finnzkitchen

What's cooking this month in finnzkitchen

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Where did the idea of ‘finnzkitchen’ come from?

2 reasons really – the forst being purely practical. I was sending out approximately 10 mails a month to clients, family & friends from both here in Finland and in NZ who wanted to know ‘what do New Zealanders /Finns eat at Christmas, Easter etc and they wanted the recipes so they could make that particular dish. Or someone would ask me ‘what are you making for dinner tonight’ and then want the recipe. I thought it would be a good idea to put them all in one place rather then everyone could access them. The second reason grew out of that as at the same time I had just been accepted to do a Doctor of Philosophy degree at Turku University and I’ve been known to go over all existential when peeling a banana J…so the combination of these two ingredients aand ‘finnzkitchen’ was born…

How about the name?

My background is in second language learning and the mix – also known as a neologism – was inspired by both countries Finalnd and New zeland plus I was listening to Crowded House on the radio and it just seemed to sound right. I started using it to sign the food containers I would put in the freezer ‘made with love in finnzkitchen’…

Who has inspired you in the kitchen over the years?

I guess my first influences where both my Mum & Dad as they were both great – but different – cooks. Mum made delicious home-cooked fare e.g. lamb & beef Sunday roasts, strawberry and raspberry jams, preserved peaches, meat pies, and my father was the master of the ‘Sunday night throw together’ – my mother and I would be like baby birds waiting to be fed – never knowing what he’s found in the fridge but it always tasted great. Later on I was fortunate enough to get a part time job at my cousin Alice’s café: her culinary skills are famous in our family and she was a great and patient mentor in the kitchen when teaching me how to make her then ‘signature dishes’ such as chilli con carne, carrot cake, and lemon meringue pie. I always found though that I lacked patience – that was until I moved to Australia and my sister Charmaine took me under her wing and guided me to start small, simple and build the flavor and my skills from there. It was then that I stared to have some success in my cooking and the serious recipe collecting began!

What are the staples in your kitchen?

Apart from fresh fruit & vegetables, lentils, chickpeas (my husband calls it ‘the nuclear cupboard’ J)I keep my freezer well stocked of just about everything – it helps with menu planning and I find that I don’t waste food this way.

Best tools?

I’ve still got a Wiltshire knife that I bought when I was 18 so it’s nearly 35 years old and also my father’s carving set – both still in excellent condition!

Do you miss anything from New Zealand?

Pretty much everything is available online to order but I do miss fresh whitebait, large, slippery Bluff oysters and hokey pokey icecream – my next icecream challenge maybe J
What would you always have with you from Finland?
Rye bread – the Finns have mastered the art of making this wonderful dark filling bread

serving up food for thought

May 2, 2017

Welcome to my table

In the last sentence of their book ‘eat, think and be merry‘ Fritz Allhof and Dave Monroe encourage us to ‘eat good food and think about it’. Consider me encouraged – actually, truth be told – not much encouragement is needed. Upon waking, my first thoughts are about food and what’s for breakfast, lunch, dinner. On weekdays it’s porridge, homemade crunchy or bircher muesli, and a cup of aromatic, strong Finnish coffee. I can eat porridge at any time of the day or night and I’m not constrained by rigid rules about what food has to go in my mouth at any particular time – now is good. Weekends start a bit more lazily and leisurely with a fry up of e.g. bacon and eggs, or shakshuka, pancakes or french toast. When I was a little girl, one of my favourite Books was the classic ‘Milly, Molly, Mandy‘ by Enid Blyton and the aroma of fried onions being cooked in butter by her mother on a Saturday morning, came wafting out of the page, into my mouth, up my nostrils and down into the depths of my hungry stomach.

However, as an educationist who is passionate about sustainable learning (multilingual business communication & second-language identity) I also get that their ‘think‘ means more than just eating. For me, it’s also about knowing the provenance of the food that goes into my mouth: where it came from, who I’m supporting when I buy it, what I carry it out of the shop in, how I can use as much as possible without being wasteful, and increasingly how it is packaged.

Our relationships with culture, our sense of self, our social and national identity are also communicated through the food we cook and the meals we share. When I first met my Finnish husband in Hong Kong, I went to my favourite bookshop to buy a book on Finland so I could learn about the country that was going to be my new home. Instead of finding a Lonely Planet type publication, interestingly the only book they had was… a cookbook. However, from this book I not only learnt about Finnish food, but the customs & family rituals associated with it, the ever-challenging & unique Finnish language, and it still takes pride of place on my bookshelf. Yes, finnzkitchen© is about inspiring you to eat, think and be merry, but I also hope to construct a space for conversation and reflection. A space where we can celebrate and learn to value our diversity as well as our sameness. I hope you enjoy my offerings and please feel free to test, adapt and give feedback on how to improve the recipes.

Welcome to my table!