Before we get tired: Free Food And Other Stories

Finding work is proving to be very difficult in Finland, but alas this is resulting in creativity.

Valeria, my roommate, grew up in Russia and apparently it is very common for Russians to go mushroom hunting/picking. She has told me that most all Russians go mushroom hunting with their grandparents, and it's uncommon to find a Russian that doesn't know edible mushrooms from non-edible ones. Valeria has gone mushroom picking a lot since we have gotten here and she's made some amazing concoctions! There has been ample mushroom soup, mushroom salad, mushroom steaks, pickled mushrooms, and most recently mushroom quiche. Thankfully I love mushrooms and don't mind the extra that she is always offering me! :)

Last Sunday four of the people that live in our building asked Valeria if she would take them mushroom hunting because they'd been learning about it in school, but before they tested out their newly acquired knowledge solo they wanted some support. I figured I'd join in the learning expedition and so Valeria, Laurenz, Daan, Uri, Amber and myself all got in Laurenz's van and we headed out to the forest on the opposite side of town.

I was mostly interested in seeing the beautiful forest landscape that I am constantly surrounded by, but hadn't really gotten to explore prior. It was a perfect day for exploring, there was no rain and the sun was intermittently shining through the scattered clouds. I was enthralled by the amount of moss that covered everything. It felt like I was back in Portland; it was very nostalgic. Valeria instructed us that the most prevalent mushrooms this time of year would be chanterelles, trumpet chanterelles, and mushroom steaks (she isn't sure of their English name). I paid attention to the lesson that we got and then we all wandered off on our own to forage for mushrooms. I mostly lusted over the moss and trees, but occasionally I stumbled upon some mushrooms and I picked those. There were plenty of patches that had been picked over, but Valeria shared with us her grandfather's words of wisdom: "Our mushrooms will always be there, because they're ours." I really liked these words of encouragement. After enjoying the forest for about 2 hours we decided to head home. I have made mushroom steaks a couple of times and I have also added mushrooms to my egg sandwiches for breakfast! Yay for foraging my own meals!

Valeria's jacket popped in the forest!

The most practical lesson I've learned since I've been here.

I never wanted to leave.

I was so pleased with myself for finding chanterelles.

Gahhh.. so pretty!

Valeria and Uri trimming the mushroom steaks.

The forest we went to was adjacent to the ski jump and as we were leaving we got to watch a little boy practicing his skills. These ski jumpers are insane.

This is my mushroom steak dinner. I sautéed the mushrooms and then seasoned them with salt and pepper, and then topped them with some gouda and avocado! They were delicious!

This egg sandwich was amazing! One egg, mushroom, gouda, and sriracha smashed between bread!

This is from a different day that Valeria went picking by herself, but this just goes to show how much you can get going out only once.

Everyone also has a surplus of apples here, and we have been informed that people are more than happy to have you take the apples from their tree. Valeria has been knocking on people's doors asking if we can have their apples periodically, needless to say we haven't been buying much fruit. She has also been gathering berries to make jam, it's delicious. And she's been harvesting rose hips to make tea, it's brilliant.

On the theme of free, we are also reusing my coffee grounds as an exfoliant. I learned that this is apparently common knowledge, the exfoliating properties of coffee grounds, but better learned late than never? Since we are going to sauna at least once a week, it is a perfect opportunity to cleanse our skin. The sauna is in the basement of our building, and it is free for tenants to use. We are allowed one hour of sauna per week, per tenant, and we pre-book the sauna online. We try to book sauna on Thursday nights to celebrate the beginning of the weekend, it's a great free way to entertain/relax ourselves. This past weekend we booked sauna on Saturday night for two hours (Steve and Magdalena booked their time slots back to back) and so we finally decided to try using the coffee ground exfoliant. It worked wonders! After rejuvenating our skin, we then had another bonfire to round out the night of free entertainment! Being on a tight budget has resulted in plenty of lovely evenings.

Here's to good skin and sweating out all the toxins.

Teemu and Emi (Valeria's boyfriend)

The last free food story I will share with you is the fishing expedition that we went on this past Wednesday. I HATE fishing, but I love being outside, so when Valeria, Uri, and Laurenz said they were going fishing I figured I'd go as an excuse to take a break from studying. The fall colors are really starting to show here, and it's beautiful. No matter where you turn you can see an amazing mixture of colors, green from the pine trees, and yellows and reds from the deciduous trees everywhere! I was grateful explore the harbor some more, and thankfully no fish were harmed in the making of these photos.