Tallinn's Old Town, which is celebrating Old Town Days, has never looked so healthy or busy to my eye as it did today, on a splendid sunshiny day. Like many "locals", I don't necessarily go there that much so I don't have a good frame of reference. That is to say, I'm not sure if a given art deco cafe with exposed beams was there before or if it is a new addition.
Certainly no sign of a recession (15.6% contraction, year-on-year, recently reported for Q1); instead it looks like a trip in a time machine five years into the future, where some of the kinks and peculiarities that still existed (rude service and lack of good street treats) have been smoothed over.
Could the Old Town single-handedly pull us out of this thing? There was also a positive stat reported: Cruise ship tourists will increase this year, to 400,000. I don't understand this stat in light of my understanding that many people's retirement funds were wiped out last autumn, but the economy is a strange thing.
Everywhere were stalls with vendors selling things. Not just on Town Hall Square itself. Basically open-air markets have sprung up everywhere. I'm not sure if they were all Old Town festival-related. (The one that was most hyped was the opening of the first urban farmer's market on Rotermanni Square yesterday outside the Old Town, which will be a semi-permanent seasonal affair.)
Everywhere there are sidewalk cafes, more than last year, even on the side streets, and as long as the sun shines on them, they are full. Very many Swedes; during my tour and 2 hours sitting at a cafe I heard much more Swedish than Finnish; what Finns there were seemed to be very down-at-heel; I guess that's often the case.
The vendors extended all the way from Vanaturu kael up to Niguliste. Directly across from Pegasus on Lollide mägi was a tent selling "real Estonian food" and it was all fairly good-quality fish -- herring sandwiches. With goat cheese at the farmer's market and moose sausages, pork is not that much in evidence.
Even at sites not directly related to Old Town Days, there was a feeling of street-level transactions happening all around me: people walking and buying ice cream on the fly, waffles, the ubiquitous sugared toasted almonds.
Even Savisaar's burger quiche sausage kiosks with their white metal looked slightly classy, due to their newness.
Saturday, May 30, 2009
Happy Memorial Day, everyone
Today used to be Memorial Day in the US, before it was linked to the weekend to ensure that people could at least do their rememberin' in a relaxed setting away from work.
Since there are two holidays in the public consciousness, I propose that one of them be the federal holiday and that today be declared a memorial day to everyone -- the boys who fought on the other side, too, whether because of accident of birth, nationality, lack of education, or even just because they were stupid or wrong.
Since there are two holidays in the public consciousness, I propose that one of them be the federal holiday and that today be declared a memorial day to everyone -- the boys who fought on the other side, too, whether because of accident of birth, nationality, lack of education, or even just because they were stupid or wrong.
Monday, May 25, 2009
Bread and cheese again: pizza
The basic dough recipe has stayed the same for as long as I remember. This time it was four cups of flour (2 cups white + 2 cups spelt), 1 tsp salt, half a package of Nordic dry yeast, a little more than 1/4 cup of olive oil, 1 1/4 cup water.
Cookbooks tell you make a well in the middle of the dry ingredients, then add the wet ingredients. This has always been puzzling to me. I'm not some kind of bad-boy cook, but once I made a hill of the dry ingredients and poured the wet around it. It came out the same.
Like just about any bread, the less flour you have to add to make a manageable dough, the better. In the case of this dough, the high oil content will help reduce stickiness.
Kneading -- knead to the point where you feel it is done. Better underknead than overknead. You're not making Wonder bread here or setting elasticity records. You're going to be baking it for a short time on maximum temperature and you will have flatbread-style bubble action happening in any case, even if you forgot to add yeast to the dough.
My sister makes excellent pan pizza on a stone "bar pan" -- she uses a very wet dough and basically molds it to the pan without kneading at all. It's wonderful, but different.
I have a bar pan as well, but I make thin and crispy Neapolitan pizzas, so I just use a metal baking sheet with some semolina or cornmeal sprinkled on it. Apparently one is not supposed to preheat the stone bar pan, and I feel like putting it into a 550 F oven with the sides touching the metal is a bad idea.
I let the dough rise until double. I rolled out the pizzas with a rolling pin. Three big square ones, like Sicilians supposedly do.
Sauce -- I put three cloves of garlic in over a cup of pureed tomatoes. Pureed further with an immersion mixer. Ladled it aboard said Sicilian barges. Sprinkled minced shallots on.
Covered with cheese. Baked about 5 inches from top of oven at maximum setting until some browned in a few places -- if it were a proper oven, there would be some char, but it simply can't be done without temps of at least 650 F.
Cookbooks tell you make a well in the middle of the dry ingredients, then add the wet ingredients. This has always been puzzling to me. I'm not some kind of bad-boy cook, but once I made a hill of the dry ingredients and poured the wet around it. It came out the same.
Like just about any bread, the less flour you have to add to make a manageable dough, the better. In the case of this dough, the high oil content will help reduce stickiness.
