Lately I´ve been walking outside a lot checking out the flora and looking for wild food to eat. Not much luck by far, excpet for the nettle. But aimless walking is always relaxing. One of my favourite sites in Vaasa is this sea shore near the hospital. It´s perfect for admiring sunsets and why not for meeting late night dog walkers.
Summer is here and even if it´s just something like +18 I see people wearing shorts and t-shirts. I´m still sticking to my scarf... Summer is the smell of freshly cut grass, crowded baseball games, chairs outside cafés, people riding bikes everywhere, flowers in bloom, boats being scrubbed and repainted, music from an open garage...
Food-wise today went well but I´m not liking this thing anymore. It´s already proved that it´s possible to live on raw food but who knows about the long-term consequences? Raw food keeps you energetic and you can keep going all day without napping. But there are just too many cravings..! Today I´m craving for crisp bread and herring among other things. I think I´m going for a burger tomorrow...
23 May 2012
Day 3
This was not a good day. I was on a bad mood so I had some comfort food. Now I have a headache and it´s cold outside.
Breakfast: smoothie out of mixed berries, apple, fresh ginger, maca, lemon and chaga tea.
Lunch: Greek salad; slice of fudge cake
**The salad was raw expect for the feta cheese. The cake, well, it was so worth it!! http://www.sweetvaasa.fi/
Afternoon coffee: rest of the smoothie; chocolate
Dinner: yesterday´s courgette and tomato sauce; tomato and olives; pineapple
Anything good about today? Errr, if I think very hard then I´d say the cake and the Canson drawing block I bought. It was very warm in the daytime and I found some nettle and I took some of it. I hung it to dry. I also cleaned up my appartment and changed the places of the rugs. That made me surprisingly content.
I´m craving for bread and cheese, chocolate cookies, salmon pasta, pancakes with jam and cream... Oh god, I don´t now why anyone would go raw for good! I think I want to end this on Friday. I´m leaving the town in the weekend anyway and visiting some people so it would be inconvenient to get weird about food.
Breakfast: smoothie out of mixed berries, apple, fresh ginger, maca, lemon and chaga tea.
Lunch: Greek salad; slice of fudge cake
**The salad was raw expect for the feta cheese. The cake, well, it was so worth it!! http://www.sweetvaasa.fi/
Afternoon coffee: rest of the smoothie; chocolate
Dinner: yesterday´s courgette and tomato sauce; tomato and olives; pineapple
Anything good about today? Errr, if I think very hard then I´d say the cake and the Canson drawing block I bought. It was very warm in the daytime and I found some nettle and I took some of it. I hung it to dry. I also cleaned up my appartment and changed the places of the rugs. That made me surprisingly content.
I´m craving for bread and cheese, chocolate cookies, salmon pasta, pancakes with jam and cream... Oh god, I don´t now why anyone would go raw for good! I think I want to end this on Friday. I´m leaving the town in the weekend anyway and visiting some people so it would be inconvenient to get weird about food.
Day 2
My shift ended at 7am and I headed home in a beautiful morning sunlight. I´ve felt good today, not hungry nor tired. I managed the night shift really well too, eating just one banana during those 8 hours. Here´s the dose of the day:
Night snack: tomato, cashews
**Tomatoes actually contain a lot of
carbohydrates...
Breakfast: tea; smoothie with
strawberries, cranberries, chaga tea, apple, sitruunamelissa, maca and lemon
Lunch: courgette
“spaghetti” and tomato sauce, mushroom salad; fresh pineapple;
chocolate
**”Spaghetti”
is marinated in olive oil, salt, pepper and sesame seeds: my
favourite thing at the moment! Tomato sauce is basically chopped
tomatoes warmed in a pan with onion, garlic, chilli, thyme and other spices. Good stuff.
Afternoon coffee: cup of coffee with oat milk and chocolate
Dinner: cabbage,
romaine, broccoli, tomato, onion, sunflower seeds, spirulina, chilli
and olives dressed in olive oil; liquorice; banana mash and mixed
berries
**Yes, I´ve been eating liquorice all day. For some reason I had a small bag at home and I felt like eating it today.
Oh, the summer
started today! The semester is over for me and I went to the garden shop to
get some more greens – some of them inedible this time. I bought
two dahlias (yellow and pink), thyme and probably my favourite plant
in the world – lavender! The scent is so invigorating I can´t get
enough of it. Hope it survives in my care.
Today I was also thinking about how the way we eat is so important. There was some kind of expert in Jamie Oliver´s show who said that as soon as your jaws have chewed enough food they send a message to the brain that you are full. Meaning that the amount or quality of food doesn´t really matter. It´s kind of hard to believe when it´s also been said that it takes 20 minutes for the food to arrive in your stomach and for you to feel full. I do think chewing is important and it comes naturally when you eat in a calm place and enjoy the food. According to another "expert" it´s crucial to have different kind of textures and flavours in the food: crunchy, soft, sweet, salty, sour... That´s exactly how I like my salads because that way they are fun to eat.
