Heavy-duty grocery shopping

My roommate Sam had her birthday recently, and as she's French and loves cooking gorgeous food, we bought her a voucher to the deli in Galeries Lafayette. I am known to love food, grocery shopping and going around big market halls and delies just seeing all the curiosities they have there, so I was more than happy to accompany her to spend the coupon the other evening!

Smells like feet but tastes like heaven.


Here's the happy bunny with her bags full of gourmet: entrecote, terrin, lamb sausages, cheese & fresh bread!

And now she's cooking something that smells so good, that I just have to go and have a nibble...

Mexican dinner turned into breakfast

Yesterday me and Andrea went to check out a Mexican food store I'd heard of in Berlin. That inspired us to have a decent meal of home-made tacos with meat, frijoles (bean curd) and the whole deal.


We made the tortillas ourselves, and it was such a profound amount that there were enough for a Mexican breakfast aswell! Basically the Mexican diet revolves around tortillas, cheese, meat and salsa, on all meals of the day. (You should not confuse it with the American tex-mex junk they sell everywhere, that mixes white rice, salad and kidney beans into everything. No, no, stay clear of the veggies, it's all meat and cheese for our sombrero-wearing buddies. BTW my boyfriend's through with his vegetarian phase by now aswell.)

Maybe I'll share you my mother-in-laws tortilla-reicipe later, because naturally that is the best... But for now I'll just ruthlessly recommend you to use the ones you get from the store, because that way I think I can inspire more people to actually try make quesadillas! Quesadillas are just tortillas filled with melted cheese, and you can add meat, ham, beans, chorizo, bacon, avocado or whatever you please. Ayyy!

Rene making quesadillas.

Here's what you do:
1. Put the tortilla on a hot pan.
2.Turn it around when nice and tanned.
3. Add grated or sliced cheese (mild, such as Edam or grated mozzarella).
4. Fold it when melted.
5. Enjoy it with some drops of salsa verde.


One ingredient you should definitely buy is Salsa Verde. In Finland you get pretty good basic Mexican ingredients from every store, in Berlin I recommend Latinoamerika on Bundesallee 117. (KaDeWe just sells Tex-Mex-shit, like 'wraps' and cheddar sauce, please try to avoid that.)

Leftovers turned into breakfast! Grandma would be so proud...

I think I need a closet...

Living and Adapting

I've lived in quite a few places, mostly because I travel alot and my whereabouts change irregularly. Whenever I move into a new house I always find myself with too much stuff and nowhere to store it. So I just kind of leave it out there. Closets are too expensive anyways, shelves and racks are way cheaper. Also hammering some nails allover the walls is fun.

This leads to the fact that my room looks like a second-hand shop and it's really difficult to clean. But it looks cosy to me. (I'm not sure my man agrees.)



This has also been the case in my previous apartments:


...which takes me to some other interesting forms of living me and my friends have had:

Container-block in Amsterdam Nord, where my friend lives.

Me and Knickus making pasta in our kitchen in Frankfurt, during the World Cup, 2006.

Orange food

I made this groovy mix of things i just kind of had in the fridge. The chicken sauce-reicipe is the best (non-indian) chicken reicipe I know, I got it from my amá, my Mexican mother-in-law. She uses it as a sauce to fill crêpes with and that's just the best thing ever! The butter carrots are from my Finnish heritage. I think they mix quite well.


Creamy chicken (for 2 persons)

300 g chicken (in any form you prefer)
2 cloves of garlic
1 onion
4 slices of conserved soft red paprika (in a jar)
1 dl creme fraiche

Rice and soft butter carrots

basmati rice
4 thin carrots
lump of butter

Boil the chicken for about an hour in water seasoned with onion halves, whole garlic cloves and salt. Cut the carrots in half lenghtwise and add them to the pot halfway, so they can boil for about 20 minutes. You should check if the chicken is well done once in a while, because the cooking time depends on what form of chicken meat you use. Boil the rice in a separate pot.

Pick up the onion and garlic from the pot, put them in a bowl with the paprikas and some cream and squash them with a mixer. Heat up the sauce, season it with salt and add the chicken in slices or strips into it. (If the sauce is too thin, add a table spoon of flour.)

