Tag: Estonia

Labu Apetīti, Julia Caroline Child

I use my mom’s copy of the first edition, clearly a much used and battered cookbook (there are even pages in it that are singed from when Mom placed them too close to the burners)

Julia Child was born on August 15, 1912 in Pasadena, California. She was an American cooking teacher, author, and television personality. She stood 6’2″ (1.88 m) tall and is famous for the ground-breaking cookbook Mastering the Art of French Cooking. Childs hosted cooking shows I remember my mom avidly following. The National Museum of Natural History has a room dedicated to her original kitchen. When I visited, I joined  a group of other people: all of us watched videos of her cooking show.  In her honor I am reprinting a post I wrote after visiting the restaurants of Estonia and Latvia. – Jadi

Uwe and I made our first trip to two of the Baltic states. We spent a couple days each exploring Riga, Latvia and Tallinn, Estonia. Along with sparking a brand-new curiosity in the Hanseatic League [1], these cities introduced me to the northern European food scene.

Oh. My. God. We ate incredible meals every night. What made those meals so special is an insistence on local products and a reverence for tradition, but with a modern spin. The chefs did delicious things with grains like kasha, and groats and millet, and barley. For years I have firmly insisted that German bread is the best on the planet, closely followed by breads baked fresh in India [2]. Now there’s a new guy on the (bread) block: the pumpernickel and dark breads of the Baltics.

A starter with local smoked salmon

We ordered dishes with elk, deer, fresh and smoked fish.

A different restaurant’s smoked salmon with trout cavier, accompanied by rolled slices of cucumber
… and a third restaurant’s smoked salmon appetizer. Art on a plate
Traditional beet borscht soup, updated with yellow lentils and pieces of elk meat that melted in my mouth

We enjoyed the local cheeses and beers. For the first time in my life I ate (and loved!) kippered herrings. Everything was decorated with edible flowers and herbs, and served up with intense purees of once-uninteresting and now fascinating root vegetables. Everything was presented as a work of art. This is food to die for….

First course of wild mushrooms sauteéd and served in spinach blini purses

Without further ado, here are some of the plates from our feasts. Every night we forgot to photograph at least one course. We were too busy enjoying our food!

Lamb marinated in juniper berries served with yellow beetroot cream, cranberries and barley
Fresh fish with beet root puree and kale (out of all the meals we ate, the kale was the one item that was not perfect)
Venison stew with roasted onion halves
Beef with sweet pepper-eggplant-onion millet squares, oyster mushrooms, water cress and johnny-jump-ups

A shout out to the amazing restaurants Von Krahi Aed and Rataskaevu 16 in Tallinn, as well as Peter Gailis and Melna Bite in Riga. Labu apetīti and jätku leiba! [3]

Hibiscus poached pear, pumpkin seeds in apple syrup, and raspberry sorbet

In memory of Julia Child, August 15, 1912 – August 13, 2004

NOTES: [1] The Hanseatic League controlled all shipping and commerce across the Baltic Sea and northern Europe to Russia. Riga and Tallinn (then known as Reval) were member cities. [2] Go to my earlier post My Mother-in-Law’s Cookies for more on bread. [3] As always, I receive no favors for mentioning these establishments. © Jadi Campbell 2017. Previously published as The Art of Food. All photos © Uwe Hartmann 2017. To see more of Uwe’s photos and pics from our trips go to viewpics.de.

My books are Broken In: A Novel in Stories, Tsunami Cowboys, Grounded, and The Trail Back Out. 

Tsunami Cowboys was longlisted for the 2019 ScreenCraft Cinematic Book Award. The Trail Back Out was American Book Fest 2020 Best Book Award Finalist: Fiction Anthologies, Runner-Up for the 2021 Top Shelf Award, 2021 IAN Book of the Year Award Short Story Collection Finalist for the Independent Author Network, and awarded a 2021 Wishing Shelf Red Ribbon. The title story The Trail Back Out was longlisted for the 2021 ScreenCraft Cinematic Short Story Award. Broken In: A Novel in Stories was  semifinalist for the international 2020 Hawk Mountain Short Story Collection Award from Hidden River Arts and Finalist for Greece’s international 2021 Eyelands Book of the Year Award (Short Stories).

Click here for my author page to learn more about me and purchase my books.

Merry Christmas

MERRY CHRISTMAS !!

