Finnish Food

Famous -- or infamous -- Finnish Karelian pasties

Hi, everyone!

The grocery stores cater to many cultures

 

We are getting settled into the new apartment. Had normal eggs, bacon and hashbrowns for breakfast this morning -- sounds mundane, but to us, it was wonderful! In restaurants and the hotels, the eggs are always runny and taste funny, the meats are strange sausages and cold cuts, and the potato product is the Finnish specialty, "Karelian pasties," which are bascially  crusts filled with either a rice and egg mixture or a mashed potato and egg mixture. The pasties would probably taste okay if they were hot, but they're always cold on the breakfast buffets.

The grocery stores have plenty of potatoes!

Picked up our new car yesterday -- a nice, gray-blue 2011 Peugeot. Hopefully, we're going to buy a clothes dryer today -- I washed a black sweater the other day, and it was sopping wet, so Tom put it in the sauna, turned the heat on and let it dry in there. We've heard lots of people use their saunas to dry clothes, but I still want a regular dryer.

My cart -- about $150 worth of stuff

 

I did my first big grocery shopping, and it was an experience, trying to figure out all the translations. I had to ask my Finnish teacher for some translations, like butter is "voi," and all the different kinds of meat and milk, etc. It's like they have a different word for everything! I wanted to make beef vegetable soup our first night in the apartment, and I could not figure out which was the lean ground beef. So I just guessed, and it worked out okay. The beef definitely has a different flavor here, and I think it is because it is all grass-fed and not shot up with hormones and additives, like much of the beef is in the U.S.


And, as you might expect, the prices are very high. I spent about $150 and didn't really get that much. Oh, well, that's why we get a cost-of-living adjustment, right?


We have two fun things today -- a lunch get-together with the American contingent, and a Creole dinner with a group of the French expats.


Pam

No, it's not my bike! But it does make a good beer carrier!