Saturday Musings

We have had some sort of a Fimbul winter lately, yesterday it kept snowing the whole day. Braving the snow and ice cold wind, my friend and I bicycled to the second-hand store I once mentioned on the blog, and there I found this:

I think it looks nice with the skirt, and it's quite warm, too, and the price was only 4.50! My friend ended up buying two skirts and a summer dress, and I dug up this treasure:

Keep in mind that the price was less than 10 euros and it looks like new and comes from an expensive shop. I remember I saw those dresses hanging there a couple of years ago for a much higher price. I came to conclusion the second hand store is definitely worth visiting regularly!

It has been a very busy week as practically every day I had various appointments, so that today I finally collapsed and subjected our family to a dinner made with the curry sauce out of a jar, which tasted really funny. I don't know why but I can always distinguish between certain homemade and convenience items. Take bread, for instance, the one made in the bread-baking machine tastes much better than the one from the supermarket, but if you knead it by hand, which I sometimes do, though not as often as I'd like to, it will taste better still.

Speaking about baking, I saw this recipe on Mias Landliv and decided to try it. I was intrigued by the use of rye flour, I guess. It took me the better part of a Thursday afternoon to make it and then to clean the kitchen, but it was worth it. Instead of egg butter, I served it with egg salad, like this:

Rye flour gives these pasties a peculiar taste. According to Mia, they are a traditional Finnish sort of pasties, which made me ponder the fact that rye flour seemed to be used a lot more in the traditional Northern European kitchen than now. In fact, you can't even buy it in the supermarket and since the guy who sells it at the market didn't show up on Wednesday due to bad weather, I had to undertake a half an hour walk to a special shop which sells it.

So I did a little Wikipedia research and found out that just as I had expected, rye can grow in poorer soil and worse weather conditions than wheat, and that it has much lower amount of gluten in it, which made me wonder whether the widespread modern gluten allergies could be caused by the fact that we have switched from rye to wheat as our choice flour. It's only an idea of mine, of course, but there could be something to it.

Being interested in everything traditional I searched further and found a recipe for dark rye bread on About.com, which I'm going to try as soon as I find time for another trip to the aforementioned shop. I also discovered that rye flour has health benefits and according to this article is good for your blood sugar levels. So on that positive note, gentle reader I'm going to leave you as my husband has been deprived of tea and my company for much too long. I wish you all a blessed Sunday!