Fishy tale

Loimulohi: From Finland winter 06/07

It was a Friday evening and my turn to cook.

I thought that on my way home from work I can pick up something nice/easy from the local supermarket (there is a reason why I have not mentioned the shop's name here) and enjoy the evening over a glass of red wine & good food...

So I grabbed a basket; picked & weighed & labelled tomatoes (yes, here in Finland you weight & label the fruits before you walk to the tills...), toured pass the milks & juices, reached for a jar of green olives, approached the fish counter in order to continue my shop tour via fresh bread section & candy land to the exit...

Ok, back to the fish counter where I was weighing the options for the evening. Bought two pieces of 'loimulohi' (salmon cooked next to an open fire). Pieces were the size of your remote control unit (smallish, thin type of remote that is...) - and the label screamed 16 euros. SIXTEEN euros... Huh. Ymph. Ugh.

Quick thinking... picked up 2 ciders (realised ALKO was closed already = no to red wine) and ... dumped the 'loimulohi' in 'makkara-allas' (=chiller cabinet full of sausages)... Do not worry a second before I had looked around like little Miss Marple in order to assess if anyone was looking...

I can only blame the lad at the fish counter for not wrapping 'loimulohi' properly as it was now laying on top of all the makkara's in the world (out of it's wrapping paper) and screaming to me: 'Why did you do this to me you petty criminal?!' And to my dismay a strange fellow nearby was staring at my direction his fillings clearly visible. A nano second decision later I hurried with a steady, determined pace towards the tills, wondering when is the claw of a security stewards landing firmly on my shoulder...

These moments in terror made me pick less important items like suklaa (=chocs) in the form of Kitkat, Geisha, Fazerin sininen etc into the half empty shopping basket. Payment done, sliding doors closed - I think I was safe... still on the shop's land so hurried accross the car park towards the safe house. Safe.

Friday night dinner consisted of chocolate, olives, tomatoes (which were able to accompany tomatoes in the fridge bought a day before) & milk with 2 ciders...

Not so bad after all.

In a stew

Not quick enough, from Around Helsinki

Perjantaina me menimme Korkeasaarin kissojen yön.  Sää oli kylmä...

I am in a bit of a quandary*. I feel I should try to write more in Finnish to push my meagre Suomi language skills along - but if I do (on the blog at least) then two things will happen:

1. All the English speakers will wonder what on earth I am talking about (assuming it's untranslated); or should I say non-Finnish speakers, as it seems the vast majority speak better English than I'll ever manage with Finnish;
2. All the Finnish speakers will die of boredom from such exciting posts as Eilen minä menin kauppassa ja ostin... (Yesterday I went to the shops and I bought...)

I know I could always keep a separate Finnish journal, but blogging is more fun.  Of course the big assumption here is that anything I have previously written in English is interesting in the first place.

I was supposed to cook a 'traditional British sunday roast' today for Hiiri and Konna. I ended up cooking a stew instead, because ignoring a sense of foreboding I went to the local K-market, on Hiiri's insistence they did lots of cuts of meat their and of course they had nothing resembling a joint of beef, pork, lamb or a whole uncooked, un-marinated chicken that I could use. Quelle surpise. My fault for not considering that Hiiri has never had a British roast so wouldn't really know what I was after. Anyway, apparently there is a specialist butcher in Hakenemi, so next weekend...

Hmm, that ended up a 'I went to the shops and didn't buy...' post.  What was I saying about blogging the mundane?

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*Konna: no, no, no. I'm not in a big hole in the ground where stone is dug up from.