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February 27, 2005
walking on water
Today, I walked on water.
Admittedly, there was several inches of frozen water between me and drowning, but it's still something crazy that I've wanted to do since I got to Helsinki, and finally, the sea is cold enough for Helsinkians to venture out and shuffle around on the ice.
I stuck to well worn paths, in the main part, with only a few heart-stopping ice creaks. It is crazy that the city just expands in cold weather, something that isn't captured in maps.
(more photos here)
I hope this sunny weather continues - especially as I got some bad news recently. My house is having its facade repaired, which means drilling ooff the outside of the building to brick, and then refacing. This will go on for 7 months, during which some of my windows will be blocked - like my living room.
I was heartbroken by this: sitting out on my south facing balcony was a real pleasure of last year's fleeting summer. Oh well, I hope it is sunny enough to live out in the parks this summer, and it's forced me to get my second bedroom in order - time to throw out all the boxes and turn it into a nice study.
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in the gnudi
I was very disappointed to go to the Spotted Pig in New York, and not get to eat the gnudi - basically the insides of ravioli, cooked without pasta. Reviews raved about them, but just because I couldn't have them there, I didn't see why I couldn't experience them.
In the end I took advice from a few different recipes - notably the Gothamist one (especially for finishing), an Egullet forum post and a quick squizz in the River Cafe Easy book in the Academic Bookstore (now ordered through the much cheaper Amazon).
I wondered about the autheniticity, but reaching for Elizabeth David (Italian food), she starts her gnocchi section with a ricotta and spinach gnocchi, and then a plain ricotta gnocchi, before moving on to the usual potato gnocchi and semolina gnocchi.
The mix seems pretty malliable - amount of cheese, flour and eggs - so in the end I roughly used:
(for 2 Chris-sized=suprisingly large portions)
250g of ricotta (I could only get semihard ricotta, so i grated finely and then added a dash of water)
100g of parmesan
200g of young pecorino
half a cup of flour, sifted
2 eggs
salt (just a little, cheese is pretty salty)
pepper (more than you would think, this absorbs flavour)
nutmeg
Grate all the cheese. I used a rotary grater that leaves a few odds and ends of cheese whole. Don't add these to the mix if you want a uniform pillowy texture. I really should have just got the food processor dirty, especially when processing so much cheese.
Mix well, quenelle (use 2 spoons to make little rugby balls - otherwise make little balls with your hands), roll in flour, semolina, or polenta. If the mix is soft, refrigerate for half an hour here.
Bring water (with lots of salt) to just under a boil - no bubbles or movement! Daintily place the gnudi into the water in small batches. Don't overfill - they shouldn't touch each other, or they might stick.
When they float to the top, gingerly lift out of the water, and place on a plate. Refridgerate for at least half an hour - they can last a couple of days in this state, or even frozen.
To finish, heat a large knob of butter in a hot heavy bottomed frying pan. No, bigger than that - to paraphrase Anthony Bourdain, there are three reasons things don't taste as good at home: use of real stocks, and the amount of salt and butter used.
Let the butter seperate and brown. Before it goes too far, add the gnudi to the pan, with some sage leaves. Toss until the gnudi are nicely brown. Put the gnudi on a plate.
Here you have two choices - just use the brown butter, or add something acidic to make a lazy sauce. I chose cava, as it was to hand, and a medium squeeze of lemon. Reduce until you can't wait any longer. Serve with salt, pepper, and a little fresh sage.
I experimented a bit with size. A normal quenelle made from tablespoons seemed good. The larger patty was interesting but wasn't as pillowy, but it did let me show you the finished texture.
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February 20, 2005
not the gates
I was lucky enough to catch The Gates in Central Park this weekend. I hadn't been that excited by them beforehand (I guess the media saturation had burnt me out).
On arrival, however, I was impressed. It's mass intervention in public space, something I'm generally in favour of. Very quickly, though, it turned to monotony. Speaking to Daniel Rozin earlier, he said it would have been better if they deviated from the paths, creating new ways of navigating the park - and I agree. It completely formalised the concrete, and most people happily obeyed and stuck to the paths (with the added gutpunch that most of the large green areas are shut off in winter to allow regrowth).
The saffron became ubiquitous and cloying. I didn't suffer gates-induced panic attacks, but it made me want to rebel, and so I tried to take photos of the few views you can currently have without the intervention of the gates. Little moments of normality during this unnatural period. It was suprisingly hard, having to crouch to obscure the orange, or line up the gates with trees.
view the entire 'not the gates' series
Someone asked me what I thought today, and my answer, after a short pause, was "It'sok." Certainly not $21 million ok - I wonder if this is some tax writeoff.
