Interview with me on 7 Ravioli foodblog

There's a short interview with me on a Lithuanian food blog 7 ravioli or Septyni virtieniai :) The interview is here.

If you don't speak Lithuanian, you'll find the English translation here.

Thank you, Dalia, it was a pleasure talking to you!

And last, but not least...

If you've been wondering why my posting has been somewhat erratic recently, then here's the reason:

 


Our third baby was born yesterday morning, on November 4th. She weighed 3710 grams and was 50 cm tall - our biggest baby yet :)

Our oldest - a daughter born in January 2009 and our second child - a son born in January 2011 - are still quite small, 3 years 9 months and 1 year 9 months, respectively. So being heavily pregnant with two small kids needing the attention and trying to write a foodblog - the latter has often had to wait. But I'm still here, and hopefully you'll be patient enough to wait for my future posts - which will be about food, and not kids, I promise :)

Kahvliahvi Kokakool aka Kitchen Monkey's Cookery School

Here's a children's poem in Estonian, written by Heljo Mänd in 1960s, describing small elephant's Bumbu's birthday party in the jungle, where monkeys were eating wafers ("vahvel" in Estonian) and the crocodiles were eating forks ("kahvel" in Estonian). If you combine the monkeys and the forks of this poem, you'll get kahvliahvid aka kitchen/fork monkeys.

Tingel-tangel-tungel,
kära täis on džungel.
Sünnipäev on Bumbul,
elevandijumbul.

Tangel-tungel-tingel,
pidulaual kringel.
Ahvid pistsid vahvleid,
krokodillid kahvleid.

Tungel-tingel-tangel,
limonaad on kange,
jookseb mööda lonti
justkui sada tonti.
 


Couple of weeks ago I got a phone call from a well-known journalist and party organiser, asking to give a cookery demo to a group of kids and their parents at a small music festival in a small Estonian town of Kilingi-Nõmme.  The workshop, called Kahviahvi Kokakool ("Fork Monkey's Cooking School", or probably better translated as "Kitchen Monkeys"), was to have four cookery sessions/demonstrations, and I was asked to give one of them. I agreed - it was a chance to get out of town and listen to some nice music in fresh air before and after the cooking demo. We were discussing the possible menu options, taking into consideration what the other sessions were focusing on, and finally agreed I'd teach the kids and their parents (26 in total) how to make cold soups. Not your usual gazpacho, mind you, but a kefir and a buttermilk soup, respectively - one savoury, one sweet.

It's summer, after all! As it turned out to be a really hot on Saturday (the music festival and the culinary workshops took place on Saturday, July 7th), cold soups seemed to have been a wise choice indeed :)


My cold summer soup workshop was at 5.30 pm, third one of the afternoon:


I tied the apron strings and was ready to begin. Note the sweet monkey-fork/fork-monkey design:


The kids were all anxiously waiting and ready to start chopping:


We began with the savoury kefir soup. Basically we made this chlodnik, but adding beets/beetroots and grated horseradish was optional, and everybody added some cooked mortadella-style sausages as well, to make the soup a bit more substantial. I must admit that about 3/4th of the kids asked for both the beets and the horseradish, which made me very happy indeed :)

Small (and some slightly bigger) kitchen monkeys in action. Note the high concentration of fathers - at least four - who were accompaning their children:




My role was to make sure everyone has understood the instructions and are progressing nicely:


Cutting the sausages into small dice for the soup requires some serious focusing and concentration:
 

Me, making sure that everyone got some vitamin-rich green onions:

Here's a close-up of the cold kefir soup with scallions/green onions, finely chopped sausages, beets and cucumbers (you can only guess there's beetroot at present at this point, as the stirring of the soup was a serious and time-consuming job as well):


Once everyone had finished making and eating their cold kefir soup, it was time to start making the dessert. I had chosen the wonderfully summery Danish buttermilk and strawberry soup koldskål - you'll find the recipe here on Nami-Nami. We did use kama cereal balls instead of crushed biscuits/cookies, however.