Kneading -- knead to the point where you feel it is done. Better underknead than overknead. You're not making Wonder bread here or setting elasticity records. You're going to be baking it for a short time on maximum temperature and you will have flatbread-style bubble action happening in any case, even if you forgot to add yeast to the dough.
My sister makes excellent pan pizza on a stone "bar pan" -- she uses a very wet dough and basically molds it to the pan without kneading at all. It's wonderful, but different.
I have a bar pan as well, but I make thin and crispy Neapolitan pizzas, so I just use a metal baking sheet with some semolina or cornmeal sprinkled on it. Apparently one is not supposed to preheat the stone bar pan, and I feel like putting it into a 550 F oven with the sides touching the metal is a bad idea.
I let the dough rise until double. I rolled out the pizzas with a rolling pin. Three big square ones, like Sicilians supposedly do.
Sauce -- I put three cloves of garlic in over a cup of pureed tomatoes. Pureed further with an immersion mixer. Ladled it aboard said Sicilian barges. Sprinkled minced shallots on.
Covered with cheese. Baked about 5 inches from top of oven at maximum setting until some browned in a few places -- if it were a proper oven, there would be some char, but it simply can't be done without temps of at least 650 F.
Sunday, May 24, 2009
Bread and cheese
Went to Vanaema's at Muuga (happy 71st, mom-in-law!) and had some of her rich lasagne as well as rhubarb "pizzas". No desire to cook when we got back, so I bought some of Stockmann's crusty over-the-counter bread for evening sandwiches. I hadn't had crusty bread in a few months. Nowadays the bread comes out of the oven at the factory and right into a plastic bag. No news there, but still a shame.
I got two heavy-duty loaves -- Mägironija (Mountain Climber), which was good but I didn't expect it to be peenleib (light rye), and the house dark rye. The cheese was like a Manchego, except Dutch -- bought it at Ökotalukaup "farm food" store for a reasonable price for a semi-cured sheep's milk cheese, about 250 kr/kg or so.
I got two heavy-duty loaves -- Mägironija (Mountain Climber), which was good but I didn't expect it to be peenleib (light rye), and the house dark rye. The cheese was like a Manchego, except Dutch -- bought it at Ökotalukaup "farm food" store for a reasonable price for a semi-cured sheep's milk cheese, about 250 kr/kg or so.
Saturday, May 23, 2009
Beet soup
The beet is something that has no business being so red, when you think about it, or at least it owes us an explanation. You put seeds in black earth, add water and light, and at harvest you have something that is so supersaturated that it will cheerfully part with some of its colour. Where does the red come from?
Just one beet is enough to dye all of the children in an Estonian village, head to toe. I made that up, but it might be true.
In this case, only one beet went into a pot of soup, which could have been turned into minestrone or even fish soup, but it rendered it, indelibly, beet soup.
It was pretty close to a all-local concoction. Organic beef bones from Ökotalukaup store, one Peipsi onion, some leek, celery, two potatoes, two cloves of garlic, one grated carrot, and one chopped beet. The beet had previously been baked in foil for an hour at 425 (210) as I expected to use it for something else, this is always a good way of cooking beets, especially if the stems have already been cut off. I also added juice from a jar of cherries and a dollop of tomato puree but these were afterthoughts.
I also made an omelette with fresh herbs from the window garden. Black bread with butter on the side.
Just one beet is enough to dye all of the children in an Estonian village, head to toe. I made that up, but it might be true.
In this case, only one beet went into a pot of soup, which could have been turned into minestrone or even fish soup, but it rendered it, indelibly, beet soup.
It was pretty close to a all-local concoction. Organic beef bones from Ökotalukaup store, one Peipsi onion, some leek, celery, two potatoes, two cloves of garlic, one grated carrot, and one chopped beet. The beet had previously been baked in foil for an hour at 425 (210) as I expected to use it for something else, this is always a good way of cooking beets, especially if the stems have already been cut off. I also added juice from a jar of cherries and a dollop of tomato puree but these were afterthoughts.
I also made an omelette with fresh herbs from the window garden. Black bread with butter on the side.
Friday, May 22, 2009
Red and green
(day 3 of the cooking show)
In honour of the possible future trend in Estonian politics and symbolizing my own ambiguity, last night's supper coincidentally featured two bright colours and no (squirrel) meat.
As with the sauerkraut night before, this Italianate meal of red and green sauces with pasta was occasioned by the need to dispose of (realize, utilize, reincorporate for industry people) food that was nearing the past of its prime.
The basil in my herb garden is losing some of its dark green as the nitrogen in the tiny pots has been exhausted. There's been so much work, I haven't even had time to walk to the central market to get some more bags of black gold or plant food. So I harvested selectively and made a pesto, with roasted pine nuts, olive oil and some Parmesan. I made it the old-fashioned way, with mortar and pestle. You just stick the leaves in, weight them down with a sprinkling of coarse salt and oil and bump and grind away, adding the nuts and more oil at intervals.
Personally I don't buy the advice, also given by people like Anthony Bourdain, that you should never use a food processor on basil or garlic -- I've never detected any taste difference. But I did the old manual way anyway. It helps me deal with stress.
