A House Called Nut - Life in the backwoods of Finland

Goodbye house

Janne and I had planned to stay in Pähkinä for at least a couple of years. Then we settled in, fell hard for the cottage, the view, the lake, and 'maybe a couple of years' turned into 'hopefully many years.' Except that it didn't. Unexpected job opportunities, and other hiccups and blessings, have meant that mixed in with the joy of living in such a special place have been the strain of commuting, too much time apart, and bills that add up to more than we'd anticipated. It's time to move on. We had fifteen truly amazing, transformative months in this dear house, and I'm genuinely coming out of it a changed person. We also had the time to make a mark on the place. To restore some order to the weeds that had long overrun the garden, to help establish the new waste and water systems, clean, haul, dig, and nurture. It wasn't always fun or easy being the resident guinea pigs, but it was a great adventure.

After some new year's reflecting, we accepted our situation wasn't sustainable and decided to dip our toes in the pond of the Helsinki housing market. Getting a nice place in nice location turned out to be more of leaping in kind of activity, so we held hands, took the jump, and everything whizzed into place faster than I could have expected. It's more than a bit bewildering, but we're also feeling relieved and optimistic about the future. In three years of living in Helsinki I had never quite felt at home, and was surprised when I missed not only my friends, but the city itself. And after eight months without drinkable tap water (and four without water at all), I can't say a bit of home plumbing won't be welcome.

Having a baby on the way has changed our perspective too. The cottage is home to an impressive array of deathtraps, but the really crucial thing we'll be moving into is a community. This is a lonely street of holiday cottages that comes alive for a few brief weeks in the summer only. Once I'm on maternity leave, I know I'll appreciate being able to walk to the market and around town, meeting friends at the drop of a hat, and having my husband a ten-minute bike journey away, not an hour's train ride.

We'll probably never live in Pähkinä again (but never say never, right?), but our relationship with this place isn't over. It's our friend's cottage after all, and it will likely need some looking after in the future--something we've pledged, as long as we can, to be there for.

So, away we go from the backwoods of Finland to the country's most densely populated neighborhood, Kallio! There will still be foraging, cooking, creating, and lots of escapes to the forest, but life will certainly be different. I'll need to take a little break for the move and to catch my breath, but the blog will continue. And I hope you'll stay on this journey with me!

Winter salads

I love having a nice, fresh salad on the side of meals, but this can be at odds with seasonal eating in the wintertime--particularly in Finland, where the growing season is so very short and winter pickings are pretty much limited to root veg and cabbage. Happily, we're all fond of cabbage in this household (even the dog seems delighted when the occasional slice hits the floor), so it takes a full winter of cabbage salads before we get sick of it.

But variety is nice too, and this year I've been experimenting with other salad ideas to keep things interesting. Root vegetables, cultivated mushrooms, grains, beans, stored apples, cheeses, seeds and nuts, dried and citrus fruits, as well as marinated goodies, like olives or capers, are all wonderful additions to cold weather salads. Many root veggies, like turnips and beets, are delicious grated and raw, but somehow get easily forgotten in all the roasting frenzy. Don't know about you, but I love me some raw vegetables. Cauliflower is another gem that's available throughout the winter and tastes especially nice as a crudité.

The other night I threw leftover boiled beets into bowl with some orange, garlic, lemon juice, olive oil, and tarragon-garlic croutons (homemade from stale bread):

It was a really nice blend of sweet and sour, crunchy and soft. A bit of goat cheese would have hit the spot too!

Every year when the peppers are at their peak, I roast them by the load and pop them in the freezer for winter use. The sweetness of roasted peppers takes the edge off raw onion, for a combination of sweet, tangy, crunchy goodness that will make you forget the icicles outside. Mixed with a grain, they can also make a hearty salad. Here's what we had last night: barley, roasted peppers, red onions, and capers in lemon juice and olive oil.

Ok, I sneaked in a bit of parsley too.

A few more winter salads to try:

*button mushroom ceviche topped with Parmesan and black pepper

*grated raw beets, cabbage, and carrots with a balsamic-honey vinaigrette and sunflower seeds. To accompany Asian meals, I make a soy sauce-rice wine or soy-lime vinaigrette. Mmm!

*One of our favorite one-plate, winter meals is a warm salad of layered, roasted root vegetables (anything from rutabaga to Jerusalem artichokes) with mozzarella, halloumi, or feta and a vinaigrette. Excellent for using up that last, shriveling potato!

