Self-imposed isolation, day 21

Not so much isolation today! It was a sunny, fairly warm day (considering this is Finland in early April) and it being Easter, we decided to spend the afternoon together (just us three). We met outdoors, wore our masks and kept our distances. We even organised an Easter egg hunt for our daughter! For about a dozen years now, I’ve hidden the eggs around our house, I’ve even once (a long time ago) hidden Easter eggs in an elementary school classroom in Vancouver, Canada – but I’ve never hidden them outdoors before! There’s usually still snow around Easter, so it’s not customary to do the egg hunt outdoos, but now we did. I also have this habit of forgetting where I’ve hidden them, which means in the end we’re all looking for one or two missing ones... 😄

 

(Interestingly enough, when I was little, it was the Easter Rooster that brought the eggs, but we seem to have adopted the Easter Bunny custom.)

We also went for a walk in the woods and around the neighbourhood, then just sat on the patio, eating some Easter eggs. My DH kept asking if we’d like one more, my DD and I kept pretending to think about it, then said, ”Well, it is Easter.” ”And it is not Easter every day, is it?” It is not! 😄 We talked a lot, laughed a lot – it’s wonderful how much fun the three of us have together. 💓

Self-imposed isolation, day 19

What was it I said in my previous post about not much happening to one in isolation? I’ll take that back.

When you live like a hermit, you look like a hermit. I haven’t much looked in the mirror in nearly three weeks. Nor should I, for one glance was quite horrifying. Mostly I’ve grown hairier. No moustache or beard yet, which is too bad – stroking your beard while looking all mysterious/devious/contemplative looks like so much fun, at least judging from how much my DH likes to engage in such behaviour. I am on my way to an impressive unibrow though! And while I never brush or comb my hair – simply running my fingers through it is sufficient – maybe I should do something about it before next I venture out, or the birds will mistake it for their nest.

I will not post pictures. Well, maybe something much cuter and even somewhat furrier.

 

Self-imposed isolation, day 17

Not much to report today (not that there usually is). I cleaned, I cooked, I… don’t know what I did. So I’m just going to post a picture of an Easter egg – I favour the ones with fillings, not the surprise eggs where the chocolate is… not sure you can even call it chocolate. But we sometimes buy these Moomin Easter eggs, because, well, they’re Moomins!

 

I keep the Groke (Mörkö, on the left) by my bed here, because Mörkö doesn’t just appear in the Moomin stories, it is a sort of bogeyman, the creature that children are afraid of in the dark (”Mum, dad, there’s a Mörkö under my bed!”). So, surely having a Mörkö guarding me while I sleep will drive all the other Mörkös away. 😄

 

Self-imposed isolation, day 14

 Today I have

- had too much coffee (two large cups in the morning – daylight saving)

- cooked (sweet & sour chicken for tomorrow)

- had three video chats with family (one more coming up later!)

- talked to dear friends (OK, wrote messages)

- read (when do I not?)

- done some writing (a story I’m really not supposed to be writing, so no more about that)

- read about Victorian fashion, particularly about popular colours (research! And yes, related to that-which-should-not-be-written… sigh…)

- eaten a solid chocolate nougat egg that comes in a real egg shell (Mignon by Fazer)

- named a character in a story my daughter is writing (just a casual suggestion, which, to my surprise, was accepted – if you know teenagers, you know that your suggestion being accepted is kind of a big deal! 😀 Also very proud of my daughter writing a story.)

 

 

Fazer Visitor Centre – a visit to chocolate company!

As it was my birthday last week, we celebrated on weekend, and on Saturday my DH and daughter took me to Fazer visitor centre. Fazer is the most well-known chocolate manufacturer in Finland, but the company also makes other sweets, cookies, bread, muesli etc. and has bakeries and cafés in various cities and towns. They opened a new visitor centre just last autumn, and since then, I’ve been looking forward to a visit there!