I used a food processor for the arabbiata. A small onion, the hot half of a red finger chili, about half a head of garlic (the Chinese kind, unfortunately; not the local garlic with the magenta husk) and a 100 g of chunk of carrot said hello to the blades, then made an acquaintance with the medium-hot olive-oil-slicked bottom of a saucepan. After ten minutes, the mixture was doused generously with red wine (a cheap 2007 Chianti if you must know) and dried herbs and an anchovy fillet (it breaks down by itself along with the tomatoes). Then I added about 1000 g of canned tomatoes (32 kroons) and reduced, reduced, reduced on low for about 2 hours.
Son requested tatar (roasted buckwheat grain) for his pesto. I didn't know he ate the stuff, but I guess he gets it occasionally in nursery school. Tatar goes well with a full-bodied spicy tomato sauce as well, so I was happy to oblige.
In honour of the possible future trend in Estonian politics and symbolizing my own ambiguity, last night's supper coincidentally featured two bright colours and no (squirrel) meat.
As with the sauerkraut night before, this Italianate meal of red and green sauces with pasta was occasioned by the need to dispose of (realize, utilize, reincorporate for industry people) food that was nearing the past of its prime.
The basil in my herb garden is losing some of its dark green as the nitrogen in the tiny pots has been exhausted. There's been so much work, I haven't even had time to walk to the central market to get some more bags of black gold or plant food. So I harvested selectively and made a pesto, with roasted pine nuts, olive oil and some Parmesan. I made it the old-fashioned way, with mortar and pestle. You just stick the leaves in, weight them down with a sprinkling of coarse salt and oil and bump and grind away, adding the nuts and more oil at intervals.
Personally I don't buy the advice, also given by people like Anthony Bourdain, that you should never use a food processor on basil or garlic -- I've never detected any taste difference. But I did the old manual way anyway. It helps me deal with stress.
I used a food processor for the arabbiata. A small onion, the hot half of a red finger chili, about half a head of garlic (the Chinese kind, unfortunately; not the local garlic with the magenta husk) and a 100 g of chunk of carrot said hello to the blades, then made an acquaintance with the medium-hot olive-oil-slicked bottom of a saucepan. After ten minutes, the mixture was doused generously with red wine (a cheap 2007 Chianti if you must know) and dried herbs and an anchovy fillet (it breaks down by itself along with the tomatoes). Then I added about 1000 g of canned tomatoes (32 kroons) and reduced, reduced, reduced on low for about 2 hours.
Son requested tatar (roasted buckwheat grain) for his pesto. I didn't know he ate the stuff, but I guess he gets it occasionally in nursery school. Tatar goes well with a full-bodied spicy tomato sauce as well, so I was happy to oblige.
Thursday, May 21, 2009
Continuing the what-I-ate coverage, last night was "winter meets summer". A pack of sauerkraut had to be finished off. For me it's a shame to cook sauerkraut because of all of the probiotic Lactobacilli one is presumably slaughtering -- all the Estonian fermented food is like medicine and I have never had any indigestion that wasn't cured by a swig from a kefir carton or a few spoonfuls of sauerkraut. But as we know, sauerkraut does make a tasty caramelized braised dish and nutritionally I suppose it's still high in vitamin C. My father-in-law cooks it for 24 hours for the holidays. This here was a vegetarian, rush job. Into the bottom of the Le Creuset enamelled pot went olive oil and butter, onion and fresh cabbage, a couple cloves and allspice berries. This was sauteed for some 10 minutes, then the sauerkraut was added, along with a squeeze of some Põltsamaa mustard, maple syrup, a little more butter, some reserved liquid from a jar of cherries. This was allowed to simmer for an hour. Meanwhile, I got the old cast iron pan hot and introduced it to a package of sausages, the Brünnecke finger-width bratwursts (45 kroons) I have praised in the past. Previously I cooked them until the water is gone, but all this accomplished is that the pan was covered with a sludge and needed to be re-seasoned. This time I just gave them a couple blistering minutes on all sides on medium-high, adding the leftover potatoes from the night before. Excellent. Salad was baby spinach (28 kroons) with grated ginger, soy sauce, and a few drops of smuggled argan oil made by a women-owned cooperative in Morocco. It was pretty bad -- sometimes fusion is not all that it's cracked up to be. Should have just gone with tomato and cucumber.
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
A week's worth of food posts
I live and breathe food, figuratively speaking, and cook every night, so I'm going to write about it for a week or so.
- First of all, some important economic indexes to catch up on. A cup of coffee has come down in price -- now under the equivalent of $2 -- as summer tourist season opens in Tallinn. Could it be...could general deflation really finally be arriving? It makes sense that it wouldn't arrive in the quasi-cartel world of supermarket chains but first and foremost in the ultra-competitive business of putting warm bodies in the sunlit seats of the Old Town's open spaces. I walked around the Old Town and saw menus listing coffee for 18 kroons, 20 kroons, not necessarily in the best seats on Town Hall Square, but not over 25-30 kroons there either.
