Freddy's Birthday

Freddy was officially 18 on March 25, which is oddly enough only one day different from our first exchange son, Felipe's, whose is on the 24th.  Eighteen for a Finnish kid, doesn't mean a whole lot here in the US, but when he gets back to Finland he will be able to drink alcohol.... legally.  It was a busy weekend but we squeezed in lots of birthday activities.  The morning of his birthday we had American breakfast, pancakes & sausage, before school.

That night Freddy had a birthday party with friends.  Saturday we went to Birch Run for some birthday shopping and a birthday lunch.  We finally went to Tony's.  It's famous for HUGE portions.  Freddy got the BLT (bacon lettuce tomato sandwich) with 1 full pound of bacon!  He ate much of it but could not finish it.

That night we had a family birthday dinner.  Freddy chose and we had steaks, frites and salad.  Huge sirloin steaks of which Freddy ate the entirety of.  Mike and I split one.  The frites were sweet potato and I made a smoked paprika butter for the steaks. Very delicious meal.

Sunday we had birthday cake.  When we asked Freddy what kind he wanted, he stated that he wanted an American cake.  Isn't cake American period??  No?  Oh okay.  Epicurious was a big helper and I found a decidely American cake, Devils Food Cake.  We topped the three layers with a caramel frosting and it was mouth watering.

 The final part of the celebration was the following Wednesday.  We bought Red Wings tickets for Freddy's birthday present.  We had a great time even though the Wings got slaughtered.  Not a bad replacement for the drinking birthday that he would have had in Finland.

Sushi!

Mom & I with our hard work.

Many, many years ago I took my first trip to NYC with my now Mother-in-law to pick up my now sister-in-law, Patricia, from college and do a bit of sight seeing.  We ventured to Rockefeller Plaza and ended up getting lunch.  Patricia wanted to get sushi.  She got a harmless California Roll.  I, after just having discovered a slight liking of fish, was obviously curious but very frightened.  "Isn't it raw fish?" I asked.  Of course, I tried it after many "Fear Factor" faces and was not pleased to find that it was very very fishy tasting.  "It's too fishy for me," was all I could muster to say but in my head I was saying "Yuck! Yuck! Yuck!"  I came to learn after giving it a try again and again once back at MSU that it actually was the seaweed not the fish that had put me off that first meeting with sushi.  Though I couldn't have predicted in NYC, seaweed and I are now friends and sushi and I have become the closest of friends.

However much I love cooking, sushi is a bit intimidating.  It takes a lot of skill to do what chefs do at the best of sushi restaurants and I do not think I have the education to be able to achieve the artistry that is on my plate at those restaurants.  That however will not stop me from trying to learn more about this yummy food.  Not too long ago my Mom called to tell me that a local chef was doing a sushi class and wanted to know if I wanted to go with her.  Without a doubt I was going.

We had a great time and I earned a ton of confidence making three rolls all by my lonesome.  Our teacher was good and took much of the intimidation factor out of play.  The scariest was flipping the rice covered nori to make a roll with the rice on the outside.  If a drum roll could have been conjured it would have been quite appropriate as I stared down at my soon-to-be spicy tuna roll trying to work up the courage to flip it over.  Of, course my rolls were not restaurant caliber, but they were tasty!!  I cannot wait to get some sushi rice and start practicing on the boys at home.

Adventures in Finnish Cookery

I really love to cook and my husband might let you know that with recipes I have the attention span of a gnat.  I hardly ever make the same thing twice, I'm awful at following recipes (I'm always improvising due to pantry supplies or food allergies) and I always like to try something new.  I'll make/try anything once.  So, it is no wonder that along with our exchange students come new cooking adventures for me.  I wonder if my sons ever get tired of me asking how things taste, if they've had anything similar before and what kind of recipes are close to it in their country.  I'm so curious about food and I love to eat!

So, below are some of my adventures in Finnish cookery this year.  I haven't done a ton of Finnish cooking, because one of Freddy's goals is to try EVERYTHING American.  But, it has been really nice to try some special things at Christmas and recently for Fat Tuesday (Shrove Tuesday).

New Apron and Oven Mitt from Finland for Christmas.

