A strange object appeared in the sky today, a glowing ball of red light peeked from the horizon and after a few hours went back to where it came from. A natural phenomenon or an alien flying ship? And will we see it again?

Today Finland celebrates its independence. Hyvä Suomi!

Thanks to the wonderful Flicrk Photo Album plugin for WordPress, I can show my photos in the website with no extra work. I’m in the process of uploading the old albums, starting with some photos taken in Capraia last summer. 

I’ve been lusting after Macbooks ever since I got my first Mac, but never found a good enough reason to buy one.  Finally the announcement of the latest aluminum models convinced me, and I took the dive. What can I say, I love it!

Pictorial news website The Big Picture offers some large, astounding images of current news and events. Today’s sequence on Antartica is particularly impressive. Highly recommended whether you are into photography or not.

It’s mushroom season in Finland, and thanks to the expert guide of some friends I too had a successful expedition to the forest. The catch of the day included mostly “suppilovahvero“, “kantarelli” and one “herkutatti” which I didn’t find myself but was given as a present, because I had whined so much about how great it would be to find some (it is considered the most precious mushroom in Italy).

As a fitting conclusion for the day, we had “pappardelle ai funghi” for dinner, obvioulsy made with some of the loot we brought home. Recipe follows.

For the basic mushroom sauce for 4 you will need a big bowl of mushrooms, olive oil, 2 onions, a bunch of fresh parsley, salt, pepper and one tomato. Fry the onions in oil in a non-stick saucepan. When the onions have become soft throw in the mushrooms, salt and pepper, and stir for a while. Add the diced tomato, stir some more and put the lid on. Cook for 15 minutes on low-medium heat, stirring occasionally and making sure the sauce doesn’t get dry (add a little hot water every now and then if needed). Meanwhile cook the pasta and once it’s ready mix it in the sauce with the chopped parsley. Best enjoyed with a “wide” pasta such as pappardelle or tagliatelle. Note the absence of cream, which is a no-no because it kills the delicate taste of the wild mushrooms.

Perhaps you didn’t know it, but Helsinki is probably the first city in the world to have talking trashbins. Watch the video to see what I mean.

In short, the trash bin thanks you and says something humorous (examples here) when you throw something in it, in different voices provided by various Finnish celebrities. There are only four of these novelties in Helsinki downtown, and their location changes weekly.

This made the news in Italy, and the way I found out is that I, together with two other Italian residents of Helsinki, was called by the Italian radio program “Caterpillar” to actually interview one of these trash bins – well, more like give a live demonstration of its operation. The idea was to stop a passerby and make him or her translate the speech and comment on it.

I managed to find out the location of one of the bins by calling a representative of the City of Helsinki (who was very helpful, thanks!). We went to the place (in Esplanadi) some 20 minutes before the time of the interview and tested it a few times – it worked beautifully, although the speech was a bit hard to hear. But the pouring rain should have given us a hint that things wouldn’t be as easy as it seemed.

When the radio finally called for the interview, the bin went completely mute! We only managed to make it say a few “kiitos”, too short to be heard on the radio, but apart from that our subject refused to say a word. And I can only imagine what we looked like, three people around a trash bin sticking their arms into it. Downright embarrassing and definitely an end to my radio career if I ever had one.

Anyway, many thanks to Juho and Marjut, the two youngsters kind enough to stop under the rain for an interview. Who would have thought trashbins can have stage fright?

[Update: you can download the mp3 of the radio show here. The interview starts at 23:45]

I’m back from three weeks of summer holidays at home in Italy. Some highlights:

• I saw Erykah Badu singing at Lucca’s Summerfest, in the middle of the old town. I didn’t know who she was before the gig (I went mainly to meet some friends) and I was pleasantly surprised by her show.
• For the first time in my life, I went to the island of Capraia. This adds to the list of places (which includes some heavyweights like Sardinia, Isola d’Elba and Cinqueterre) that I had never visited before I moved to Finland.
• The iPhone 3G was launched in Italy. I didn’t witness any public display of madness, except on the national press (an example: one until now respected journalist claimed that this is the device that will realize the human dream of absolute knowledge…).
• Despite a reasonable amount of exercise and the (false) promise of the “light mediterranean diet”, I gained almost 4 kilos! A self-improvement program is on its way.

Apart from that, I met the usual array of friends and relatives, read a lot of books (though no Chandler, as tradition would have required), played some tennis and ate some great food. And the return home to Helsinki was, and still is, blessed by an absolutely wonderful weather that made it all the easier. 

Now, how many days till Christmas?

I have re-activated the guestbook, hoping that WordPress will protect it against spam. Just to keep a bit of history, I copied (manually!) all the entries from the old guestbook, it’s a good thing that not too many people visit this site!

The new guestbook is nothing but a specialized WordPress page, as described in this useful blog post.

Now go ahead and sign! 

You can argue all you want about who’s got the best cuisine in the world, but a culture that has come up with something as delicious as creme brulee has a strong claim to the title. It’s not even difficult, at least according to this recipe I’m using (from an unknown source).

For 4 persons:

2 dl cream
1 and 1/2 dl milk
1 vanilla bean
5 egg yolks
3/4 dl sugar
1/2 dl cane (brown) sugar

Cut the vanilla bean in half across its length and remove the seeds. Mix the milk and cream and bring to boil with the vanilla bean, set aside to cool down. Remove the bean, let it dry and store, you can use it several times (thankfully, given how much they cost)

Beat the yolks with the (white) sugar and mix them with the milk and cream. Pour the mixture in 4 small bowls, cover them with aluminum foil and set on a deep baking tray. Fill the tray with water so that the water level is more or less at the level of the cream in the bowls (hopefully you have checked before covering with the foil )  Heat the oven to 150 C, put in the tray and leave it there for 45 minutes (this is the time in the original recipe – it usually takes me a bit longer, perhaps it depends on the oven. Just see when the cream has become firm), take it out and leave it to cool down.

Sprinkle the brown sugar on top and caramelize it either by leaving it for a few minutes under the oven grill, or using the appropriate tool (see video below). If you use the grill watch out, it’s easy to burn the sugar.

Enjoy! Oh, and the glasses aren’t really necessary…