- Beer (who drinks coffee in the Old Town on a sunny day, anyway?) is 35 kroons in the shady areas and 50 kroons in the sunlight.
- Walking down Suur-Karja, I noticed a place called Kaleva Kartul. Significant because our family always talked about how we should open a baked potato cafe if we fell on hard times. I don't think this place has many toppings (like broccoli and cheese), but it is a potato restaurant with ahjukartul on the menu. I'll have to try this one.
- I went shopping yesterday at Stockmann. Some interesting trends here. Canned tomatoes, a mainstay of our kitchen, have long been 10-15 kroons a can for perfectly good product, are being squeezed out by 20-30-kroon imports. There is also a cheap Estonian jar of tomatoes -- guess what, it contains preservatives. Proably irrelevant.
- Stockmann has argan oil. It costs over 400 kroons for 250 ml. We brought back some from Morocco in a Ali Sidi plastic mineral water bottle, so allow me to feel a little arrogant.
- Fish does seem to reflect a declining market. Even Stockmann seems to have lapsed into carrying only cheap Norwegian-farmed red fish (salmon and sea trout) with a couple mid-priced local white varieties (pike, perch) and then a couple super-high priced game fishes (tuna, sturgeon). The turnover is bad, so the latter ones don't always look that fresh. I opted for some enticing white fillets that I thought was a local fish called pank, perhaps caught off the coast of Saaremaa. I found out later that this was in fact a tropical farmed fish called panga that is actually pretty notorious -- it's grown in polluted SE Asian rivers and dumped en masse onto the European market, basically a catfish-like tilapia. No matter -- bought a half kilo for 100 kroons. It was in a salty marinade, so the kids wouldn't eat too much of it anyway. Shredded some cabbage, chopped onions, tossed with olive oil, lined the bottom of a baking dish with the mixture and baked at 200 C for 10-15 minutes, then layered the fillets on top of it, baked for 5 minutes, then broiled on high until done. Good, though with a meaty texture that was probably better in small doses. Again I found myself thinking that there is no reason not to buy Norwegian salmon, always plentiful and fresh. Served the panga with boiled potatoes and a bunch of Romaine (20 kroons) in a salad with cherry tomatoes.
- First of all, some important economic indexes to catch up on. A cup of coffee has come down in price -- now under the equivalent of $2 -- as summer tourist season opens in Tallinn. Could it be...could general deflation really finally be arriving? It makes sense that it wouldn't arrive in the quasi-cartel world of supermarket chains but first and foremost in the ultra-competitive business of putting warm bodies in the sunlit seats of the Old Town's open spaces. I walked around the Old Town and saw menus listing coffee for 18 kroons, 20 kroons, not necessarily in the best seats on Town Hall Square, but not over 25-30 kroons there either.
- Beer (who drinks coffee in the Old Town on a sunny day, anyway?) is 35 kroons in the shady areas and 50 kroons in the sunlight.
- Walking down Suur-Karja, I noticed a place called Kaleva Kartul. Significant because our family always talked about how we should open a baked potato cafe if we fell on hard times. I don't think this place has many toppings (like broccoli and cheese), but it is a potato restaurant with ahjukartul on the menu. I'll have to try this one.
- I went shopping yesterday at Stockmann. Some interesting trends here. Canned tomatoes, a mainstay of our kitchen, have long been 10-15 kroons a can for perfectly good product, are being squeezed out by 20-30-kroon imports. There is also a cheap Estonian jar of tomatoes -- guess what, it contains preservatives. Proably irrelevant.
- Stockmann has argan oil. It costs over 400 kroons for 250 ml. We brought back some from Morocco in a Ali Sidi plastic mineral water bottle, so allow me to feel a little arrogant.
- Fish does seem to reflect a declining market. Even Stockmann seems to have lapsed into carrying only cheap Norwegian-farmed red fish (salmon and sea trout) with a couple mid-priced local white varieties (pike, perch) and then a couple super-high priced game fishes (tuna, sturgeon). The turnover is bad, so the latter ones don't always look that fresh. I opted for some enticing white fillets that I thought was a local fish called pank, perhaps caught off the coast of Saaremaa. I found out later that this was in fact a tropical farmed fish called panga that is actually pretty notorious -- it's grown in polluted SE Asian rivers and dumped en masse onto the European market, basically a catfish-like tilapia. No matter -- bought a half kilo for 100 kroons. It was in a salty marinade, so the kids wouldn't eat too much of it anyway. Shredded some cabbage, chopped onions, tossed with olive oil, lined the bottom of a baking dish with the mixture and baked at 200 C for 10-15 minutes, then layered the fillets on top of it, baked for 5 minutes, then broiled on high until done. Good, though with a meaty texture that was probably better in small doses. Again I found myself thinking that there is no reason not to buy Norwegian salmon, always plentiful and fresh. Served the panga with boiled potatoes and a bunch of Romaine (20 kroons) in a salad with cherry tomatoes.
