Fiesta Mexicana - or How I love a long table of friends enjoying food and camaraderie - And What I would give for my family’s help – and fresh cilantro!
My two almost empty suitcases in Berkeley – after all the Finnish food had been unpacked – were just screaming to be filled up. I brainstormed for a while and decided to fill them with Mexican food, a bag of tasty California avocados, 5 dozen tortillas from Mi Tierra, our neighborhood Mexican market, a large bottle of tequila, etc. etc. You can actually buy almost anything in Jyväskylä, but I knew fresh corn tortillas could NOT be found. The Fiesta Mexicana was set for last Friday night when nine women gathered together, entering with gifts, flowers – and a cactus plant. It was to be a Finnish version of my California ‘favorite women dinners’. After some research, I even found reasonably prices Margarita glasses. It only hit me a few hours before the party that I had actually never made Margaritas. Our son, Johannes, had always acted as the Margarita master while Rafael had fried the tortillas into tostadas. So the young men were surely missed. Setting a long table in my living room proved to be another challenge. Now an older man was missed as I really could have used my husband, Robert’s muscle power and built-in, mental tape measure. Just like at home, the doorways in my apartment tend to be a tiny bit too narrow for table moving. But finally, I managed to get the kitchen table into the living room. The heavier table on the balcony, resting on ancient, iron sewing machine legs, wasn’t quite as simple. But, my husband’s trick of using a rug under to pull it in finally worked. I had a table for nine! Sneaking a couple of chairs from the exercise room in the basement of my building provided us with enough chairs to sit on.
After uselessly trying to skype Johannes, I studied the recipes online and hoped for the best. My friend, Tuija, took Rafael’s role and fried 36 tostadas. I missed Maiju’s salsa and Matlena’s guacamole, but managed somehow.
I had checked out the only Spanish language CD from my little local library and set up lights in my balcony, so the party was all set to go. In addition to tostadas, my California imports included nuts and dried fruit for appetizers and persimmons and different kinds of chocolates for dessert.
There was one thing I couldn’t find anywhere: fresh cilantro! I finally gave up and used the dried variety. It just isn’t the same! But Jyväskylä has come a long way! In the 70’s, for a couple of weeks, Robert could talk about nothing else but his graving for Mexican food. And he had wanted to surprise me by cooking something very exotic. Remember – this happened in the 70’s, in monocultural Finland! After his experiment with something called Maizena or corn flour - that proved to be cornstarch – resulted in very strong glue, he ran to our friends in desperation to get a box of Kellogg’s corn flakes. And yes, he managed to make tortillas out of corn flakes. They were a little sweet, but we feasted.
And we did feast on Friday night as well. I realized that there are few things as satisfying for me as the process of pulling together a preparing a dinner party: getting food ready and decorating an appropriate setting for a long table full of appreciative friends. I just wish that the cleaning gene hadn’t so totally escaped our family’s DNA.
Signs out Sirpa who has to return to the dishes after sneaking out to write a blog entry – on Sunday afternoon.
PS. I almost forgot. I couldn’t find a place to rent one of these guys either!
My two almost empty suitcases in Berkeley – after all the Finnish food had been unpacked – were just screaming to be filled up. I brainstormed for a while and decided to fill them with Mexican food, a bag of tasty California avocados, 5 dozen tortillas from Mi Tierra, our neighborhood Mexican market, a large bottle of tequila, etc. etc. You can actually buy almost anything in Jyväskylä, but I knew fresh corn tortillas could NOT be found. The Fiesta Mexicana was set for last Friday night when nine women gathered together, entering with gifts, flowers – and a cactus plant. It was to be a Finnish version of my California ‘favorite women dinners’. After some research, I even found reasonably prices Margarita glasses. It only hit me a few hours before the party that I had actually never made Margaritas. Our son, Johannes, had always acted as the Margarita master while Rafael had fried the tortillas into tostadas. So the young men were surely missed. Setting a long table in my living room proved to be another challenge. Now an older man was missed as I really could have used my husband, Robert’s muscle power and built-in, mental tape measure. Just like at home, the doorways in my apartment tend to be a tiny bit too narrow for table moving. But finally, I managed to get the kitchen table into the living room. The heavier table on the balcony, resting on ancient, iron sewing machine legs, wasn’t quite as simple. But, my husband’s trick of using a rug under to pull it in finally worked. I had a table for nine! Sneaking a couple of chairs from the exercise room in the basement of my building provided us with enough chairs to sit on.
After uselessly trying to skype Johannes, I studied the recipes online and hoped for the best. My friend, Tuija, took Rafael’s role and fried 36 tostadas. I missed Maiju’s salsa and Matlena’s guacamole, but managed somehow.
I had checked out the only Spanish language CD from my little local library and set up lights in my balcony, so the party was all set to go. In addition to tostadas, my California imports included nuts and dried fruit for appetizers and persimmons and different kinds of chocolates for dessert.
There was one thing I couldn’t find anywhere: fresh cilantro! I finally gave up and used the dried variety. It just isn’t the same! But Jyväskylä has come a long way! In the 70’s, for a couple of weeks, Robert could talk about nothing else but his graving for Mexican food. And he had wanted to surprise me by cooking something very exotic. Remember – this happened in the 70’s, in monocultural Finland! After his experiment with something called Maizena or corn flour - that proved to be cornstarch – resulted in very strong glue, he ran to our friends in desperation to get a box of Kellogg’s corn flakes. And yes, he managed to make tortillas out of corn flakes. They were a little sweet, but we feasted.
And we did feast on Friday night as well. I realized that there are few things as satisfying for me as the process of pulling together a preparing a dinner party: getting food ready and decorating an appropriate setting for a long table full of appreciative friends. I just wish that the cleaning gene hadn’t so totally escaped our family’s DNA.
Signs out Sirpa who has to return to the dishes after sneaking out to write a blog entry – on Sunday afternoon.
PS. I almost forgot. I couldn’t find a place to rent one of these guys either!
http://www.margaritamanofventuracounty.com/page/page/522671.htm
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