Here’s the annual round-up of my blog offerings. I grew insanely prolific this year, and went from biweekly posts to once a week. Happy Holidays and we’ll meet again in 2018. —Jadi

Art: Burma took center stage with A Burmese Spirit Guide and Sand Paintings. Food as Art was a tasty diversion. Andalusia was featured in Granada Heights, Alhambra Walls & Water, and Cordoba’s Arches. And we always have Paris! J’aime la Vie

Book excerpt: From my first book Broken In: A Novel in Stories, about a little boy and other people’s belongings. Carl Possessed 1 & 2

Current Events: I opined (quietly) concerning the mood in America, hurricanes, and the refugee crisis with Flags and Houston, We Have a Problem

Food: Always a fun subject…. A Cornucopia, The Seeds of Summer, Food as Art, and the local specialties here in Christmas Markets, Flammkuchen, and The Seeds of Summer

History & Cultural Heritage: Flags, In Search of Inspiration, J’aime la Vie, Christmas Markets and Death by Yawning

Holidays: Halloween, Japan’s Jidai Matsuri, plus Germany’s Christmas Markets

Memory: A tricky topic involving both emotions and events. I explored memory in The Seeds of Summer, Going Home (this one resonated deeply with readers), Granada Heights, Alhambra Walls & Water, Cordoba’s Arches, and Sevilla Song and Dance

Music: The sound of castanets and flamenco guitar in Sevilla Song and Dance

Nature: I went nuts writing a thread dedicated to my father. It began with The Animal Kingdom: 1 and so far 19 (!) posts have gone live. Since that wasn’t enough for me, I wrote special posts concentrating on individual critter families, such as A Clowder, A Cluster, A Cornucopia, and A Brood. I wrote a post on natural disasters, too: Houston, We Have a Problem

Places: America, Andalusia, Burma, Estonia, Germany, Japan, Latvia, Paris…

Religion: I was lucky to revisit a glorious spot where Christianity and Islam coexisted in Granada Heights, Alhambra Walls & Water, and Cordoba’s Arches

Writing: A goodly dose of humor helps on those baaad days… In Your Shoes or  In Search of Inspiration

Take a look around and see if you find old friends or stumble upon posts you may have missed. I like to think that these blog posts are my gifts to the world. As always, I welcome any and all feedback. See you next year!

NOTES: © Jadi Campbell 2017. To see  Uwe’s animal photos and pics from our trips, go to viewpics.de

Click here for my author page to learn more about my books and me.

The Art of Food

Two weeks ago, I posted about crispy fried big black hairy spiders. I admit it…. I had fun thinking about grossing you out.

Believe me, when I saw the size of those buggers that day at the rest stop, I wasn’t just grossed out. I was really, really happy that they were behind glass.

I felt bad (okay, only slightly) for scaring the small children and grown men in my reading audience. So this week, I’m bringing you another food post, but in the opposite direction: Food as Art.

Uwe and I just made our first trip to two of the Baltic states. We spent a couple days each exploring Riga, Latvia and Tallinn, Estonia. Along with sparking a brand-new curiosity in the Hanseatic League [1], these cities introduced me to the northern European food scene.

Oh. My. God. We ate incredible meals every night. What made those meals so special is an insistence on local products and a reverence for tradition, but with a modern spin. The chefs did delicious things with grains like kasha, and groats and millet, and barley. For years I have firmly insisted that German bread is the best on the planet, closely followed by breads baked fresh in India [2]. Now there’s a new guy on the (bread) block: the pumpernickel and dark breads of the Baltics.

A starter with local smoked salmon

We ordered dishes with elk, deer, fresh and smoked fish,

A different restaurant’s smoked salmon with trout cavier, accompanied by rolled slices of cucumber
… and a third restaurant’s smoked salmon appetizer. Art on a plate
Traditional beet borscht soup, updated with yellow lentils and pieces of elk meat that melted in my mouth

local cheeses and beers. For the first time in my life I ate (and loved!) kippered herrings. Everything was decorated with edible flowers and herbs, and served up with intense purees of once uninteresting and now fascinating root vegetables. Everything was presented as a work of art. This is food to die for….

First course of wild mushrooms sauteéd and served in spinach blini purses

Without further ado, here are some of the plates from our feasts. Every night we forgot to photograph at least one course. We were too busy enjoying our food!

Lamb marinated in juniper berries served with yellow beetroot cream, cranberries and barley
Fresh fish with beet root puree and kale (out of all the meals we ate, the kale was the one item that was not perfect)
Venison stew with roasted onion halves
Beef with sweet pepper-eggplant-onion millet squares, oyster mushrooms, water cress and johnny-jump-ups

A shout out to the amazing restaurants Von Krahi Aed and Rataskaevu 16 in Tallinn, as well as Peter Gailis and Melna Bite in Riga. Labu apetīti and jätku leiba! [3]

Hibiscus poached pear, pumpkin seeds in apple syrup, and raspberry sorbet

NOTES: [1] The Hanseatic League controlled all shipping and commerce across the Baltic Sea and northern Europe to Russia. Riga and Tallinn (then known as Reval) were member cities. [2] Go to my earlier post My Mother-in-Law’s Cookies for more on bread. [3] Latvian and Estonian for bon appetít. As always, I receive no favors for mentioning these establishments. © Jadi Campbell 2017. All photos © Uwe Hartmann 2017. To see more of Uwe’s photos and pics from our trips go to viewpics.de.

Click here for my author page to learn more about my books and me.

 

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