Saturday, May 16, 2009
National allergy
I welcome and cheer guerrilla art -- especially in Tallinn, which is in dire need of...what did we call it in grade school? -- disestablishmentarianism. The recent statue stunt on May 9 -- VFPOE Day, Victory Day For Part Of Europe -- wasn't great art. This is a common problem with so-called satire -- people will just copy something and then think, hey, I'm a boho hipster satirist. Someone publishes a screenshot of a picture of a republished Mohammad cartoon and they think they have made a trenchant comment on the foibles of society. Wrong -- you've probably only broken a copyright law and made people angry all over again.
This seemed to be the case on May 9 where an artist fashioned a replica of the Bronze Man and brought it to the park where the original statue had once stood. She also published an cant-filled apologia that, sorry, made her seem a bit like a useful idiot or a Tallinn University student in one of the less well-regarded fields. But the stunt turned up such a chain of reactions, that I'll make artist Kristina Martin's thesis statement for her: along with a national fish, bird, colour, Estonia also has a national allergy: to metal men.
No one feeds the hypersensitivity like The Establishment, who keep everyone guessing. The government opted in 2007 to perform radical elective surgery on the original itch, a bizarre multi-day ordeal with a surgical tent and detailed updates from the prime minister about moving human remains -- the whole enterprise somehow extremely anal but not quite under control -- followed predictably by a full-scale allergic reaction. The whole approach by the authorities since the riots can only be some sort of dim-witted entrapment -- let's take away the statue...and then keep the park there as a temptation and, uh, watch people so that they don't put anything there that's bigger than flowers -- or a STATUE! And then, if they do it, uh, then, first we'll get the statue down on the ground, an' frisk him real good, and then, uh, start a criminal case...
Then it turns out that the person who successfully smuggles a statue in (how did that happen, anyway?) is not Dmitri Linter or someone, but an Estonian artist. And then it turns out the Estonian artist is actually the artist who will represent Estonia at the Venice Biennale with the statue! Oops! It brings back the embarrassing feelings associated with last year's Eurovision entry all over again, except with the dancing girls waving Soviet flags.
Estonian artists were divided, the liberal ones covering their own asses. I enjoyed the conservative artists, the ones who are not aware that art has long ceased to be static objects, who wrote columns telling us what art is. Someone wrote that one should not mock one's parents or the Estonian flag either, so it seems the bronze man has entered the pantheon of similar sacrosanct things.
Of course, Night Watch practically creamed themselves. This was the happiest moment since...last night's bottle of vodka: The statue was back! Some thought the artist was some kind of angel, or that Alyosha had walked back from Filtri tee (most of that contingent believing the Bronze Man is a real person). One thing is clear: in a lot of people's minds, the whole thing is actually about the statue. What it symbolized has become hazy.
This seemed to be the case on May 9 where an artist fashioned a replica of the Bronze Man and brought it to the park where the original statue had once stood. She also published an cant-filled apologia that, sorry, made her seem a bit like a useful idiot or a Tallinn University student in one of the less well-regarded fields. But the stunt turned up such a chain of reactions, that I'll make artist Kristina Martin's thesis statement for her: along with a national fish, bird, colour, Estonia also has a national allergy: to metal men.
No one feeds the hypersensitivity like The Establishment, who keep everyone guessing. The government opted in 2007 to perform radical elective surgery on the original itch, a bizarre multi-day ordeal with a surgical tent and detailed updates from the prime minister about moving human remains -- the whole enterprise somehow extremely anal but not quite under control -- followed predictably by a full-scale allergic reaction. The whole approach by the authorities since the riots can only be some sort of dim-witted entrapment -- let's take away the statue...and then keep the park there as a temptation and, uh, watch people so that they don't put anything there that's bigger than flowers -- or a STATUE! And then, if they do it, uh, then, first we'll get the statue down on the ground, an' frisk him real good, and then, uh, start a criminal case...
Then it turns out that the person who successfully smuggles a statue in (how did that happen, anyway?) is not Dmitri Linter or someone, but an Estonian artist. And then it turns out the Estonian artist is actually the artist who will represent Estonia at the Venice Biennale with the statue! Oops! It brings back the embarrassing feelings associated with last year's Eurovision entry all over again, except with the dancing girls waving Soviet flags.
Estonian artists were divided, the liberal ones covering their own asses. I enjoyed the conservative artists, the ones who are not aware that art has long ceased to be static objects, who wrote columns telling us what art is. Someone wrote that one should not mock one's parents or the Estonian flag either, so it seems the bronze man has entered the pantheon of similar sacrosanct things.
Of course, Night Watch practically creamed themselves. This was the happiest moment since...last night's bottle of vodka: The statue was back! Some thought the artist was some kind of angel, or that Alyosha had walked back from Filtri tee (most of that contingent believing the Bronze Man is a real person). One thing is clear: in a lot of people's minds, the whole thing is actually about the statue. What it symbolized has become hazy.
Thursday, May 14, 2009
Burger quiche?
It got a thumbs-up from the mayor, though I think he was there for the Vienna sausages. See, it's the grand opening of a "Vienna sausage" chain consisting of 11 kiosks, most of them in strategic areas around the train station, pedestrian tunnels and slums. I don't know if they're hot dogs or the canned variety. I don't know how to contextualize this business. It's one end of some sort of chain, with casinos and hotels at the other end. I guess the money enters and exits around the middle.
