Bath Time Fun

In our house, bath time is treasured. I can spend hours in the bathtub with a good book. I read the entire Under The North Star trilogy in the tub. It’s a calm relaxing quiet place for self pampering.

Bath salts come packaged in dried lavender and rose petals in a silver box, and are decorated with an old key from and old family farm in the alps.

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Scented Simple Bliss!

Right now, we are int he middle of several interesting and entertaining crafts and meals… The result is, sometimes the larger ones go on for days or even weeks. Right now we have several projects going on, so stay tuned we have so much more on it’s way. For tonight, we made with some excess ingredients for one of our ongoing project a sachet.

Sachet, finished and ready for the drawer!

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Spa Water

Spa Water Freezing Cold And Ready To Drink!

This is water I started making a while back when I wanted to lose some weight. It is super healthy! Loaded with vitamins. Very very simple to make. It is based on the water you get at the restaurants in very high class European spas in the Alps. It is very common to drink water loaded with yummies. This water works wonders both for skin and for weight issues. It is great, because it takes down swelling and may even be really nice for those with arthritis.

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Homemade Pizza! Pizza!

We love our bread machine dearly. It has become quite a special part of our lives. Not only do we use it to actually bake bread it also has a mix setting. Sometimes, when we are tired like after all the in laws left. We make ourselves a pair of pizzas. It’s quick and easy, and kind of fun. Plus it tastes good.

Beautiful pizza ready to be eaten

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“I’m hungry.” The Stories Never told.

I was struggling today with thinking up a blog post. I had no idea what to write about. And now I just hope I can write about it through my tears. Today I discovered what it means to be humbled. Truly humbled. To feel so small and so ignorant of what it means to suffer. The people back home, they don’t feel a connection to Europe so much. We don’t realize for example that Sweden, is a capitalist country. As is France. It has been over two hundred years since a war touched us on our own soil for any real span of time. We don’t realize, we conveniently forget, when we look at all the laughing smiling highly educated Europeans… That they have a trail of tears behind them. Many of them have stories to tell of things that have happened here, in this sunny bright area, where today everyone goes about their business laughing and smiling and even singing. The grave yards, are not near by, but the graves are fresh. Much fresher than those in American soil. Today, I am going to share some stories. This is part of travel too. The ugly past is ever present in every place you go. And every person who is today in these sunny bright Austrian streets has been touched personally in one way or another by the ugliest that humanity has to offer.

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Simple German Rostbraten (Also Known As Roast Beef)

I am taking it easy tonight. Wasting my time eating junk food and generally being exhausted. First my mother came to visit from Boston for nearly 2 weeks. Less than a week later, my Finnish in laws came for a visit as well. I got totally hit with a double whammy. Now I am tired. So tonight, I thought I would share with all of you something incredibly boring and simple and keep this short.

Rostbraten fresh out of the oven. Allow to sit for 20 minutes out of the oven till it finishes it’s cooking process.

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No, Not Fried Monkey Balls! Fried Munkki Balls! Finnish Donuts.

My house is over flowing with Finns. For the last few days we have been cooking constantly for every meal. It has to be nearly 100 degrees Fahrenheit in Wien and the oven fills the whole house up with even more heat. Horrid.

Yesterday for coffee we made a very traditional Finnish sweet, called munkki. It is very similar to our donuts.  It is typically and most traditionally made for May First.  Which is the beginning of what Finns recognize as summer. So it is a nice little mini holiday. munkki, isn’t limited to May First however. The Finnish people love it and eat it with some regularity nearly always with afternoon coffee rather than as a breakfast food as we Americans typically eat our donuts.

Munkki Finnish Donuts

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Anise Lollies and the Big Sky Country of Canuckstan

This is a post I intended to make yesterday….  But, unfortunately, I went out to dinner with my in laws. Well, that isn’t the unfortunate part. It is always wonderful to spend time with them. They couldn’t be more fabulous if they tried. I have been very lucky in this way. It was unfortunate, that I did something rare for me. I got really really drunk. Now there is the unfortunate part. We went to a fabulous little tourist trap down by the Rathaus. A favorite of my husband.  (It’s called Einstein’s and my husband is a PhD in physics…. I am sure the attraction is fairly self evidently obvious.) Well, going out with a bunch of Finns generally includes a great deal of booze.  They tend to have a major obsession with alcohol. Especially their Lapinculta, reindeer piss beer and their revolting Kossu. I only hate it because I very rarely like the taste of alcohol. When out with Finns…. Drinking is usually in the cards and a little for me goes a long way. My husband and father in law were wonderful. The way they listened to me slurring and babbling about how they must have put vodka into my wine. I was so wasted after just two small drinks I honestly did believe, the wait staff had put vodka into my glass with my wine. It was only a little young wine, not even clear white. Cloudy, and barely more than grape juice. They added this delicious, amazingly scrumptious, natural and organic rasberry syrup. And I was on cloud 9 drinking as much of it as I could get into me. Surrounded by very polite Finns very accustomed to holding their booze and not getting stupid. So, that is what I was doing when I should have been making this post the other day. Yes, feel free to add the chorus, “while we while we were getting high,”  to the end of this paragraph if it amuses you.

Anise lollies, great for wedding favors!

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Boston Mac and Cheese

Ok, so my in laws  from Varkaus  Finland are here. My home is a mess of “football” or as we Americans say soccer and Savo, an accent named for region of Finland from which it comes. Those in Helsinki, would have that it is a mild garbling of their beautiful language. But not so bad as what they speak up there in Rauma. Hear that Rauma, learn to talk civilized Finnish! ( I must point out, I should have said speak not talk.)  I am only kidding Rauma. You all speak far better Finnish than I do. I have only been taught the mandatory words such as kiitos (please/thank you,) moi (hello/goodbye,) olut (beer,) and of course your infamous P word. You all know the one you like to shout when ever you stub your toe. I will pretend here that I am too polite to say it. But you know the word I mean. Beyond those words and only a few dozen more I am entirely useless with the Finnish language. So Rauma, you do have at least me beat.

Grating the cheese

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Good Luck With Your Revolution! A Book Review and Reality Review

Yesterday, I was on Facebook. Some group I belong to, was comparing the economic situation of the 99% to that of, Canadian students. I lived in Canada, for nearly two years. So their statement of comparison linking the two groups as two things that are alike, was so hysterical to me. It shows just what a deficit in education we have in America, that we don’t know anything about the actual circumstances of our neighbors. Whats more disturbing, is that we lack a sufficient grasp of history to make a proper comparison between the plight and situation of the 99% with a group that actually is like them.

First book of Under The North Star Trilogy by Vaino Linna available on Amazon

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