Christmas I made something that was a wide step outside of my comfort zone, Gravlax.  For a very long portion of my life I never liked fish.  Sounds ridiculous now, but I think I only did fish sticks a couple times as a youngster and I decided that fish and I would not be friends.  My Dad wasn't a fan either, so I never thought it was a weird thing to pass on food with scales.  When I got food allergies, I realized how fortunate I was to be able to eat any food, so I took a new position in my food life...  try everything that I'm not allergic to at least once.  That philosophy has had a hand in leading me to the land of fishes and while I like most of them, salmon is just not one that I'm a fan of.  Gravlax is cured or marinated salmon.  I'm currently wrinkling my nose thinking about salmon.

But, fortunately for me, once finished Gravlax doesn't taste very salmon-y.  I liked it quite a bit.  At Christmas time we also made the traditional gingerbread, rutabaga casserole and Christmas pudding.  Pictures coming....

Freddy's parents sent me a note telling me of a Fat Tuesday pastry that they normally have and how much Freddy liked them.  They offered to send me the recipe if I wanted to try to make them.  Really... did they have to even ask?  Below are pictures of making the fastlagsbulle.  Freddy said they were great and Mike rather liked them too.

 Then on Sunday after our drive back from Columbus we told Freddy that he had to cook dinner for us because he has not cooked a thing here in the US (really we were just feeling lazy!).  The closest he's gotten to cooking is stirring something for me on the stove and putting together peanut butter & jelly sandwiches.  He said he had the recipe for Macaroni Casserole that he hadn't made.  We of course all went into the kitchen and made it together.  Quite tasty.

Freddy even made his own "head chef" hat.

Doing dishes while Freddy was watching the stove.

The finished product!

Happy Holi-daze!

The holidays were amazing, but all too quick.  Unfortunately just before Christmas, I had a big project (that I'm still drowning in) come up and it zapped a lot of my time and energy right at holiday time.  It was stressful, but in the end it all worked out and we still had a great couple of weeks.  

Finnish Christmas Dinner

For Christmas, I wanted to make sure that I did something special for Freddy.  So, I sought out advice from his Finnish parents (Erik & Anki) about what Christmas is like in Finland.  It was very easy for me to get in touch with them because they are so very helpful and communicative.  They were quite pleased to help me with traditions, recipes and all other things Finnish.  Mike and I planned to have a three day Christmas celebration.  

We began on Christmas Eve, with our first trip snowboarding/skiing for the winter season.  We all had a great time.  Freddy showed me a few tips (this is only my second year snowboarding) and I did very well for the first trip of the season.  I even did one of the steepest hills with Freddy by my side.  Freddy really is an exceptionally great snowboarding partner.  He always stayed behind me or slowed down to make sure I was all right.  And, of course, when I hit the ground he'd make sure I was all right.  We all had so much fun and it was a great start to the holiday.  That night when we got home I began putting together all of the "top secret" Finnish food I had been working on.  We had told Freddy that we were going to have Finnish Christmas on the 24th, but I left many things out.  I warmed up the glögg, ham and put the rutabaga casserole into bake.  I also made up a bit of a smorgasbord for us with multiple other things (salmon, especially for Freddy).  It went great.  We also got online to skype with Finland after all of their festivities were over.  It was very nice to chat with Erik, Anki, Mimmi and Oskar.  After chatting and dinner we opened presents from Finland.  We got some amazing gifts and we're so thankful for a little piece of Finland!  The best gifts I received were cookbooks!  Freddy brought me a book from Greece and the rest of the Boijers sent me a beautiful Finnish cookbook.  I am so excited to make something out of both.  Although, technically, I've already made rutabaga casserole that is in the Finnish book.

We continued with American Christmas the next morning.  Freddy had his first American stocking and we had nice relaxing day at home.  I got an AWESOME present from my husband.

A mazel t-shirt!  So fantastic along with my immersion blender.  Freddy became a normal American teenager with a new iPod.  iTunes was tough for him to learn, but he's clearly got the hang of it now.  

That evening after a couple of skyping sessions Mom, Dad and Dana came over for dinner.  We had leftover Finnish Christmas dinner with some American added in.  Eggnog, etc.  We played a couple of good natured games of Scene It and then we were off to bed for day 3 of the festivities.

Day 3 was Christmas with the family at my Mom & Dad's house.  It's always a long fun day of food presents and games.  We did stockings as always and then a little breakfast before the big presents and opening of gifts to/from each other.  My Mom apparently needed kitchen supplies this year because she got 2 waffle makers and 2 food processors!!  We finished the day with Freddy's first time playing Pit.  Sooooo much fun!  I'm pretty sure he thought we were lunatics when we all began shouting at the top of our lungs, but it took him only one game to be shouting louder than all of us.  That game is definitely a favorite!  Misc pictures below.