The main component - local Estonian strawberries, which are at their peak just now:


Mint, destined as garnish of the cold buttermilk-strawberry soup (lemon balm works just as well)

 Choosing the prettiest strawberries for the buttermilk-strawberry soup:



Here's our daughter (3 y 5 m) enjoying the buttermilk-strawberry soup she made all by herself:



Thank you, Merle Liivak, Kahvliahvi Kokakool & Schilling, for inviting me! I had a lovely day indeed :)

All photos by my food-blogging friend Liina Vahter .

7-year itch? Nami-Nami food blog anniversary post and a recipe for a Swedish shrimp salad (Räksallad)

Nami-Nami foodblog is now seven years old. On June 15, 2005, I wrote my first English-language blog post. Back then I was seven years younger. I had just finished my PhD in Sociology of Nationalism at the University of Edinburgh in bonnie Scotland, and about to start my first post-doctoral fellowship at the same university. I hadn't yet met my dear K, who seduced me back to Estonia in October following year (I met in him on November 1, 2005, four and half months after starting blogging, at a reception in Edinburgh), and I definitely didn't have any gorgeous kids back then (and, consequently, I had much more time for blogging :))

Those seven years have been fun - it's been fun meeting other foodbloggers from all over the world, it's been fun taking part in various foodblogging events. It's been educating and entertaining thinking more about what, how, and why we eat, being more reflexive about our dietary choices, eating habits and the food culture in general.

And nope, there's definitely no seven-year itch in my relationship to Nami-Nami foodblog. We're still going strong, and I have no intention of quitting just yet. Furthermore, there are some extremely interesting blogging-related trips and meet-ups lined up for the near future, so stay with me and Nami-Nami :)

For today's recipe, I'll give you this Swedish shrimp salad, something that was offer on the recent Swedish buffet. Although I do cook and blog about dishes from all over the world, then I do feel most happy and confident when blogging about Estonian, other Nordic and possibly also Eastern European dishes. This is a very Nordic salad flavour-wise - fresh, herbal, light and very summery. You can serve it as a simple salad or perhaps on top of some buttered toast.


Swedish shrimp salad
Serves six (can be easily multiplied)

400-500 g hand-peeled cooked shrimps*
100 ml (7 level Tbsp) of good-quality mayonnaise
100 ml finely chopped fresh dill
juice of half a lemon
1 tsp mild paprika powder
0.25 tsp freshly ground pepper (preferably white pepper)

* I prefer the ones in a light marinade or brine to the frozen ones, but both will do. Just make sure the netto weight after defrosting and draining is about 400 g.

If using frozen shrimps, then thoroughly defrost them (I take them from the freezer and put into the fridge on the previous night). Drain thoroughly, then squeeze gently to remove as much water as possible. If using shrimps in a brine/marinade, then simply drain them.
Put couple of shrimps on the side, if you want to use them for garnish.
In a large bowl, mix mayonnaise and dill, season with lemon juice, paprika powder and pepper. Add the shrimps and stir gently, until combined.
Transfer the salad into a serving bowl, garnish with some shrimps and dill.

Serve at once, or cover with clingfilm and place into the fridge for an hour or two.

Cover Girl

Not sure how that happened and why, but in January I was approached by the Pere ja Kodu ("Family and Home"), the biggest family magazine published in Estonia. They asked if I'd be willing to be interviewed for the cover story of their February issue. I must admit I was pretty baffled - me? I know that my Estonian recipe site is popular (I get about 3000 unique visitors each day), that the two cookbooks have done well, that my regular monthly recipe column in Postimees, my one-week stint cooking on the breakfast show at the national television (I'll blog about that soon, promise!), and numerous radio interviews mean that many people would recognise the Nami-Nami name quite well. Still, cooking and writing about the food is something I do in the privacy and intimacy of my own home, for my close friends and dear family, so it's sometimes hard to comprehend that it's actually not so private and intimate after all.