I also managed to catch Wolfgang Volz's beautiful photography exhibition (showing with the wonderful East Village USA, at the temporary home of the New Museum in New York). Half of the exhibition is his documentation of previous Christo projects, which all seem lovely in archive, but inhuman in presence. What was it like to work in the Reichstag when it was wrapped?
(of course, I'm not idealistic enough to not not take pictures of The Gates)
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flickr++
Two recent examples of why Flickr rules:
flickr is presence
I'm currently in New York, at pretty short notice. I noticed a friend who I used to work with had posted a few pics, and I thought he must be flying somewhere. He was in New York too, so we managed to meet up. Thanks flickr!
An aside - there seem to be two groups of people or ways of using flickr: the 'prosumer' photographer, and the instant fix cameraphone flickrer. I'm mainly the latter, but when I plug my digital camera in, I become the former. I wonder if the two conflict in any way.
the parent test
Not only is my dad cake-flickring, but my mum is learning how to use a computer and the Internet so she can get on flickr and see what I'm up to (this, of course, has good points and bad points ;) ).
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February 12, 2005
a patisserie kind of guy
I am, paraphrasing Arnold Brown, a patisserie kind of guy. You can take your wine bars, your supermarkets, your delis (up to a point), but if you're trying to close down a patisserie, you will find me mounting a one-person campaign to eat them back into business.
So I was pleasantly suprised to see a new cake shop open in Helsinki. Weirdly, for all its culinary foibles, Helsinki has a disproportionately large number of extremely good cake shops. The granddaddy of them all is Cafe Ekberg, whose creations have graced my kitchen many times.
Kakku Galleria - the cake gallery! - is just down the road from Ekberg; both perilously close to my flat. I'd walked past it a few times before, either not being in a position to buy cake (if you see a Nathan Barley-esque figure wandering round Helsinki with a cake box in one hand, it's probably me), or the shop had been closed.
Today, however, I was on a cake mission.
Kakku Galleria is a wonderful little shop, decked out in minimal but warm design - lots of lovely small old-fashioned drawers containing all kinds of wrapping. It offers 15-20 kinds of cake, against Ekberg's smaller takeaway selection, most offered either by the slice or whole. There's also cookies, a quiche or two, and some capability for hot drinks (untested on this visit).
I decided on a slice each (3 €) of Saschertorte and passion fruit mousse cake, and one of the interesting looking cookies (2€).
I have to say, everything was very good. I started with the cookie, which was a lot harder than I expected on first bite - slightly shortbready, but some moistness in the middle. The large object on top isn't pieces of nut, it's a large hunk of chocolate, added during cooking to slightly melt and embed itself. Fantastic.
Cake wise, the passion fruit mousse cake was a revelation. You opened the box, and there was a strong smell of passion fruit. Taking a bite, I realised the base was made from ginger nuts, giving a wonderful gingery salty counterpoint to the strong fruity mousse. Excellent.
I chose the sachertorte because I wanted something chocolatey, but also many sachers are overwhelmed by the apricot jam. This was very well balanced; the cake itself could have been a little bit chocolatier, but this just exposes my preference for extreme chocolate desserts. The chocolate fondant was very fine indeed.
I think I will be returning to try the entire range; it does seem like there's a new cake shop to beat in Helsinki. A big differentiator is that they really understand chocolate - you can buy many single-region chocolates, and they offer buttons of many different cocoa strengths as well. Prices are slightly more expensive than Ekberg I think, but the wider range available, friendly knowledgable service and dedication to quality mean that the cakes are well worth the money.
Kakku Galleria is at Bulevardi 34, and also operates the cafe in the Design Forum at Erottaja 7 (another place that always seems to be shut when I have tried to visit before). The shop is open until 3 on Saturday, 7 on weekdays, and not at all, sadly on Sunday (not sure about the Design Forum hours).
(sorry Fiona!)
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February 08, 2005
a very English Fat Tuesday
It's Fat Tuesday, which is Shrove Tuesday in civilised countries, and Pancake Day in less religious households. I'm upholding the fine pancake tradition here in Helsinki.
To start with, a few traditional savoury pancakes - bacon and cheese.
I also had one with a chorizo-style banger and some mustard.
Before moving on to the main course (sweet pancakes), it was time for some more local cuisine. These blood pancakes had beckoned at me in the supermarkets for a while, tonight seemed an apt time to take the plunge.
51% blood (of indeterminate origin).
What do you serve with blood pancakes? Why, lingonberry sauce, of course!
They taste, like, well, half-pancake half-black pudding. They have the same savoury meaty backtaste, but the texture is just pancake. Probably a good introduction to the world of cooked blood.
Back to more traditional crepes - lemon and sugar, and maple syrup.
Now I am so full, with some batter left for tomorrow.
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i've lost my sense of scale
"Some people lose their sense of proportion - I've lost my sense of scale." - Scale, Will Self
So Google Maps is rather spiffy - if your worldview is just the US, or you're a dreamer. Nicest things: speed, attention to detail, free text search entry (which screams for a multi-modal voice interface), shadows (all in pretty html).