Weekend on Old Mission

One of my favorite places in the world is right here in Michigan, Old Mission Peninsula.  Mike and I were excited to be able to visit it last weekend and share it with Freddy and Becky (Mike's cousin).  Ken and Janet are amazing friends and are always so happy to have us for a visit.  Their home is beautiful and relaxing and their friendship always warms my heart. 

We drove up Friday night as I mentioned in my previous post and on Saturday Mike and I let Becky and Freddy sleep in and we went for a punishing 23 mile ride on the peninsula.  It was tough!  Then after some breakfast we all headed into town to accomplish some things.  Freddy joined myself, Janet and Becky for a downtown shopping jaunt and Mike and Ken went to visit some bike shops and look at boats.  Freddy and Becky found some excellent souvenirs and Janet took me to a great delicatessen shop.  I made a couple of cheese purchases that I look forward to trying out this week.  A peccorino romano and a spanish blue cheese that I can eat!  Yummm.  We all met up a couple of hours later at the famous Moomers.  Moomers is a ice cream place just outside of downtown Traverse that was voted #1 in ice cream on Good Morning America recently.  Quite an impressive resume, so we had to try it.  It was sincerely enjoyed by all.  I had a yummy draft orange soda, as I have ice cream allergies, while everyone else snacked on the creamy ice cream flavor of their choice.  Freddy tested out blue ice cream because he had never seen BLUE ice cream before.  We also stopped on the way back to pick up some bread from a local bakery for dinner that evening.  Dinner was exciting, both because it was delicious and because while grilling the chicken excess grease in the bottom of the grill ignited and shot flames 4 feet high!  Some of the chicken breasts needed some trimming to remove the... umm, charred bit, but it still was delicious.  Janet made a very yummy spinach salad to go along and we had a great dinner on the patio.  Then we cleaned up in a hurry and zoomed off to do a few more errands before we went to the drive in theater!

Our Saturday night activity was a visit to the Cherry Bowl drive in theater.  We saw a double feature of Despicable Me and The Other Guys.  We all loved Despicable Me, but The Other Guys was only so-so.  We didn't get back until 2 am and we all were very sleepy.  

Sunday morning we vowed to take another ride and so we were up bright and early to head out.  We took a flat route this time and it was very enjoyable.  Janet joined us and we rode with her for a bit.  When she turned around we rode on and totaled about 18 miles.  We would have went further, but there were a number of biking events going on and the roads were very congested.  After we showered up, I made us all crepes for brunch.  We put together several fillings and everyone filled their own crepes with the items of their choice.  After packing up and helping Janet a bit more with her computer we left Ken & Janet with many thanks and kisses.  We shot up to the lighthouse so that Freddy and Becky could see it and we waded around in Lake Michigan a bit.

We meandered home taking small highways showing Freddy a bit more of northern Michigan.  We stopped for dinner in Cadillac and then finally made our way back home.  It was an exciting weekend and we all wish we were still gazing out Ken & Janet's windows on to the bay rather than back to work and practice.  We're hoping to get another visit in before the winter.   If not, we'll definitely venture back after it snows.

Relaxation??

Last weekend was a relatively new experience for me.  I was at home.  I had no plans for Saturday and Sunday and I did this thing called relaxation.  Weird!  To my surprise, Mike told me over the weekend, that other people do this "relaxing" thing all the time.  Now, I'm not saying that it was a bad thing.  I thoroughly enjoyed every Hallmark and Lifetime Original movie that I watched, but I sure felt weird doing it.  After stating to Mike for the 3rd time that I felt like a schlub, he assured me that this was perfectly acceptable in the real world and that I would have to accept it.  So, Sunday I embraced the relaxation and enjoyed it.  First thing this morning I flung off that weird stage and headed back into my world.  We just got back from cycling  : )

Although I have abandoned the relaxation thing, I did do some really  fantastic cooking over the weekend.  I made some more bread, I got some zucchini from the Farmer's Market and made a delicious recipe titled "Zesty Zucchini" that we had made previously at Cooking Divas.  I, of course, spiced it up a bit and changed around a few of the ingredients and it was delicious!!  