A three-hour interview with a lovely journalist and two photo-shoots with an even lovelier photographer resulted in a nice long article and some pretty glamorous family photos :) The article doesn't talk about cooking as such. Instead it focuses on balancing family life, academic career and my cooking hobby; on my attempts to involve kids in the cooking process and developing a healthy relationship to food and eating; on baby-led weaning (a topic very close to my heart); on keeping and sustaining family harmony (of a kind that's possible with two tiny lively kids); and on my appreciation of the Estonian social welfare system that lets me stay at home for about 18 months with each kid (keeping my full salary).

So if you read Estonian, and want to learn more about all that, go to your nearest newspaper stand and get the February 2012 issue of Pere and Kodu :)

New Year's Eve 2011 @ Nami-Nami

Happy New Year to all my readers! I thought to start with an overview of our New Year's Eve feast. We stayed at home and entertained friends - we were 12 adults and 7 kids and as far as I could tell, everyone had great time. We ate and drank, competed in a quiz (a New Year's Eve tradition in our house), watched some shows at the TV (incl. the President's speech), and enjoyed fireworks outside just after midnight. Here's an overview of what we ate.

The menu scribbled on our blackboard wall:


Appetizers included crostini with cream cheese and lobster tails:


Rye bread buttons with spiced sprats cream:


Home-made rye crisps with chicken liver paté and red onion marmalade:


thinly sliced pain d'epices with Estonian goat cheese and ruby pomegranate seeds:



The salad board consisted of Waldorf salad (made by our dear friends Peter & Kristel):


Beetroot and pomegranate salad with parsley and Aleppo chilli vinaigrette:


Red cabbage, orange and Beluga lentil salad with parsley vinaigrette (as all Italians know, you must have lentils at the New Year's Eve, as this brings you wealth and money in the new year :))


More substantial dishes included home-made chicken nuggets (well, there were teens among the guests) with a adjika and sour cream dip:


A wonderful hot-smoked trout from Pepe Kala, served with a simple, yet luxurious trout roe and sour cream sauce:


Our friend Liina contributed a caramelised onion and Cheddar tart:


and a wonderful pork terrine:


I had also made two different crisp breads, one with fennel seeds and the other without:



For nibbling, there was fruit, gingebread cookies and sugared almonds:


For dessert, our friends had brought along a moist pumpkin cake, a lovely pink cherry and mascarpone cheesecake.

And to finish it all off, K. and I had made a croquembouche, complete with crème patisserie and spun sugar ribbons:



Again, may your 2012 be full of delicious and tasty bites and experiences!

Book project No 2: Christmas at Home (Jõulud kodus)

Remember my first cookbook, "Nami-Nami kokaraamat" and its launch party on December 1st almost a year ago? The cookbook has done well, I'm happy to say - and I'm already working on the third book. Yes, the third one, as despite giving birth to a second baby earlier this year (and thus having two kids under-3 crawling and running around in the kitchen) I also managed to work on my second cookbook. Or kind of cookbook. My dear publishers, Varrak, kindly asked me in late Spring if I could co-author a Christmas book with Irina Tammis - she'd write the section on Christmas crafts, and I'd write the festive recipes. I was thrilled to say yes and so it happened that I was baking gingerbread and roasting black pudding in the middle of the August heatwave this year :)

The book came out in the beginning of November - first as part of the Suur Eesti Raamatuklubi (the Large Estonian Book Club, where it is the star book of November), but is now available in most bookstores in Estonia. RRP is 15.90 EUR and, obviously, it makes a wonderful Christmas gift to your loved ones (if you speak Estonian, that is :))

Here's a list of Christmas recipes - I've provided links to relevant recipes in English here on the Nami-Nami foodblog - and some pictures as well. Note that all recipes were re-tested and (usually) re-photographed during the summer, so the edited recipe in the book is necessarily not exactly the same as here on the blog.

