Pop-ups on Kemiö Island: July 2014

2014/07/22

Stunning July

It is amazing how fast everything grows in the garden now that the heat is above 20 degrees C. All the berries are ripening at the same time. I had to cover the white, red and black currant bushes with nets to prevent birds from eating the ripening berries.

Strawberries are sweeter than ever – despite the rainy June. We normally buy 6 -8 liters per day as the number of eaters has settled to over 10.

I picked 8 liters of blueberries during the first ‘inspection’ trip to the forest – they are big and there’s plenty of them. I am eagerly waiting for mushrooms to pop up after the heavy rain and thunderstorm last Sunday.

The life has much focused on kids in July, but they have also had other program than being with us. All the kids (Hanna, Emma, Ollie and Sam) went to Robin’s concert in Taalintehdas during the Baltic Jazz. Emma had also got tickets to Robin's concert in Helsinki Olympic Stadium as a birthday present, and she loved the event.

No-one was interested inthe local annual Traktorikavalkadi this year, but Nellie, Emma and Hanna went to a large horse event Kemiö Jumping, as always. This year our neighbor was competing there in show jumping with her beautiful horse.

Then we also had first-time visitors (and, who knows, new family members..) in two successive weekends when my daughter Inka brought her new fiancé Tim and my son Ilpo his partner Windy. We took both couples boating and served Black Agnus steaks with Siikli potatoes and large bowls of salad late in the evening for dinner (to give them a feeling what and how we normally eat on the island). Hanna was practicing cooking and volunteered every night to prepare dessert, mostly from strawberries. She also made cookies one day.

I had to return to Helsinki in Mid-July to work and had the possibility to enjoy the gorgeous weather and big family only during weekends. However, I have to admit that I greatly enjoyed for being alone and not cooking anything while in the town!

2014/07/12

Hot pot night

One of our summer traditions is Mongolian hot pot. We prepare this meal when our Chinese friend Hong and her family visit us. This happened last week.

Hot pot is a steaming aromatic broth simmering in a shallow pot divided into two sections, one has more spicy broth and the other one a mild broth. We have two original Chinese pots for this purpose to serve 8-10 people.

There is also an assortment of fresh ingredients such as thinly shaved meat, napa cabbage and other Chinese greens, noodles and tofu and people cook their own meal from these ingredients in the common hot pot. Once the chosen pieces have been cooked a minute or so, they will be fished out with chopsticks from the broth and dipped in a tasty spicy dipping sauce.

By the end of dinner, the broth has taken on wonderful flavors, and a big bowl of the broth with a dash of the dipping sauce makes for a perfect ending to the meal.

Hong was the main chef in our kitchen that day. She brought the Chinese ingredients such as goji berries, fresh and fermented tofu, black beans, Asian chile paste, glass noodles, Chinese pepper, ginseng, tahini and herbs. We bought the meat (thinly sliced beef sirloin and lamb meat), napa cabbages and ingredients available on Kemiö S-market.

Hong mixed the ingredients to the dipping sauce and broth from her head, without measuring anything. The result is every time different but always delicious. Our kids aged from 4 to 14 all liked the food and managed to eat with chopsticks. Only little Ollie needed some help.

If you don't have a Chinese friend, there are plenty of recipes for hot pot on the internet, for example these:

2014/07/06

Fairy-tale art

Heat has landed on the island. We had +26 C today. So everyone is happy, happy, happy.

Yesterday after Inka and Yaffa had left, Rose, Hanna and I drove to Westers Garden to see flowers and herbs, and the art exhibition arSboretum 14, featuring fairy-tale art in an old barn and in the garden. Fabulous! Hanna, 12, said she wanted to buy the whole place. Me, too.

And I liked the pieces of art, particularly as Eeva-Leena Eklund’s large paintings. As we didn’t have the needed cash (or credit), we just admired them.

In the evening we got more life to the house when Hank, Angie and Sam, 7, arrived. The kids had a hilarious evening in the beach sauna and after that, in the hot tub.

Today, JD’s old uncle Matt, 84, and his wife visited us. They hadn’t seen our long dining table on the patio, and he said: “I didn’t know that you have opened a restaurant here!” Well, he wasn’t so wrong about it. This is a pop-up restaurant, open for family only. It was nice to meet them and have four generations at the table.

As the day was hot, I made a large bowl of salad with buffalo mozzarella, tomatoes, basil and olive oil for lunch. Hank grilled some sausages for the kids (and all adults ate them, too).