Between the rain showers, I made it outside on Sunday to pick wild blackberries.  It made me think of my grandma, because my mom says she used to do the same thing every summer.

I live in her house and I imagine that I was picking from the exact same bushes she did.  I ended up with a lot more than I thought I would and I'm excited to use them a couple of different ways.  Last night I began by making a blackberry compote with peaches and orange flavored rum that I put over pan fried venison steaks.  We both thought it was amazing!

 

The remaining compote I am thinking about turning into a dessert pizza tonight with cinnamon & sugar.  Then I even have about a cup of berries left to make something else still.  I'm going to carefully consider their use.  My arms, hands and legs paid a scratchy price for picking and I want to savor my berries!  While I was enjoying climbing through the brush picking berries I also began to wonder why I don't use the many, many, many elderberries I have about and I have another tree with berries that I think are edible??  I'm going to have to look into that one.

Not in chronological order, but Friday we did have a few things going on and it was a really fun day. Walker and I went on a geocaching adventure that saw us, swimming, visiting half the countryside and finding a home for some dumped cats.  Joey joined us later and we did just a few more caches.  Then that evening we had Liz & Christine over for dinner.  Chis brought a Mediterranean feast of hummus, tabbouleh, baba ganoush, grape leaves and falafel.  It was delicious!  I made an arugula walnut pesto pasta to compliment and we stuffed ourselves.  Not too much mind you, because we all still had the energy to head out for a little geocaching.  We witnessed Liz & Chris get their first cache and they joined us in finding one that had before eluded us.  To finish off the night we stopped in the Maple Rapids bar and kicked back a few cold ones.  What an enjoyable day! 

So, in conclusion... relaxation was great for trying new recipes, but I think that I would be as big as a blimp if I did it all the time, because I cooked so many amazing recipes!  Good thing we started training for the DALMAC today!

Yard Sale!

I have officially stopped in at my first yard sale for the year.  Now, I know that compared to the professionals (like my sister!) I am way behind the ball, but there never seem to be any open when I am free.  Why don't they keep yard sales open as long as stores??  I just don't get it.

Anyways I got two fantastic purchases.  A new 1960's style pitcher and an old hand crank juicer.  It's called the "Juice-O-Mat."  Totally love them and I spent $2 for both.  I'm a wheeler and dealer folks!

Here are my beauties...

He that is busy is tempted by but one devil; he that is idle, by a legion. - Thomas Fuller

We are so busy that I'm not sure if any devil can catch us in order to tempt us. If he did,  I'm sure we'd blow by the temptation with all of the things keeping us busy.

Two more very busy weeks/weekends have passed and they were filled with work, dinners, a graduation, a wedding, cycling, projects, parties and even a little bit of sleep. Two weekends ago we attended Lisa's graduation and had a delicious German congratulations dinner for her.


At the dinner I attempted my first try at Spaetzle. In the end I prevailed, but it took many tries. I owe big props to Chef Martin Block as I watched his video instruction as a primer that day before I tried to do it myself. Lisa said it was great and that she had never had homemade Spaetzle before!! She also said it was way better than the Spaetzle that they had when they dined in Germany in Epcot. Haha! Disney Chefs! I have prevailed over you!! Suzzy made an awesome beer braised brisket that I could eat for every meal for the next decade. It had an amazing flavor. We rounded it out with stuffed kohlrabi, a green salad and some other things that I have forgotten. What I haven't forgotten though, are Mom's 3 loaves of beer bread each made with different grains. One was an ancient grain mix, one was spelt and the third was oat. We have some exciting things happening in the Moore girls' kitchens.


Then on Saturday we worked in the yard and attended Caleb & Teresa's wedding. It was a good day/night. The ceremony was early and very close to my favorite burger establishment. So after a drink with the family at the sports bar we jetted off to Birch Run to get Jeanna open toed shoes and to get me some Halo Burger! It was delicious and I finally talked Mike into buying a t-shirt for me. It says, "Seven days without Halo Burger, makes one weak." I love it! We had a great time at the reception and we had a "few" beers. See the pictures for the full definition of what a "few" means.


Sunday we finished off the weekend with some relaxation and a little buggy work/barn cleaning.  No one faint, but Charlie convinced Mike to clean up the barn.  It looks great!  Charlie & Mike have been at work ever since turning our extra buggy frame into the Sageman-mobile.  CJ is very excited!

To Be Continued...