It just seems that Estonia is always on the verge of completing the transition to a Northern European country, and then you have the mayor of the capital showing up with a small graft-y taste of post-Soviet dishwater. Maybe this is the meaning of the legend of the old man of Ülemiste.
It's late right now, but I'm going to have to head out myself to see if the picture taken by a hard-working journalist is true -- that the kiosks also serve the hard-to-find burger quiche. I'm not settling for quiche with bits of burger. I will also turn up my nose at quiche on a bun. It has to be the real thing; it's small consolation, anyway, but better than canned sausages at a bus stop.
Sunday, May 10, 2009
A new low
Apparently fearful of libel lawsuits from ex-Red-Army veterans who claim they were just in Estonia on tourist visas from 1939-1941 and 1944-1994, the BBC have set a new low in overly careful journalism:
"Many Estonians view their country's incorporation into the USSR as an occupation."
Now I at least know why it's called One-Minute World News -- the amount of research.
"Many Estonians view their country's incorporation into the USSR as an occupation."
Now I at least know why it's called One-Minute World News -- the amount of research.
Saturday, May 9, 2009
Chocolate pumice
A classic case of cosmopolitan Latvians fooling a skeptical and provincial Estonian.
I had never heard of aerated chocolate. The package of Laima's ruugtaa (bittersweet) was suspiciously light, the back of the bar was pitted and warped, and when I broke off a piece I saw the insides were riddled with little holes.
I was about to cry foul about Laima's quality control, about how someone forgot to skim the froth off a vat, or even worse, that they were trying to save money. I staged a video where I demonstratively threw the chocolate in a bowl of water to show that it floated.
Luckily I was tipped off that this is a gourmet item -- eating this type of chocolate is the equivalent of slurping wine to oxygenate it. It was quite good, definitely better than Kalev's 70% cocoa entry. I think I'll buy it again.
Friday, May 8, 2009
This week in "e"
The new international trademark for Eesti Energia, the national energy company...is now ... "Enefit".
What went wrong? The company's in the process of expanding its international reach, helping emerging countries like Jordan tap into their own oil shale. It's touting domestic liquid fuels. Despite occasional weird flat-earth talk from CEO Sandor Liive ("global warming has never been proved"), the company seemed sort of savvy.
And now, at the peak of the recession, it chooses to hide its subsidiaries and foreign operations behind a weird anonymous name with no mention of ESTONIA.
Only the following small divisions and subsidiaries of Eesti Energia are happy with the name change, which they have incorporated into ad campaigns and slogans:
The (little-known) Rectal Suppository Manufacturing Division:
"Don't have a fit -- reach for Ene-fit."
*
The Miscellaneous Small Products Division
"This name could mean enefit. Enefit at all."
*
The Oil Shale Perpetuation Division
"Don't worry about the renewable sources, there's an enefit supply of oil shale!"
*
The Electrician Services Division
"Enefit. Well, actually, it's Benefit. The light bulb in the 'B' burned out last week. But we've got our guys on it."
Yeah. At least "Elion", which cost way too much (it took a London marketing firm a couple weeks and tens of thousands of pounds to generate the nonsense name for the Estonian phone company) sounds good, like a female elf from LOTR or something.
****
Far-sighted government ministers -- the grey cardinal Jüri Pihl et al -- have agreed to implement a requirement that all new cars imported to Estonia in 3-4 years' time have something called eCall -- a system that notifies the authorities when the car is involved in an accident. I saw this in the print edition of EPL; the online version is more sceptical, which I think is the right stance.
Sure, this could save lives in individual cases. Car goes off the road and driver is unconscious. OK, instead of the 30-minute response time from the nearest rescue squad + a 5 minute delay until the next passerby reports the accident, it would just be a 30-minute response time.
I find it hard to believe that eCall is really a priority in terms of public interest.
I'm more interested in what the on-board GPS transmitter does when the car is still drivable.
What went wrong? The company's in the process of expanding its international reach, helping emerging countries like Jordan tap into their own oil shale. It's touting domestic liquid fuels. Despite occasional weird flat-earth talk from CEO Sandor Liive ("global warming has never been proved"), the company seemed sort of savvy.
And now, at the peak of the recession, it chooses to hide its subsidiaries and foreign operations behind a weird anonymous name with no mention of ESTONIA.
Only the following small divisions and subsidiaries of Eesti Energia are happy with the name change, which they have incorporated into ad campaigns and slogans:
The (little-known) Rectal Suppository Manufacturing Division:
"Don't have a fit -- reach for Ene-fit."
*
The Miscellaneous Small Products Division
"This name could mean enefit. Enefit at all."
*
The Oil Shale Perpetuation Division
"Don't worry about the renewable sources, there's an enefit supply of oil shale!"
*
The Electrician Services Division
"Enefit. Well, actually, it's Benefit. The light bulb in the 'B' burned out last week. But we've got our guys on it."
