I just won't get off at all, I'll keep myself moving

Do you have Any idea how hard it is to take a good picture of a tiny cat that never sleeps but plays and runs around all day is? Or to get that tiny cat to stay in your pocket long enough to take that picture? Exactly, and that's why this picture is kinda hazy. But I still wanted to show it to you.

Last night I had a dream I was in New York again. It was a bit of a disappointment to wake up here again. Same old same old, nothing new, just this. Luckily, usually it's almost alright.

Okay, have another picture.

Dreams do come true in New Orleans

I accidently got all the cats in the same picture. But can you find the tiny one?

Then to a more celebrational matter.

If I'd thought about it I never would've done it, I guess I would've let it slide,
If I'd lived my life by what others were thinkin', the heart inside me would've died.
I was just too stubborn to ever be governed by enforced insanity,
Someone had to reach for the risin' star,
I guess it was up to me.

Million congrats to my baby, Sanna, for getting to study a BA in animation! I never had a doubt in my mind she wouldn't make it in. I'm so proud of you, love.

Room with a view

Okay you sissies, I heard you'd like to have some catalicious updates here :I

As you may already know, I've moved to the town center with my dear friend Unnamed. Also, that I work in the local movie theater. And that nowadays, we also have two cats. Don't ask me why I haven't told this to you via this blog, dear readers, because the answer is loud and clear: so I could tell you about all this right now! Here's a way too old picture of our livingroom/kitchen.


The cats are adorable, I must tell you. Although in fact they're not exactly our Own cats, but we're loaning them from a very kind friend's very kind sister. We can keep them until we move out or until she misses her cats too much and wants to take them back home. So, let me introduce you, here's Yoda, older one of the cats.

He's the hardcorest cat I've ever met. You see, he's once been hit by a taxicab which made his right front paw pretty much a mush and to fix it, they had to put an iron thing inside it. The paw's now healed, but the iron's still in there, because it's super expensive to take out. It makes him limp, but it doesn't seen to hurt. He also loves cardboard boxes.

This is the younger one, Pörhönen. We call him Purr. He's a heartbreaker, everyone falls in love with him the second they see him. He has a love-hate relationship with his brush, and he gets really jealous if there're other cats around. Especially if they're playing with his toys. Yoda, of course, is an exception. They're the bestest friends, Yoda and Purr. Purr also likes baths, but hates drying and towels. This we found out yesterday. Result: bleeding shoulder, not at all drier cat. Oh, also, Purr doesn't know how to meow, so he just says beep.

This week we're also catsitting for a friend, so at the moment we have four cats in the apartment. It isn't going so well, because our cats hate these two other cats, but we'll manage. As long as they don't meet and stay in different rooms.

Hm, something food related, then. Risottos are back. I was glad to notice my roomie loves them as well, so I made a surprisingly huge amout of leek and chicken risotto yesterday. And yes, I do still do cook and bake things, but somehow none of them seems exciting enough to tell you about. Also, I feel like I'm always either working or away or busy, which leaves me little time or energy to write. Which reminds me, please do come say hello to Plaza if you happen to be nearby, it always makes my day at least five times better to chat with a friend for a moment. Working in a movie theater is fun, but oh so boring at times. In fact I should get going right now, should be at work in fifteen minutes and I don't even know where my pants are!

Toaster oven you're the one for me!

Ha, guess what folks, I've been living in a horrible horrible LIE all these years! How dare they lie to me! How dare they!

Hm, well not exactly. You see, it goes like this. I've never made the regular potato gnocchi myself, not given it as much as a thought, because all this time everything I've heard about making them is how so very hard they are to make and how it takes ages to make them and it's nearly impossible to get them right and all this. Then, one beautiful morning a couple of weeks ago, when we had just woken up, my toaster oven and me (he he, just kidding) and were leafing through cook books and there it was, right in the middle of my old vegetarian cook book. Sweet potato gnocchi recipe. Which are basically the same as potato gnocchi. I read through it and thought to myself "what is this now, these are so easy to make and no-one's ever told me about it?"

The only gnocchi I've ever made, are these ricotta gnocchi, which are heavenly (and which Vilina makes so much better than me - but I'm learning!). But compared to those, this sweet potato gnocchi was much easier, quicker and didn't cause such a huge chaos in my kitchen.

Okay, I must admit those ricotta gnocchi are still my favourite of these two. But compared to my expectations about making regular gnocchi, these were simple and straight forward. And especially delicious fried after boiling them.

So, today's lesson, kids: Don't be afraid of making your own gnocchi. It's not as hard as you think. Although you most probably end up with a bigger mess than you thought. So, if you're not a fan of cleaning your kitchen, Then you might want to think twice, my dear.