21 May 2012
Day 1
Morning brakes at 10am. It´s the day for my last exam of the semester and I´m prepared to sweat out all my knowledge on French syntax.
Breakfast: tea; banana mash, strawberries, cranberries and flax seeds
**This is yummy! Like having dessert for breakfast!
Lunch: lettuce, tomato, pepper, mushroom, cucumber, sunflower seeds and dried onion dressed with olive oil, balsamic vinegar and tabasco; tea
**I was tempted to have feta cheese but I was stronger than that
I went to the supermarket and picked some more greens for my evening supper while gazing longingly at the cheese section. Came home and had "afternoon coffee": birch sap and raw chocolate. This left-over cashew chocolate was particularly nice. Birch sap is supposed to be good for stomach and it goes well with food too as it tastes like spring water with a sweet tone.
Afternoon snack: two juiced carrots, cup of coffee, half a cinnamon bun
**Aarrghh, I ate cinnamon bun at the work meeting !!
Dinner: cabbage, romaine, tomato, onion, marinated mushrooms, algae, sunflower seeds dressed with olive oil; chocolate.
Now I´m off to a surprise night shift and I´ll take a banana and some cashews with me. So, the first day went pretty well after all!
Breakfast: tea; banana mash, strawberries, cranberries and flax seeds
**This is yummy! Like having dessert for breakfast!
Lunch: lettuce, tomato, pepper, mushroom, cucumber, sunflower seeds and dried onion dressed with olive oil, balsamic vinegar and tabasco; tea
**I was tempted to have feta cheese but I was stronger than that
I went to the supermarket and picked some more greens for my evening supper while gazing longingly at the cheese section. Came home and had "afternoon coffee": birch sap and raw chocolate. This left-over cashew chocolate was particularly nice. Birch sap is supposed to be good for stomach and it goes well with food too as it tastes like spring water with a sweet tone.
Afternoon snack: two juiced carrots, cup of coffee, half a cinnamon bun
**Aarrghh, I ate cinnamon bun at the work meeting !!
Dinner: cabbage, romaine, tomato, onion, marinated mushrooms, algae, sunflower seeds dressed with olive oil; chocolate.
Now I´m off to a surprise night shift and I´ll take a banana and some cashews with me. So, the first day went pretty well after all!
Ready, set, go raw!
It´s half past midnight and Monday. I´ve just started the week of raw food that I promised to do. I have approximately two reasons why I want to do this:
1) I want to know what the fuss is about. Will I feel better and more energetic?
2) I like challenging myself and trying new things.
... and a third reason...
3) I like setting an example and showing that there are indeed options for the way we fat westerners eat. And live.
To kickstart the week I´ve put some beans and peas into water overnight and marinated mushrooms. Knowing myself and my sweet tooth I also prepared some delicious date munchies and mint chocolates to die for. Whenever I feel desperate during next week I can just seek consolation from the "sweet shelf" of my fridge...
I guess it would be appropriate to explain more about the idea behind all this obscure talk about raw food. I´ve written about raw food before, atleast chocolate, and I´ve read a lot about it on the net. Raw food or living food is just another trend in nutrition and the idea is to preserve all nutrients and vitamins food contains by not cooking it. (People on raw diet call it "killing the food".) Obviously this is not for hardcore carnivores even though also meat can be eaten raw... Think about sushi, for instance.
Raw foodist consumes heaps of fresh vegetables, fruits, berries, nuts, seeds, sprouts, even cereals (?), beans and peas... I want to underline that fresh veggies are always better than canned stuff. The diet is not as harsh as it sounds like and I will be sharing some recipes along the week.
One thing about pulses. As far as I know, nearly every bean, pea or lentil can be soaked, sprouted and eaten raw. Some of them don´t sprout but atleast mung beans are good. I have some of them going in a bowl. Tomorrow morning I´ll try and start sprouting them (never done it before). Back in times at Earth Café I tried marinated raw chickpeas and they are really lovely and fresh.
As treats are so important, I share my sweet recipes first!
Date munchies
8-10 dates
1tbsp sunflower seeds
1tbsp almond flower
1tsp cacao powder
1tsp maca powder (optional)
1tsp grated fresh ginger
1tbsp cashew nuts
pinch of good salt
pinch of cayenne pepper
>>Mix everything in a food processor, form small balls and coat them with coconut or why not sesame seeds. Ready to eat as it is!
Mint chocolate
1dl coconut oil and/or cacao butter
2tbsp raw cacao powder
1-2tsp honey or other natural sweetener
2tsp lucuma powder
a couple of drops of natural mint extract
>>Melt the oil in a bain marie and add everything else. Mix well and pour into an icecube form or onto a plate. Freeze for half an hour or cool in the fridge for an hour. Phenomenal, I say!
1) I want to know what the fuss is about. Will I feel better and more energetic?
2) I like challenging myself and trying new things.