Yeah. At least "Elion", which cost way too much (it took a London marketing firm a couple weeks and tens of thousands of pounds to generate the nonsense name for the Estonian phone company) sounds good, like a female elf from LOTR or something.
****
Far-sighted government ministers -- the grey cardinal Jüri Pihl et al -- have agreed to implement a requirement that all new cars imported to Estonia in 3-4 years' time have something called eCall -- a system that notifies the authorities when the car is involved in an accident. I saw this in the print edition of EPL; the online version is more sceptical, which I think is the right stance.
Sure, this could save lives in individual cases. Car goes off the road and driver is unconscious. OK, instead of the 30-minute response time from the nearest rescue squad + a 5 minute delay until the next passerby reports the accident, it would just be a 30-minute response time.
I find it hard to believe that eCall is really a priority in terms of public interest.
I'm more interested in what the on-board GPS transmitter does when the car is still drivable.
Wednesday, May 6, 2009
FARM HUNT: Abi
(The only decedents in the local cemetery to list their family name before their given names on the same line. You can't tell me this isn't humour and a great epitaph, even though it was carved in deep Soviet times when you'd think people in rural Põlva County would be unlikely to use English wordplay.)
It's a pretty cemetery, overlooking a spear-shaped lake that is rich in fish. It's only 1 km away from the farm we've been considering buying, but it has no logical and accessible trails. If we buy the place, I can't really see us ever swimming or hanging out here on the squishy banks. Of course there is the River Slough in the backyard, which as said could be a far greater asset.
Like Karl and Olga, I need help. I can't decide if this summer farm is what we need, or if it is even a good purchase.
I haven't met Mingus, who has a farm somewhere in southern Estonia that he has apparently done wonders with. Hopefully our paths will cross soon. Nor have I met Alex in person, who also provided good advice online. Today I also enlisted the assistance of a local American and former neighbour from Tallinn, J, who lives closer to this neck of the woods, in the next municipality over from "our" property. (Incredibly it seems like there is one American living on a farm in every municipality. I'm pretty sure he has not met Mingus or any of the other farm-owning Americans either. Everybody is getting this idea of buying a farm more or less independently.)
Obviously I also ask Estonians for help -- but it's good to have advice from people who are not necessarily remont whizzes.
I picked J up on his farm -- which is much bigger and more run-down than "ours", a mammoth project in fact and they've already moved there full-time! -- and drove down gravel roads. J went around poking logs with a sharp knife while I hooked a plastic bucket to the well to take a sample for testing in Tartu and pondered whether I should use my shovel to dig to see if any major trash was buried. Didn't do it -- area looks pristine -- but we did uncover a fair amount of "dirt" on the place.
The cabin/house itself is the best of the lot, but the chimney could need work. It's black at the top and missing some mortar. Chimneys and stoves are something beyond my and J's expertise.
Although the buildings are in relatively very good shape, and all of them are sporting new roofs (there is no major rot except a couple bottom logs that are a wee bit soft in places) the outbuilding that looked like it was in better shape is not. On this structure, the roof may have been put up too soon. There's one wall with significant water damage at the top of the wall. A major cross beam is supported only at two posts and not in the middle at the door.
There are a couple ants' colonies under buildings. I thought since Estonia has no termites that this was not something we had to worry about. Wrong. They do cause damage. There is also some beetle that makes small circular wormy holes like you might find in some driftwood. Not much of this, though.
There are deep furrows in the front yard between rows of apple trees. They look almost like...gullies. Water may collect there in early spring, hopefully flowing toward the road. It's been so dry, so no water there right now.
Lots of things like this that were not obvious on the first visit a week ago. J approaches it all from a different perspective, almost relishing a challenge. He's in no real hurry with his own place. I'm lazy, on the other hand. I can deal with a few focused challenges -- tackle a renovation of one ait for instance -- but I'd really like to avoid big surprises and endless remont.
Monday, May 4, 2009
A totally insignificant episode involving one kroon
I needed a one-kroon coin for the lockers at the gym. (Yes, I now go to the gym -- but I only row, for 45 minutes to an hour, then I'm out of there, so I view myself as uncorrupted by things like Stairmasters.) You put the coin in the lock so it turns. I am often cashless, card terminals being universal, and rarely have a coin in my pocket. When I finish at the gym, I always leave the one-kroon coin in the lock -- it's worth only $0.10 and I figure each lock might as well just have the coin there already. But the coin is always gone the next time. I'm not sure it's the cleaning people who take it, which would at least be understandable. The gym reception doesn't always have a supply of one-kroon coins, either.
On the way to the gym, I found one wadded-up two-kroon note in my wallet and went to a kiosk in front of the Viru Hotel. The woman there refused to give me change, saying she had only one coin in her till. I said it was OK, I didn't need two one-kroon coins. She repeated: she couldn't give me her last coin. I pointed out that with only one coin, her change-making possibilities were limited anyway and that if we did the deal, her till would be up one kroon. If she needed to give one-kroon change to the next customer, she could just give the two-kroon note to him and everything would balance out.