Poor the carrots onto the cooked rice and add a nice lump of butter. The carrots shoud be soft enough to break when you stir them in and to melt on your tongue when eating. It's all orange, fragrant, creamy and nice.

From my Mexican friends in quaranteen...

I recieved some email from y friends in Mexico that indicates that this is what has kept them busy in their week of 'quaranteen': Turning the pigflu into something cute. I especially liked the joke: "A Mexican kiss will take you to heaven."

I love these people, they just put the 'fun' in dysfuctional. :))) Thanks for your response!

Nightlife in Finland

Clubbing in Finland is tough... it's expensive and sadly homogenous. It's hard to find alternatives, mainly because Finland is one big bad night club owned by one guy: Sedu Koskinen. This little dude resembles a certain other small but dreadful leader in the history of Europe known for his dictatorship and horrible actions. Sedu wishes to take over all the night clubs of Finland to create himself a kingdom where everyone dances when he says so. His clubs are all made with the same basic business-idea: serve everything to everyone. That, in my mind basically equals 'nothing for nobody', but apparently it's good enough for most people.

"Get me out of here", she said.

Sedu's competitors get tired of him buying them off. He owns 10 clubs just in Helsinki, and many more in over 20 cities in Finland. Seriously, there aren't enough inhabitants in Finland for other clubs. I suggest, just like in bars they stop serving drunk people, they should start regulating the sales of restaurants for this guy. "Sir, you've had enough."

Places worth checking out yeah!

Thank god for some feisty individuals though, who still offer something different for the more demanding folk. Examples of cool alternatives worth checking out are: Redrum and Cuba Cafe. The previous usually offers electronic music, the latter one offers you a personal Jesus for 1500 €. Also some traditional karaoke bars like Yökyöpeli and Pata-Ässä are always packed with passionate Finns interpreting their feelings at the darkest hour.

Cuba is a happy place. (Erottajankatu 4, Helsinki)

Dubrovnik is a cosy, funky place with live music.

Top 5 worst nightclubs in Finland

1. Royal Onnela, Helsinki: 'the Mall' of nightclubs. 8 rooms with different versions of mainstream music in over 2000 sqm. I went there once, saw 3 guards hitting a guy on the floor with a telescopic baton, wished I'd been that guy.

2. Tiger, Helsinki: another version of Sedu's black and silver curvey decorations, black marble counters and rnb-hits from two years ago.

3. Diva, Lahti: 4 dancefloors of bullshit with some rapper grinding you like a dog. Apparently this isn't owned by SK yet, but it's all the same. Used to be the only young people's night club in Lahti until Sedu came in and didn't change a thing.

4. Onnela, 12 cities in Finland - need I say more? I used to go here ALOT when it was still somehow under control. Now I'd just rather stay home.

5. Hotelli Vantaa, Vantaa: this one I totally recommend! It's a must-see for people willing to see some Finnish culture at its finest. You have a manic mixture of karaoke, teen agers and seniors, a hotel room and breakfast for something like 50 euros. If you don't get a chance to go on the Sweden-boat, go here!

Silver frames and a hostess dancing on the bar in sponsored jeans. Royal Onnela, Helsinki.

Soup for the soul

Lately I've been into cooking vegetarian (because my boyfriend's going through a phase right now). I used to be a veggie myself (until I started feeling more sorry for myself than the cows), so I'm just bringing back the good old reicipes from my hippie-times.

Today I made something I call Potkusoppa in Finnish ('Kicksoup'). It's a version of a traditional pea soup (Hernesoppa) that Finns love eating every thursday with pancakes after sliding in the snow with a sled:

250 g dried chickpeas (or more if they're conserved)
1 potato
2 big onions / 1 leek (gives a prettier color)
2 cloves of garlic
butter

plenty of grated fresh parmesan cheese
olive oil
salt
black pepper

If you use dried chick peas, let them soak in water over night. Boil them for about an hour with the potato and salt. If you use canned peas, then just cook them tender without the potato. (I can't remember what's the trick in it, but I think it's way cooler to do it with the spud!)

Fry the onions and garlic until tender and season with salt and pepper. Use a blender to mix everything into a grainy mess, add lots of parmesan and blend. Check the taste and pour some oil on top. It's creamy, it's juicy, it's everything that veggie food is not supposed to be! Yei!