..Hehehee, look how much they resemble dried apricots. :D

Oh, the recipe? You just take a sweet potato, medium size, boil the hell out of it, peel it and mush it in a bowl. Add salt and pepper, one egg and hmm, say, 2 cups of flour. Mess all up with a fork, but just until combined, otherwise the dough gets though. At this stage, you most probably want to add flour. You can test it like this: stick your finger in the dough, if you lost your finger to the dough and all you get back is a sticky mess when you try to pull it out, you want more flour. You should be able to form little balls out of these that you can handle.

Then take little sections out of the dought, form them to balls and press them a little with a fork (see picture above). They should be about, hmm, one inch. Then, when you have about thirty or twenty or something little things in front of you and you still haven't drowned in all the flour and mess, you can put a large sauce pan half full of water with some salt to a boil. When boiling, put half of the little gnocchi in, and wait for some 4 minutes until they start to float and then fish them out. Repeat with the other batch. Fry if desired, otherwise serve with some sauce or pesto. Red pesto is particularly nice, if you ask me.

..In fact, I suggest you find a proper recipe for this somewhere. You might end up with even a bigger mess than me if you try making these with my recipe here.

Hm, in fact I'm feeling rather good at the moment. Was about time after that horrible beginning of a week. Maybe things will be alright, after all. Most probably they will.

Hello February

At last I found a reason why Finnish winter with its mind boggling (and freezing) minus degrees is awesome. You don't have to wait half a day for your brownies to cool down, you just pop them to your backyard and they're ready to eat in no time!

This week hasn't been a very good one so far. Although there's no real reason for it, even. I mean there've been some awesome things I ought to be happy about, but it's still been rather rotten, this first week of February. That's one of the reasons to make these super awesome looking brownies. Haven't tasted them yet.

Sigh. We'll see what the rest of the week turns out to be like. Fingers crossed.

EDIT: Well at least these brownies are a killer. <3

The best fried rice and small personal wins

Today I win at my personal little thing called life. But first, a truly important announcement as follows.

Dear readers, there's something you have got to do as soon as you can. You have Got to make this dish. Like, right now. This dish completely made my Month in the food side of it. Hands down.

Seriously speaking, I wasn't expecting much from this dish. It seems pretty much like humble little something you throw together in a hurry from whatever you found in your fridge. Well, it's not. It's so much more. It has pretty much everything you'd expect from an exceptionally good dish: it's affordable, it has very pleasant different textures in it that contrast each other delightfully like soft and crunchy, it's easy to make, it has different, strong flavours but not too many or different from each other and it really doesn't take but some half an hour to make. What's not to love?


Are you making it already? You aren't? Chop Chop, run to your kitchens, people! Life's short, you must taste this!

All thanks go to Jean-Georges Vongerichten for coming up with this dish, to Mark Bittman for telling us about it and to Sanna for mentioning about it to me.

Gosh, I wish I could eat this again today. And tomorrow. And the day after that.

And now back to the unrelated topic of winning in life. For those of you who don't know this, I'm terribly afraid of phones. Or in fact, phones are fine, it's the calling business that freaks me out like nearly nothing else in this world. I never ever call anywhere or anyone if I'm not downright forced to do it (with some exceptions like mom or closest friends). Whenever I just Have to call somewhere, I get so horribly nervous that I start shaking and my heart is bounding and my hands get all sweaty and when someone finally answers, I always have hard time to form coherent sentences and I forget what I was supposed to say and all this. But guess what I did today.

I called four coffee shops, two restaurants and a movie theater to enquire if they'd like to have a free employee, in other words an intern. That's seven places, people! Can you believe it! I sure can't. I'm so proud of myself.

Oh, did any of them agree to take me as an intern? No, but two of those asked me to try again tomorrow morning and other two said they'll call me back.

Yes, that means I'm staying here for a while and not going anywhere in the near future. And suprisingly, it doesn't really disturb me that much.

Ps. I'm surprised to see how many of you asked for updates. Made me feel warm and cozy inside, so thank you. :)

The year of the rabbit

..Is definitely Not this year. Whoo! But the picture's nice. In fact it's the year of the tiger this year, if you care to know.

I've been writing this post more or less the whole day. I was quite prepared to do the good ol' end of the year meme, which everyone surely remembers from the times of livejournal, but then I noticed it wasn't such a good idea, because the answers were so obvious and the whole thing would've been quite a bore to read. Then I decided to just sum up every month's happening shortly month by month, but that didn't turn out very well, either. So, instead of either of those, here's a more pensive thought to somewhat sum up last year. Because it's been on my mind all day.

A sparrow healing from a broken wing
This year a glimpse of second chances
Tiny apples on my tree's branches

All in all, such an exciting year. The most exciting in a long while. And the best thing is, a year ago now in January, I had no idea it was going to be such an adventure. Here's to hoping this year will be full of excitement and adventures, too. Your year, as well.

Happy new year 2010, everyone.