I'm not sure if she grasped the logic, but she gave in. She muttered in a nasty tone: "Ma ei ole liigkasuvõtja" (I'm not a profiteer) and took my two-kroon note and gave me the one-coin coin and two 50-cent pieces, which it turned out she had a whole pile of. Not a profiteer --- AND a diversified portfolio of change -- well, well, lady, colour me impressed by your scruples and your financial flexibility, combining smaller pieces to make a whole.
I don't want to be too snarky. This is incredible to me in a positive way. I view this totally insignificant episode as a sign that times are a-changing. Usually this would be an impasse -- as would be any situation involving a minute object, middle-aged people, and bureaucracy. In this case, for whatever reason, and with no impatient customers waiting on line, she decided that it wasn't worth the trouble. Give it ten more years and I might have left the kiosk with the damn coin without giving her the wadded-up two-kroon note.
On the way to the gym, I found one wadded-up two-kroon note in my wallet and went to a kiosk in front of the Viru Hotel. The woman there refused to give me change, saying she had only one coin in her till. I said it was OK, I didn't need two one-kroon coins. She repeated: she couldn't give me her last coin. I pointed out that with only one coin, her change-making possibilities were limited anyway and that if we did the deal, her till would be up one kroon. If she needed to give one-kroon change to the next customer, she could just give the two-kroon note to him and everything would balance out.
I'm not sure if she grasped the logic, but she gave in. She muttered in a nasty tone: "Ma ei ole liigkasuvõtja" (I'm not a profiteer) and took my two-kroon note and gave me the one-coin coin and two 50-cent pieces, which it turned out she had a whole pile of. Not a profiteer --- AND a diversified portfolio of change -- well, well, lady, colour me impressed by your scruples and your financial flexibility, combining smaller pieces to make a whole.
I don't want to be too snarky. This is incredible to me in a positive way. I view this totally insignificant episode as a sign that times are a-changing. Usually this would be an impasse -- as would be any situation involving a minute object, middle-aged people, and bureaucracy. In this case, for whatever reason, and with no impatient customers waiting on line, she decided that it wasn't worth the trouble. Give it ten more years and I might have left the kiosk with the damn coin without giving her the wadded-up two-kroon note.
Sunday, May 3, 2009
Water in the woods
The farm is, in a way, the last farmhouse in Estonia. It is a couple hundred metres from the River Slough -- the border river between Lutheran Estonia and the small Orthodox kingdom.
The farm is a modest affair, surrounded by forest on three sides. It isn't the type of Põlvamaa forest that I have seen and love -- the mature pines, or the old growth woods around the dells of Taevaskoda.
The River Slough has not worn away the earth to expose Devonian rock; it is more of a marshland spillway that has developed between a small lake and the Great Inland Sea.
The forest is young birch on the two flanks. Out back, it's swamp alder. As you go out back past the sheds and barns, it gets soggy quickly. I left my boots back in Reval, but I came across some pictures and I measured the main channel -- 8-12 metres -- from the satellites.
The river is 240 m behind the house, not on "our" land, but it's in a landscape management area. No one is developing here. The last 75 m are waterlogged for most of the year. We could build a plank road to a future canoe landing.
I came across a video of people paddling down the Slough. If it is navigable, then perhaps it can be used to access the Long River, and from there it is a short way to the Great Inland Sea.
The river is the main selling point for me. An escapist at heart, I look first at the loft and outbuildings -- is there room for an artist's garret or place for metre-sized people -- and then I look for wilderness frontage. For the same price, we could get an undeveloped lot twice the size on Long River, but in that case the wooded lot is the only woods within a mile. Here the forest is more integral. Logged, but no clear breaks.
This farm is not a perfect fit, but we're thinking about it.
The farm is a modest affair, surrounded by forest on three sides. It isn't the type of Põlvamaa forest that I have seen and love -- the mature pines, or the old growth woods around the dells of Taevaskoda.
The River Slough has not worn away the earth to expose Devonian rock; it is more of a marshland spillway that has developed between a small lake and the Great Inland Sea.
The forest is young birch on the two flanks. Out back, it's swamp alder. As you go out back past the sheds and barns, it gets soggy quickly. I left my boots back in Reval, but I came across some pictures and I measured the main channel -- 8-12 metres -- from the satellites.
The river is 240 m behind the house, not on "our" land, but it's in a landscape management area. No one is developing here. The last 75 m are waterlogged for most of the year. We could build a plank road to a future canoe landing.
I came across a video of people paddling down the Slough. If it is navigable, then perhaps it can be used to access the Long River, and from there it is a short way to the Great Inland Sea.
The river is the main selling point for me. An escapist at heart, I look first at the loft and outbuildings -- is there room for an artist's garret or place for metre-sized people -- and then I look for wilderness frontage. For the same price, we could get an undeveloped lot twice the size on Long River, but in that case the wooded lot is the only woods within a mile. Here the forest is more integral. Logged, but no clear breaks.
This farm is not a perfect fit, but we're thinking about it.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
