cimorene

When I moved to Finland in 2004, I couldn't get peanut butter or M&M's. Flavored and/or decaf instant coffees were unknown. (Flavored cocoa still is, to my intense chagrin. My parents keep sending me care packages of Ghirardelli and Land O'Lakes and I use them up within a couple of weeks.)

So lately I've been thinking I have lived long enough without a slow cooker and I really want to have one. I like stew, I'm lazy about food prep, my favorite chicken dish for parties (orange chicken with pear salsa) requires one and when I tried to duplicate it in the oven using my mom's recipe it didn't really work.

Slow cookers are basically unknown in Finland. But today I thought, they have to be coming SOMEDAY, right? I mean they've been ubiquitous in America since the 1960s. How long can it actually take?

ANSWER: Somewhat longer.

The poshest department store in the land still doesn't stock them, but when I googled it ("haudutuspata", or simmering pot), I landed directly on haudutuspata.fi, which is owned by Crock-Pot. They, at least, have noticed Finland, even if much of Finland has yet to notice them.

Thanks to taxes, the basic model which costs 79€ at haudutuspata.fi is only 53€ from Amazon Germany (you can get other brands, like Kenwood, for under 50€ domestically though).

Anyway, I think maybe this winter. Then someday we can entertain again. After we buy some more chairs. (Right now we have 1 chair that isn't an armchair.)