RECIPES:

• Puff pastry pinwheels with lingonberries and black pudding

• Choux pastry puffs with black pudding
• Rosemary-scented devils on horseback
• Festive chicken liver paté with glögg jelly
• Gravadlax with star anise and oranges
• Spicy mixed nuts
• Lacy cheese crisps
• Orange Ambrosia with coconut and red berries
• Beetroot and mushroom salad
• A layered smoked salmon and vegetable salad

• Pork roast
• Crispy black pudding
• Oven-roasted vegetables
• Christmas goose
• Oven-baked salmon with scalloped beetroot
• Cabbage, three ways (sauerkraut braised in beer, red cabbage with prunes and sweet-and-sour white cabbage)
• Jansson's Frestelse
• Hasselback potatoes (aka accordion potatoes)
• Spicy Swedish meatballs

• Pear and blue cheese quiche with gingerbread spices
• Sauerkraut and chocolate cake

• Small blue cheese and marmalade tartlets
• Joulutortut aka Finnish Christmas stars

• Thumbprint cookies for Christmas
• Saffron buns with coconut topping
• My favourite Christmas fruitcake

• Gingerbread cookies (incl. glaze and various ways of shaping the cookies)
• Sliced Christmas almond and gingerbread cookies
• Gingerbread muffins
• Soft gingerbread cake with cream cheese frosting and red berries

• Gingerbread cheesecake
• Caramelized spiced almonds
• Clementines in Christmassy wine syrup
• Risalamande (a Danish sweet rice porridge with warm cherry compote)
• Mulled wine poached pears
• Eggnog

You can see the book advertisement on the publishers' website here. Of course, I'm happy to answer any questions about the cookbook and the recipes - and if there's a particular recipe that catches your idea, but isn't yet available in English on the blog, please let me know. The Christmas is just around the corner and I'd be happy to share the recipe!

Nami-Nami on Spanish TV

Free Wi-Fi: Estonia. Report by Ángel Varela Pena. (Andrew Poole voice-over)



Earlier this year (in May, to be precise), a Spanish film-maker Ángel spent couple of hours with us, eating rhubarb cake and filming us for a report on free wi-fi and work-life balance. The report was aired on Spanish TV in September, and here's the clip for you to see (Nami-Nami section begins at about 2:10).

I'm making Anne's mango shrimp, sing praises to my dear friend Ximena, show off my "Nami-Nami cookbook", mention Nami-Nami gardening blog, and leaf through the pages of the book where this popular apple cake recipe comes from.

Saveur's Worldwide list of 55 Great Global Food Blogs

Today's photo: some of Nami-Nami tomatoes, 2011

I'm thrilled to say that Nami-Nami was listed in Saveur's list Worldwide Feast: 55 Great Global Food Blogs. (Thank you, Silja, for pointing this out to me). I'm in a great company - there are some real foodblogging heavyweights listed -  Delicious Days, David Lebovitz, Chocolate and Zucchini, to name just a few. During my 6+ years of foodblogging, I've met several authors of the blogs mentioned - Ximena, Dagmar, Jeanne, Keiko, Pertelote. Most of the other blogs are familiar to me and I follow them regularly, but there are some new ones listed as well that I'm off to check out right now. Definitely a good and honorable company to be in :D

Thank you, dear Saveur, and dear Nami-Nami readers :)

Six years of Nami-Nami food blog

Yep, it's exactly six years since my first post here. Back then I was a carefree PhD student living in Edinburgh, Scotland, cooking in a rented under-equipped kitchen and taking pictures with the tiniest of digital cameras. Now I'm back home in Estonia, and a lot has changed. Amongst other things, I'm a happy mum of two gorgeous kids:



owner of a handy vegetable patch and tomato greenhouse:



keeper of four lovely chicks:



and author of one beautiful cookbook:



and hopefully also a good partner to my lovely K - I wouldn't be still blogging if it weren't for his support and enthusiasm and good appetite :)

I have enjoyed those six years of foodblogging immensely - especially the encouragement from fellow readers and meeting of other foodbloggers - both in Estonia and abroad. I hope you've been enjoying reading Nami-Nami and will be coming back for more..

Previous blog anniversary posts:
2010, 2009, 2008, 2007, 2006