1st of May – Vappu in Finnish – is workers’ and students’ festival, and the closest thing to a carnival we have in this land of quiet, polite people who like to mind their own business. I feel too old to celebrate Vappu with the students, and don’t really share the ideology with the labor […]

I’ve been busy at work lately, and have had difficulties to find stamina to cook after hours. This weekend is a long one however because on Monday we celebrate the 1st of May, and it is a public holiday. It’s also pretty safe to say that the outside temperature will finally stay above freezing point […]

Harlem is gentrifying like crazy. Crime is down, so brownstones are going, going, gone and craggy old warehouses are being converted to condos for yuppies as we speak. All this is so inevitable that of late even the crunchy socially conscious granola-eating, Subaru-driving community activist types on my block seem to have given up organizing […]

My mom bakes buns and pies almost every weekend, and this lingonberry and carrot pie is one of her staples – and super good at that! The pie crust is made from the same dough as the cinnamon buns/rolls she also makes (pulla in Finnish), which is very convenient as you can bake several pastries […]

Sorry for not updating the site in a while. The contractors working on the renovations of my building flooded my apartment last week. They had to remove the hardwood flooring from the whole apartment to allow the underlying concrete to dry. That’ll take a fortnight or so during which I’m not really able to cook […]