What it lacks, like so many other online maps, is scale. It does perspective pretty well - you can zoom and pan easily, and clicking on points brings up a neat little full-zoom street map. But neither map has a scale; is it 200 yards or 200 miles? On-screen maps always give tunnel vision, so scale becomes even more neccessary than on paper.
Anyway, congrats to Google for taking the next leap forward in UIs for location based services. It shows how momentum for these things build up, service by service, layer by layer. I guess integration of a9-style photography is the next step. And, please, give us Europeans a bit of that location based love!
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February 06, 2005
cake off
You know what it's like, you wait all year for a holiday celebrated with cakes, and then two come along at once. Not only was yesterday Runeberg Day in Finland, but next week is Fat Tuesday.
Finns yesterday woke up to the national flag flying on every street corner - Runeberg Day! Runeberg is the national poet of Finland, and wrote the national anthem. To celebrate his birthday, rather than the normal tradition of declaring a national holiday (and closing everything), the populous are bestowed Runebergintorttu, or Runeberg cakes. The myth is that Mrs. Runeberg created the cakes, but it seems more likely that it was his daily breakfast; a dry cake moistened with schnapps and strawberry jam.
As the above suggests, the cakes vary from dry through to wet - sometimes too wet. The improbable tower shape, and delicateness of the crumb means transporting these cakes is a careful proposition. A colleague commented that this makes you enjoy them all the more, after the effort taken to get them home intact. Definitely worth making your own (though Stockmann had sold out of the special cake tins needed).
The upstart cake on the block is laskiaispulla - a pulla bun halved, the middle scooped out and filled with whipped cream and marzipan. Pretty nice - the cream cuts through some of the spices in the pulla, which can be a bit too much for me. Also known as semlor in Swedish, and
fastelaven in Norwegian, this pan-Nordic treat is apparently a Roman invention, arriving in the 16th century. Traditionally this bun is eaten today, the Sunday before Fat Tuesday, followed by kids going out and sledding all day.
Next food holiday (although I will be maintaining the British tradition of pancakes on Tuesday) is, I think, Easter Sunday, and it's time to unleash Mämmi.
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February 02, 2005
nordic brown
A visit to a new supermarket gave me the opportunity to try two Nordic delicacies: both brown, both sweet, both virtually indestructable, and both somewhat an acquired taste.
Brunost is Norwegian brown cheese. Brown, sweet goat's cheese. candace had alerted me to its existence, but the Norwegian expat commmunity must be small here, as I couldn't find it in Stockmann.
How can you describe brunost (in this case, gudbrandsdalsost)? Well, it is goaty. And slightly sweet. And saltier than I expected. The texture, is, well like slicable set wallpaper paste jelly. It is a taste that was just on the wrong side of acceptable for me, I'm afraid. I think candace was left with an unused block too.
Mämmi, on the other hand is Finnish. I'd seen it in the supermarkets after Christmas, and it scared me. It's the blackest substance known to man (except, maybe, squid ink). The stores here are prone to stocking refridgerated food in no order at all, and I thought this might have something to do with other blood-based delights.
Asking around at work, though, reveals that mämmi is a dessert, normally served only at Easter (general surprise that it was already available), and made traditionally out of fermented rye, or these days malt. It was served at Easter because, well, nothing by then would be left after the long winter - no Shrove Tuesdays necessary! Mämmi is served covered in a little sugar and some cream.
This mämmi contained both malt and rye, and was actually palatable, and even maybe tasty. It's a good shot of something like wet concentrated rye bread, mixed with a little sweetness and the homemade ale served here at lunch. It is edible on its own, but a little sugar really does help. Not something I'd want all year (unlike Runeberg cakes), but an interesting local novelty.
So, Finland 1, Norway 0. If you know of any Swedish food that is brown, sweet (and noone other than a citizen would dare eat it), then please let me know. Also, anything Lappish would be interesting, but I feel Lapp cheese is their squeaky strange equivalent.
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February 01, 2005
no plan
PLAN is on in London, with lots of friends and acquaintances there, real and digital. All in the same place at the same time. Talking about maps and thinking. And probably having a whale of a time. Without me. Sigh.
I'm unfortunately at a two day company workshop booked months ago, so there's no way I could get over.
However, I can be there by proxy (and I have a number of spies in the audience) - I finally got around to doing this:
Where I have walked in Helsinki, up to 1st February 2005, from memory
Completed in the graphic style of Caleb Smith, who walked every street in Manhattan (and hearty comiserations to Joseph Terwilliger, who did the same but only finished a month later).
I'm also working on an open-source Python version of my phone/GPS application (offline at the moment due to changing phone).