We’d booked a guided tour, which lasted for about an hour. It started in a small tropical garden where we were shown cocoa trees with cocoa fruit and other tropical plants. On a cold winter day, the warm, humid garden was a particularly lovely spot.

The tour itself didn’t focus much on chocolate making or history of chocolate but rather on Fazer as a company; their history, products etc. The exhibition featured, among other things, a giant bunny made of egg shells:

Old confectionary equipment:

And a great number of old wrappings, boxes and other containers for sweets. These were very beautiful and truly charming!

There were interactive parts in the tour; you could, e.g., smell ingredients used in sweets (cocoa mass, cocoa powder, liquorice powder, spices...) and visit Fazer factories wearing VR headsets.

And of course, visitors were invited to sample some of the products: individually wrapped pieces of chocolate as well as chocolate and liquorice bars. A "chocolate tree":

Although it is every chocoholic’s dream to devour unlimited amounts of chocolate, I was careful and only sampled a bit – we were going to an Indian restaurant afterwards, and it would have been a shame to spoil my appetite! Still, I did get a bite of all my favourites as well as a chance to taste something new, such as these Dumle lime chocolates, which are chocolate covered lime flavoured soft, chewy caramels. I was a little suspicious about the lime thing, but these are actually delicious!

 

After the tour, visitors were given goodie bags containing some new or limited edition products... and there is a shop in the premises where we bought a big bag full of treats. For the most part, the selection did not differ from what you find in supermarkets and grocery stores, but there were some novelties we haven’t yet spotted anywhere else, such as these chocolate eggs. They are like our favourite chocolate eggs, Mignons: solid almond nougat eggs in real egg shells (and one of Fazer’s oldest products still in the market). These, however, are slightly larger than the normal Mignons and come in brown egg shells. Aren’t they beautiful? These would make a perfect little Easter/spring time gift!

In addition, there is a café where you can sample some of Fazer’s cafeteria products. The cakes looked utterly delicious! Since we had other plans, we didn’t indulge in these treats – but immediately decided to make another visit one day...

Happy Easter!

Whether you celebrate Easter, Eostre, Pääsiäinen, something else or nothing at all... whether you run naked in the fields, go to church, eat chocolate eggs or dress up as the Easter Bunny (the latter two being what I do)... have a good one! :)

Chocolate Easter eggs

For the final day of Easter holiday, I thought I'd post some Easter pictures. Well all right, some chocolate egg pictures (sorry, no frolicking naked in the nature... as fascinating as these ancient traditions may be, this part of the world is simply too cold for them).

The problem with Easter eggs is that most of them hardly deserve to be called “chocolate”. Their taste barely resembles chocolate, and if you look at the ingredients list, they're mostly just sugar. This goes especially for those eggs that contain a surprise – I guess children aren't supposed to care what the “chocolate” tastes like, they only want the tiny toy inside. Alas, this seems to be true; our six-year-old used to favour eggs made of somewhat better chocolate, but now that she's a little older, she doesn't care. She eats them all. (Interestingly, though, she eats the chocolate first and only when it's all gone she opens the little container to see the surprise inside.)

Fortunately for us chocolate lovers, you can also find chocolate eggs that are quite tasty and even delicious.

The best example are my absolute favourites: Fazer's Mignon. These are solid chocolate/nougat eggs that come in real eggshells! Fazer has been making these since 1896. Now there's an Easter tradition I can get behind!

I also happen to like these: the green ones have a hazelnut nougat filling, the orange ones come with an almond nougat filling.

And some dark chocolate eggs with liqueur fillings: amaretto, crème de cassis, advocaat and whisky cream.

Plus a variety of small eggs with fillings that range from nougat to orange, strawberry and vanilla cream.

Those were mostly for kids, but naturally I had to sample a few. ;) They were also used to decorate my version of pasha, a traditional Easter treat that contains, among other things, quark, raisins and almonds (the shape isn't very traditional, simply because I don't have a proper mold – I just make one out of an empty ice cream container). The chicks behind the pasha seem to be having a wild time...