Goth MJ flats - Draven "Jessica" and Demonia "Daisy 17"

Thought I'd take a break from sneaks and boots today, guys. Probably because I've just realized I won't have another opportunity to wear anything but sneaks and boots out of the house until next Easter at the earliest...



Another note: I'm still sunk in post-vacation blues (combined with flying 50% closer to the Arctic Circle and losing all that daylight at once which means a stunningly intense wave of seasonal depression). Thank Enya I didn't have any class this week, because I just slept 10 hours last night, got up for 1 hour and was too tired to prepare breakfast even though I was hungry, and went back to bed to sleep another six hours.

Eating in Finland: the Tex Mex Void and the Dill Pickle Conundrum

This post contains no recipes but is tagged thus because I don't have a "food" tag.

Our layover on the way home was at DC Dulles and I had THE most memorable meal of the trip there, in a little sandwich shop at the airport - a sandwich which was basically like grilled cheese with three kinds of cheese, dill pickles and mushrooms mixed into the cheese, a delicious dill pickle spear and a way-too-tiny bag of cajun salt & vinegar kettle chips. AND THAT IS SAYING SOMETHING, OKAY. I gorged myself so often and so much while in America on our two weeks' vacation that I'm surprised I didn't gain any weight (if I did I lost it again by the time I got to weigh myself, but that's not surprising since we came home to a house with no food and I've been hungry, and nibbling on rice and toast with nothing on it, all week). HIGHLIGHTS: my uncle Joe's salsa (I ate almost a jar and one day literally made myself sick on it - I don't have the stomach lining for that much chile anymore), my aunts' chicken parmesan and chicken hot pot, about 8 boxes of Pop Tarts, mozzarella sticks, all the bagels I could want, and just once, quesadillas for breakfast.

Why, you may ask, was grilled cheese with a pickle spear and salt'n'vinegar chips your most memorable meal? Well, I'll tell you.

Finland doesn't have dill pickles or anything like them. Nowadays we do have salt and vinegar potato chips, but they were only introduced within the last year, by Estrella, the Finnish equivalent of Lay's. This is to say that the chips are thin and a little bland, and I prefer country-style chips like kettle chips. (We do have one brand of these in Finland, produced by Estrella's competitor Taffel, but they come only in three flavors - plain, garlic, and sour cream & dill. I love them, but they're not as good as salt & vinegar; I can't help it, I crave sour and salt above all else.)

There are other things that Finland doesn't have, like Tex Mex and Pop-Tarts, but these are easier to substitute for, like by making my own Tex-Mex-ish-stuff and with other sorts of pastries and jam sandwiches and such. There's nothing that I've been able to find that is like dill pickles. I've decided now that my next step is going to have to be to try making them.

I have what you might call a nervous stomach, and there's no question that living in Finland has been good for my health. Finland makes it easy to eat healthy by not even having your favorite junk foods (Pop-Tarts, Toaster Strudels, toaster waffles, Lucky Charms or in fact any sugared cereal whatever, corn chips above the quality of what you would buy at a street fair after they have been going stale for 1 week, Doritos, most flavored potato chips, most flavors of dip, most types of candy and when you do buy it it's in tiny tiny quantities), as well as by enforcing the customs and traditions of pretty healthy food. In fact, I find that smorgasbord breakfast (open-face toast sandwiches topped with veggies, cold cuts, butter, or creamcheese) is a pleasantly agreeable food that's easy to get used to, and hard to get away from. I like it so much that I often eat it for lunch as well. It's hard to go wrong with rye bread, health-wise.

Pics of me and Wax at my cousin's wedding

You've already seen pics of our wedding, but since nobody dressed up or posed or danced, those are less exciting. I have been forcefully charged with making sure I have photo documentation of my bridesmaid outfit by isilya not once but several times, and also by some other people, and despite the fact that I didn't bring my own camera on the big day, I can finally deliver! These pictures taken by my mom and my favorite aunt, Cherrie (the mother of the bride).


( just nine pictures! )