Do you have a salad trick for the winter months?

Thank you!

Warm thanks to you all for your congratulations and excellent suggestions! This baby has been a very long time in the making, and at first it was hard to believe that that little blue plus sign wasn't lying. But, like it or not, pregnancy is an incredibly visceral journey and it didn't take long for my body to let me know profound changes were underway. The latest development has been my favorite: since Sunday I've been wondering if a faint, popping sensation could be the little one knocking about. But last night's disco party left me in no doubt. It's terribly distracting and wonderfully delicious.

To answer your questions, the due date is 14 July and, yes, this will be our first. I very much agree that the time seems to be passing too quickly. I'd really looked forward to just the being pregnant part, and this has indeed been a remarkable time for me (and Janne!) even when it's not the most comfortable. Concetta and Dana both had wonderful suggestions for remembering this unique period, and I'm definitely going to follow through with the diary suggestion and hopefully some photography too.

I'm now working on a special baby design queue and will share projects and ideas with you as it develops. I'd like to use as many free, online tutorials as possible, so hopefully all this plotting and planning can also serve as frugal resource list for other expectant parents. As I rediscover my Ravelry addiction (Thanks, kettunainen, for the reminder!), I'm starting with Annie's baby blanket suggestion. I've been making little crochet circles with scrap yarn for months now with the intention of turning them into some kind of blanket, but haven't gotten past the stage of leaving colorful, woolly stacks around the house. Now the plan is to add some brighter colors to the mix for what will hopefully become the funkiest baby blanket on the block (ok, so I live on a block with a handful of retired people, but you get the drift).

Now I must tend to my furry baby, who had a brush with death yesterday when he raided my backpack and ingested xylitol gum. One emergency trip to the vet and an IV drip later, and he was safe but feeling very rough. Not that we'd leave gum out for the dog in any case, but we had no idea xylitol was lethal for dogs and will absolutely be more careful in the future. If this ever happens to your dog, it will cause swift, severe hypoglycemia, so feed the pooch some honey or sugar as first aid and rush to the nearest vet. 

Big news in a small package

Yes, there's a baby on the way! If everything continues on time, a very small person will join our little family come July. That makes me about four months pregnant right now, and I am sorry for the delay in announcing our good news. There's no special reason for it, other than my poor skills in real time blogging and a desperately busy schedule.

These mismatched, freestyle baby mittens are the first things I've made for little whatsy, and there will be plenty more to follow. But, honestly, even though I adore making tiny things, I've no idea where to start and would be so grateful for some help from you all. Are there baby patterns that you particularly loved? What did you make for your children? What do you wish you'd made? Please write your links and ideas in the comment section and I'll be sure to share my progress with you. Warm thanks in advance!

Berry indulgence

Now that Christmas has come and gone, I can finally tell you what we did with all those berries. We picked gooseberries, redcurrants, and raspberries from the garden, over 25 pounds of strawberries from a local farm, and buckets of bilberries from the surrounding forest. After my first canning adventure with bilberries, and quickly realized that 1. I'd caught the canning bug and much of our summer bounty was destined for jam jars and 2. We should give the jam away as xmas presents and not spoil the surprise on the internet.

Presto chango. Berries into jam. (Special thanks to my friend Helen for jam art!)

Other plans are in place for the raspberries and redcurrants, so all that added up to: bilberries preserved in lemon syrup, gooseberry jam, gooseberry-elderflower jam, and, my favorite, strawberry jam. This was my first taste of homemade strawberry jam, and ohh it is so good. Heaven in a jar.

All recipes are from The River Cottage Preserves Handbook, which proved a very good introduction to canning. Also from the book was strawberry vinegar, which I've greedily saved for myself. It's wonderful in salads and can also be added to fizzy drinks for an extra kick. I dread the day I use my last drop, but hopefully that won't happen before strawberry season rolls around next year. It's pretty too:

Janne and I have become partial to food gifts in recent years and I hope to keep up the tradition in the future. In addition to this year's preserves, we've given Christmas presents such as flavored olive oil, bottled balsamic reduction, and dried wild mushrooms. It's really fun to make these things together, and we don't get stressed out with all the spending and materialism. Since they're edible, we know everyone can actually use them. It's disturbing to think of all the pretty things wrapped in pretty paper and condemned to a dusty shelf.

I think we've saved just enough berry loot to keep us going for the year, and in the meantime treats like this have been appearing on the dining room table:

A little reminder of summer in the cold, cold winter.