Today it was Rose and Rob who had to return to Helsinki, and the number of people at the dinner table was again down to 10. Late in the evening we’ll grill tiger shrimps.

2014/07/04

Finnish bouillabaisse

On Thursday Rob went fishing with Ollie and Emma. With a small Angry Birds rod and spincast reel they managed to get four pikes and one perch. So I had to fulfill my promise to cook bouillabaisse. This turned out to be a full-day job.

I cleaned the pikes at the seaside, and let the perch back to freedom – Ollie didn’t want to hurt it. Then we drove to Salo with JD for shopping some ingredients for the seafood stew, such as Norwegian salmon and cod, onions, carrots, and fennel. Our fishermen couldn’t catch clams and shrimp, so we bought frozen ones.

On the way to Salo Citymarket, we stopped by Perniön Liha to buy 2.5 kgs little sausages for next day’s meal andKemiö bakery’s rye bread.

Meanwhile, Rose fetched Siikli potatoes from the farm we always buy potatoes and strawberries.

Finnish bouillabaisse for 10

1 dl extra-virgin olive oil
2 bunches of onions, white and green parts, diced
2 fennel bulbs
8 garlic cloves, coarsely chopped
8 tomatoes, cut into small dice
8 baby carrots
1 kg Siikli potatoes
Little Tabasco
2 bay leaves
Pinch of saffron threads
2-3 liters of fish stock (and water, if needed)
1 kg skinless salmon
0.5 kg skinless cod
Boneless pike or perch
1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 package of frozen clams
0.5 kg frozen large shrimps
3 dl Riesling

First thing to do in bouillabaisse is to make a good fish stock. I used the pikes for the broth and cooked them with heads and skin in plenty of water for an hour, and added black pepper, salt, parsley and fennel in the water. Small pikes have so many bones that they have to be removed, and if you do it, there’s not much to eat. For this reason I strained the stock and hand-picked some pike flesh for the stew (not much really).

Next, I dipped the tomatoes in boiling water to remove the skin. Then I chopped the onions, baby-carrots, fennel, potatoes and garlic, took a large pot and sautéed the vegetables in virgin olive oil. Tomato and fish stock was added next with the seasoning: saffran, sea salt, thyme and black pepper. I added potato cubes a bit later. In a traditional bouillabaisse there are no potatoes and carrots, but they are so lovely at this time of the year and fit well in this stew.

The different seafood is added when the vegetables are almost cooked. I also added some Riesling for the perfect finishing touch. (The same Riesling is served with the stew!)

The Finnish bouillabaisse is served outside by the sea when it’s cold and windy and eaten with dark rye bread and butter. It was exactly like that, windy and cold, at 10 pm when we had dinner outside. Everyone preferred the dessert (apple pie with vanilla sauce) inside the house.

2014/07/02

Gym, jogging and Mölkky

Despite the cold (12-14 degrees C) and rainy weather the high season in this house started in the beginning of July. JD and I escaped to Italy for one week after Midsummer, but when we came to Kemiö almost straight from the airport we found 12 pairs of Crocs welcoming us in the porch. Annie’s family with four small kids and Rose had already arrived, and Inka and Yaffa came a bit later.

Many things are going on with the kids: Hanna, 12, was collecting flowers for drying and pressing, as they have a flora task from school to collect 30 plants, just like in the old times, except we had to collect 120 plants and know the Latin name of each and every one of those. Emma, 9, has sports competitions in the neighboring towns every week and she is practising running, long jump and shot put, and Ollie, 5, is learning letters and numbers. Vappu, 1.5, is learning to speak, she already can run fast.

It was too cold for boating and swimming in the sea. Instead we had a gym on the patio with Inka as a trainer, several people went jogging daily, and there was Mölkky games, football (soccer) on TV and sauna of course.

All the plants are growing fast and we don’t need to water them, which is exceptional on this island. The perennials are blossoming and the flower bench has doubled its size in a couple of weeks.

Even the grapevines have flowers, but the summer is too cold and short to have grapes. The zucchini and chili plant have plenty of flowers which are turning fast into zucchinis and chilis. Soon we can cook them. Zucchini is not everyone’s favorite, but we have two options for dinner here: Take it or leave it.

Tomorrow, Rob will try to catch fish - and I promised to cook bouillabaisse if he is successfull.