Bassano and pastries

Merry-go-round and an unsuspecting little girl in Bassano

Today I went to visit Bassano which apparently is very famous for its grappa. Grappa is not really my cup of tea, so to speak, but the town was nice. It's full of chocolate shops, cafes, and now coming up to Christmas, there is also the mandatory Mercatino di Natale with a merry-go-round and mulled wine. The landscape there is beautifully non-flat, which makes me unreasonably happy, and in fact I liked the atmosphere in the town so much that I would not be entirely opposed to even living there one day.

Plastic ice!

There was an ice rink too, except that you can imagine my shock as I went closer to look at this wonder, and realised that the ice wasn't actually ice but plastic! I can assure you I have never seen that before. People skating on plastic ice... Only in Italy!

We took a cup of hot chocolate from this lovely little chocolate shop near the old bridge. I would have taken a photo of the shop but didn't quite have the courage to do so, so I only took a pic of the sign. If you ever find yourself in Bassano, this place does good cioccolata calda da passeggiata (hot chocolate for walking). It tasted a lot like my mum's home made suklaakiisseli (choc pudding), and was marginally more runny than the usual Italian hot chocolate which you have to eat with a spoon (as I have already previously described in some post...) but this "walking hot chocolate" is still nothing like the hot chocolate we are used to in other countries. I'm actually starting to think that all these years my mum has been making Italian hot chocolate without even knowing it. Oh and even today I also had ice cream too. The unholy combination of hot and cold chocolate all in one day!

When I came home it seems I still hadn't had my dose of calories and sugar, so I set about making some prune jam and Finnish joulutorttu Christmas pastries. And then I ate them all. (Ok, I didn't make a huge amount of them, but still!)

A lovely chocolate shop in Bassano

Joulutorttuja

Nightime blues

Tuna and sour cream pie

I had a pretty nice day today. Only one hour of work, a cup of tea with a student/friend, a lift home from work and a bit of silly jamming to the car stereo, and in the end even a little bit of baking; I made a tuna and sour cream pie (the recipe can be found here) and it turned out pretty good.

Still, at night when everyone else is sleeping and I have time for my own thoughts without no distractions these blues really creep in and I don't know how to stop them. I guess I can't and maybe I don't even have to. In these moments I miss being able to call him.

Feis Fever!

Last Monday it was my Birthday. Thank you to all of you who remembered! (and those of you who didn't remember: shame on you!! Just kidding!) It was definitely a much better birthday than last year, when I spent the day at airports travelling to my new "home" Italy. The weather was disgusting too; when I arrived here it was dark cold and rainy and the area had just been suffering from some semi-serious flooding. This year instead the whole week before was sunny and bright, even unusually crisp considering the humidity which normally completely dominates the weather in this area. After my birthday it's been really foggy though. There you go, that is the weather report done!

Under 17s Champions' parade

The more interesting stuff follows: the Mainland European Oireachtas 2011 are in Milan this weekend, and obviously I couldn't not go. For those of you (read: the large majority of you) who don't know what Oireachtas is, it's basically the local (i.e. European, N-American, Irish..) championships of Irish dancing, which is also a qualifying competition for the World Championships. Irish dancing is a whole different thing from anything you might imagine. I mean, yeah, there are some people in elven-style dresses skipping around beautifully, but the other side of it is the flashy neon coloured glitter dresses and huge wigs. And everything MUST sparkle! It's great though.

This beauty won the U17 category

It has been some years now since I stopped dancing but listening to the music and watching dancers compete for a good 9 hours yesterday left me feeling like dancing too. Trust me, 9 hours (and I arrived late and left early!!) of watching non stop Irish dancing is not an easy thing to do. I really feel for those adjudicators! Let alone the musicians, because don't forget that this is all done to live music. As a result when I was sitting on the train and starting to doze off, I closed my eyes and dreamed girls in glittery pyjamas with huge wigs. When I opened my eyes had left a wig on the seat next to the girl on the opposite side of the aisle! Except then I realised it was her brown woollen scarf... I also noticed that my hands (which used to do this when I was still training) started to do the steps to the music that was still playing in my head. This is one of the main indicators how to recognise an Irish dancer. Play some danceable music and see if his/her hands start moving (provided that full out dancing is out of the question). While I was waiting for the tram outside the station - and therefore my feet were free to move - I started repeating the steps of the Blackbird and when I got to the lift it was damned near that I brought the whole thing to a halt, not to mention wake the whole building up, because I couldn't resist trying a few trebles on the soft carpet (as if to keep the noise down, you see). Old habits clearly die hard! It's as if an ex-smoker has even one cigarette. This Feis day pushed me right over the edge again.

Happy winners

One team preparing for their figure

I apologise for the lack of good photos. Only a silly girl goes to a Feis without charging the camera battery... But the photographing during dancing is not allowed anyway. You can click on the photos to see a bigger version.
P.S: If you find that it is your photo here and you don't want it to be on the blog, let me know and I'll take it down!

Cake image: YaiSirichai / FreeDigitalPhotos.net, other photos are mine. Please don't copy without asking!

Savoury treats

The trees outside my window have lost their leaves over the past week. Oh the sadness! And it happened so fast too. Now when I wake up I see the gray sky, clouds so thick you could cut out a slice like I did yesterday with this pie I made:

Pie!

It's a ham, red pepper and cheese pie and it was pretty nice! The recipe can be found here, but it's in Finnish so if you need a translation, let me know!

This blog is not and never will be a cooking blog because I'm a sporadic kitchen user even at best, but this gray weather is making me want to eat comfort food and other things apart from only pasta. The other evening my flatmate came home a little late and asked if I wanted to share an omelet with her. She made a really nice one with potatoes and cheese and I don't quite know what. Maybe one day I will ask her to share her secret with me. I, on the other hand, had seen a recipe on my friend's food blog for some pecorino and cumin sticks that seemed really simple and quick and easy enough not to get wrong, so I decided to try making them to accompany the omelet. In the end we shared the omelet and the sticks with all the flatmates and both were a great success. The recipe for the pecorino and cumin sticks is here and I recommend you take a look around the site because there are some yummy looking recipes there! (again: it is in Finnish, translations available upon request!)

And finally here is a link to a pie video that I quite like.