Becoming a foodie

When my now-husband came over to my place for a visit just when we had started going out, he wasn’t too impressed with the contents of my fridge: mineral water and eye cream.

I was straight out of uni and food was not a priority in my life. I lived on noodles, oatmeal and other random ingredients you would hardly call food. Money could certainly be spent on more interesting things than nourishing my body.

I am not quite sure when the switch happened. I could have been when I first discovered the market near our apartment and fell in love with getting fresh produce straight from the growers, choosing the eye fillet from the butcher’s shop or getting a cheese sample from a gourmet vendor before choosing antipasto for a dinner party. I could have also been any of those trips to local wineries, where I dutifully smelled, tasted and swallowed through a wine tasting list before choosing my favourite chardonnay and pinot noir to take home. But I am pretty sure that living in the food capital of Australia (maybe even the world) and sampling the best Melbourne hast to offer has had definitely had something to do with it.

Whatever the trigger was, gone is the food-exists-just-to-keep-me-alive mentality. I am now a full blown foodie.

I go to the local market every Saturday morning, as nothing could be more important than my weekly date with fresh produce. I love sampling the fresh grapes before buying (as a Finn, this took some coaching to get used to, but it feels pretty normal now) and I know exactly which butcher has the best eye fillet and where to get the freshest salmon. I love organising dinner parties and secretly enjoy slaving in the kitchen over a three course meal. And I actually sit down over the weekend to plan dinners for the coming week.

My love affair with food is blossoming, and I couldn’t be happier. Tonight I am going to cook some grilled salmon, fresh veggies and maybe have a glass of Chardonnay. Anyone care to join me?

Irresponsible thoughts

Here it is again, the familiar pang that starts from my stomach and grasps a tight hold of my heart. Homesickness. It comes without a warning, usually marked by missing a certain family tradition or an event which I would normally attend. And today is one of those days when I just feel like packing my bags, getting a taxi to the airport (with the husband, not planning to leave him if you were wondering) and buying a ticket out of here.

Stupid? Yes. Irresponsible? Yes. But oh, so tempting.

Flying high

I can still remember the first time I got on a plane. I was 18 years old and I was going to spend the whole gorgeous summer in US working at a Girl Scout camp. I have all these glorious memories about how great the food was, how quickly the flight passed and all the free movies I could watch. Needless to say, I was pretty wet behind the ears.

Since then I have experienced many flights. When you hook up with a guy who was born in the other side of the world, it’s one of those things you really can’t avoid. I have experienced short flights across Europe and really long flights across several continents. And finally, I have really learned to hate flying.

It’s not that I’m scared of it. It really is an all consuming disgust towards planes, airplane food and the time you have to sit strapped down to a very uncomfortable seat. Imagine sitting 30 hours on a sore tailbone, bloating like a balloon because the food you have been given is so full of preservatives that your body goes into a shock, puking your guts (and the aforementioned dinner) out during turbulence, sitting next to a really large person who sleeps all through the flight so you can’t go to the toilet and getting your hair so frizzy because of the dry air that is sticks to your face (a bit like during the winter in Finland, really). I could go on forever.

The thing is, I’m stuck. I love traveling, but I just hate the actual moving bit. And how sad is it, that I experience motion sickness in most forms of transport (although I haven’t puked while riding a bicycle yet). And now we finally get to the point. Could someone please come up with a commercial teleportation device very soon? Because I have to get on a plane again in a couple of months and I’d really like avoid it if possible.

Freezing in Australia

Before moving to Australia, one of the things I inquired from my partner was: "Will I ever get to experience those lovely brisk autumn mornings we get in Finland?" He just smiled and nodded. Clearly I had no idea of the weather in my new home country.

While the northern parts are usually quite warm all throughout the year, Melbourne gets pretty cold during the winter. And sometimes during the summer too. Granted, we are not talking about minus degrees here, but there's nothing worse than the southerly wind blowing from Antarctica during a wet winter day.

In Finland you can pretty much wear a T-shirt inside during winter, as some clever dude discovered insulation a very long time ago. And when you go out, you just put on a few more layers. In Australia, when you come home after work in winter, you feel like you are entering a freezer. The first thing you do is switch on the heater and then half an hour later you might consider taking off your winter coat. In our previous apartment I also wore a beanie and gloves at times to stay warm. No clever insulation dudes here.

Then comes summer and you are excited of the fact that you don’t have to wrap a fleece around you at work and you can actually type without gloves in your hands. Well, you’d think so anyway. In comes the air-conditioning. It’s a lovely summer’s day outside and you are freezing in the office, because Aussies would rather sit in an icebox than experience a bit of warmth. And then you find yourself wrapped in fleece and wearing gloves again.

And just guess how many times I have heard the following sentence: “You are from Finland, shouldn’t you be used to cold by now?” I used to make a point about the insulation in houses, but I’ve given up now. My colleague thinks I’m from the Bahamas and another one gave me a pink fleece blanket for Christmas. But unfortunately I can’t feel my fingers anymore so I better stop typing now.