... and a third reason...
3) I like setting an example and showing that there are indeed options for the way we fat westerners eat. And live.
 |
| Hempseeds, I´m lovin´ it! |
I guess it would be appropriate to explain more about the idea behind all this obscure talk about raw food. I´ve written about raw food before, atleast chocolate, and I´ve read a lot about it on the net. Raw food or living food is just another trend in nutrition and the idea is to preserve all nutrients and vitamins food contains by not cooking it. (People on raw diet call it "killing the food".) Obviously this is not for hardcore carnivores even though also meat can be eaten raw... Think about sushi, for instance.
Raw foodist consumes heaps of fresh vegetables, fruits, berries, nuts, seeds, sprouts, even cereals (?), beans and peas... I want to underline that fresh veggies are always better than canned stuff. The diet is not as harsh as it sounds like and I will be sharing some recipes along the week.
As treats are so important, I share my sweet recipes first!
Date munchies
8-10 dates
1tbsp sunflower seeds
1tbsp almond flower
1tsp cacao powder
1tsp maca powder (optional)
1tsp grated fresh ginger
1tbsp cashew nuts
pinch of good salt
pinch of cayenne pepper
>>Mix everything in a food processor, form small balls and coat them with coconut or why not sesame seeds. Ready to eat as it is!
Mint chocolate
1dl coconut oil and/or cacao butter
2tbsp raw cacao powder
1-2tsp honey or other natural sweetener
2tsp lucuma powder
a couple of drops of natural mint extract
>>Melt the oil in a bain marie and add everything else. Mix well and pour into an icecube form or onto a plate. Freeze for half an hour or cool in the fridge for an hour. Phenomenal, I say!
02 May 2012
23 years after
It was once again the time of the year when I grow one year older. I´m 23 and I still look forward to birthdays. I love everything about birthdays: cake and sweets, dressing up, gift wrappers, flowers, countless hugs and balloons. I think I always had good birthdays as a child too. In April you can play outside with puddles and streams wearing wellies...
I decided to make the cake of my dreams. The cornerstones of my idea were mintchocolate and pear. I got some real vanilla and natural mint extract and that´s where I wanted to base my creation on. I looked up some recipes online and used them as guidelines. Well, my dough was a disaster. It didn´t raise because I only whipped it with a regular whisk. (I don´t own an electric mixer.) Abandoning my principles I went to the shop and bought some ready-made sponge cakes. After that everything went pretty well. I cooked a pear compote with vanilla and other spices. I whipped some cream and mixed it with cream cheese for extra freshness. Filled the cakes with those two and topped with chocolate, coconut and baby birch leaves...:)
Surprisingly enough it was delicious! Despite my improvising...
So, what about growing old? I´m really excited about it to be honest because with the years come wisdom and life experience. I enjoy the feeling of being more comfortable in my skin and not being so obsessed with superficial things. I´m in a learning process which is great. I love learning. Sometimes it happens only after blundering but even mistakes have their place in life and that´s fine. I´ve been able to grow as a person. The single disturbing things is that I´m able to use expressions like "ten years ago" or "in the 90´s"... Right now I feel young as ever but there are some thing that reveal I´m leaving my teen years behind...
- I´m starting to like dry wines
- I talk to myself in public
- I slow down at cross-roads
- I don´t always look in the mirror when I go out
- I stopped subscribing to womens magazines
Thank you all beautiful people who showed up to my birthday party! I had the best time. Have a happy spring and live boldly !!
xx
I decided to make the cake of my dreams. The cornerstones of my idea were mintchocolate and pear. I got some real vanilla and natural mint extract and that´s where I wanted to base my creation on. I looked up some recipes online and used them as guidelines. Well, my dough was a disaster. It didn´t raise because I only whipped it with a regular whisk. (I don´t own an electric mixer.) Abandoning my principles I went to the shop and bought some ready-made sponge cakes. After that everything went pretty well. I cooked a pear compote with vanilla and other spices. I whipped some cream and mixed it with cream cheese for extra freshness. Filled the cakes with those two and topped with chocolate, coconut and baby birch leaves...:)
Surprisingly enough it was delicious! Despite my improvising...
So, what about growing old? I´m really excited about it to be honest because with the years come wisdom and life experience. I enjoy the feeling of being more comfortable in my skin and not being so obsessed with superficial things. I´m in a learning process which is great. I love learning. Sometimes it happens only after blundering but even mistakes have their place in life and that´s fine. I´ve been able to grow as a person. The single disturbing things is that I´m able to use expressions like "ten years ago" or "in the 90´s"... Right now I feel young as ever but there are some thing that reveal I´m leaving my teen years behind...
- I´m starting to like dry wines
- I talk to myself in public
- I slow down at cross-roads
- I don´t always look in the mirror when I go out
- I stopped subscribing to womens magazines
Thank you all beautiful people who showed up to my birthday party! I had the best time. Have a happy spring and live boldly !!
xx
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