fashion blog

Happy Easter! Here is my little black cat on this year's Easter-ing tour (or whatever we shall decide to call it in English). As our house still looks like shit I'll post some old pictures of how it looked this time of year back when it was stil nice. Enjoy your chocolate!

Altough being stacked up in every store for the moment, it still seems I am in the minority of Finns actually rejoicing that mämmi season is here! Well at least if you ask my Facebook feed, that is. It is a short and sweet (and a bitter one, if we are being literal and going after that taste here) season, lasting only for a week or two around Easter. Once my parents did this thing though where they froze mämmi and had it for midsummer dessert. With  Christmas dishes for dinner. (It tasted wrong on so many leves, but was rather fun of course) Traditionally meant as a dessert, I like to have my mämmi (or memma, as we say in Swedish) for breakfast. I buy the version without sugar that is somehow sweetened slowly by itself. Don't ask, can't explain how it's done. As I posted here some seasons before, I started having mine with fruit and quark instead of the traditional cream and sugar. So I can both piss off people by saying I actually like mämmi, or then the tradtionalists by

(Half of the headline is indeed in Finnish in case you had to look twice. It gives the content of this post away.) Easter is just around the corner and over here, if you have kids, it's time to decorate some branches! (If you can find some, that is, as winter has lingered around longer than usual this year...) The branches are for when the small ones go out "witching", which can be compared a bit to trick or treat on Halloween, altough here no tricks are involved, just wishing well for the year ahead.* Tradition is to decorate the branches with feathers, but I tend to go for animal-free options, and often just a make-do of what I happen to have in the cupboards at home. I just saw a pretty funny video from one of the big supermarket chains though, saying their feathers are a certified left over product from the food (=meat)  industry, which I think is good; to take as much as possible into use as long as it's there. But I'll stick to my alternatives anyway. Here

Iiro Nurminen 1960, Helsingin Kaupunginmuseo Vappu.   Valborg . Vappen. The most likely biggest of the Finnish festivities!  Party-wise, I guess. If the city empties at Midsummer Vappu is the opposite - the city is full of thousands and thousands of celebrating people. We've had mead and funnel cakes and donuts for a the past days and I'm getting rather stuffed by now. Vappen is a festivity for quirky hats and faux noses and costumes and serpentines and confetti (and just making a mess our of everything in general). Kindergartens and schools most often have a masquerade they day before Vappu. Last year Dag was a ninja , this year he went as his latest obsession: a knight! Costumes that I wore when I was little included princess (quelle surprise), medieval lady and cowgirl. I've spent most of my Vappu-day, as in the day after; 1st of May, out on town celebrating since early morning, and even those years I was on shift in the harbour I tried to sneak in a visit to to the park

Easter. This year I managed to plan a little in advance (as in I beat my side note challenge from last year, did them the night before; tada !) and did not have to rely on what randomness I could find in the drawers. We went feather-free and decorated the willow branches with small pom poms. The kids use these to hand out for when they go around wishing neighbours well for the year to come and expect to get treats in return. They actually turned out rather nice so maybe next year I'll make a vase for us as well. Well, we'll see about that next year then... And then! Once a year: Mämmi. Memma. Yum. During my thirty-something years of eating mämmi I have, being the kind of person who apparently just can't do things without having to alter them a little, come to the conclusion that I prefer mine with lemon quark, with or sans fresh fruit on the side. And this is for breakfast in my book (and most likely my book only); not dessert. Well here's another one who also tweaks tr