Welcome to My Celtic Cross-Kitchen!

This is the food blog I have been planning for some time now, the food blog I have been encouraged to start writing, the food blog where I will share not only my recipes but anything I experience in the culinary world  – and where I will definitely emphasize love and beauty and well-being what comes to cooking, baking and eating. 

My Celtic Cross-Kitchen? - I have always loved the Celtic crosses – the fine balance combining handcraft and artistry, and their attention to detail. That is a philosophy I try to implement in my cooking as well. Living in Ireland I try to use local ingredients as much as possible when cooking Irish, Spanish, Hungarian, French, Greek, Oriental… - and obviously never forgetting my background as a Finn, and the culture I grew up in. So very cross-kitchen this is. I love to make it simple and I love tastes as they are. That does not mean I don’t like spices – spices are an essential part of cooking as long as they are not overwhelming. And that does not mean I don’t like combining tastes - some ingredients may work perfectly well together even if you first didn’t believe so.

I have been living in Ireland for 5 years now with my Finnish husband and four children. We are all blessed with no allergies so our kitchen is always open to new experiments. Of course we all do have our odd dislikes (‘mental allergies’ as I call them) - even an adult’s taste buds sometimes need to learn to like something new but open-mindedness is the key word to describe cooking and eating in our family. - For example, all this goes without protest: cooked globe artichokes, oysters, mussels, squid, escargots with garlic butter, lamb, venison, Polish sausages, sour cucumbers, sauerkraut, quail eggs, smoked or cured salmon, Finnish-style sour rye bread, sushi, chicken korma, spinach soup, feta cheese… just to mention a few of the most unusual ones, that is, those not on the daily/weekly menu.

I am happy my family is interested in food and cooking, too, so if I run out of ideas what to have for dinner, somebody always comes up with suggestions and wishes which I respect with enthusiasm, or takes action in the kitchen. Friends are always welcome for dinner and there are many unforgettable culinary moments we have shared. We have also had our children’s birthday parties at home where we have baked or cooked (cookies, pizza, meatballs, to mention a few) with the young guests and the parties have been a great success.

I have shelves full of cookbooks and there are certain food magazines I buy every month; I watch various food programs on TV and I love spending time in shops exploring what is new, what seasonal products there are, what the theme of the week might be in a supermarket, and I search for information where the nearest farmer’s market is or if there is a food fair somewhere. From all of those I absorb new ideas but I very rarely use any recipe as it is. I may combine, substitute, leave out, adapt or add. The result needs to look like mine and taste like mine. Baking, as being a more exact science is the only exception unless I want my cake to turn into a hard brick or my buns not to rise enough.

To be honest, there is never enough time, peace, space (for example, I suffer from a ‘my fridge is too small’ –syndrome) and/or money in my life to cook or bake as perfectly and devotedly as I would love to. So I end up making mistakes or trying too hard, or sometimes I don’t concentrate enough, and I do make shortcuts, too. My lasagne may taste like c**p or my beautiful creamy sauce may turn into something that looks like liquid black pudding. In the morning hassle I may mix up my children’s lunchboxes so that the child who absolutely dislikes a salami sandwich and sliced apples will have a full load of them while the equally unlucky sibling gets crackers with blue cheese and carrot sticks he cannot stand. Sometimes I try to cheat my family by telling that there are actually no kidneys in a steak & kidney pie, or that the pieces of turnip in a stew are potatoes which just look like turnip... - And, worst of all I, every now and then, instead of cooking at all, serve chicken nuggets and chips or frozen pizzas (‘cause they were only 99 cent each, you know…’) and do not even feel guilty when doing so.

After revealing all that, I still dare to say that my cooking is ambitious and I do take it seriously. I am interested in food and culinary cultures more than anything else. Why I never chose cooking as a career is still a mystery to me, but you are never too old for a career change, are you? Nobody can live without food. Some people can live without cooking but I couldn’t and most days I do spend a lot of time in the kitchen. 

If the weekdays fly by with no cooking or baking worth mentioning, Sundays are always the days I take my time and make proper gourmet with thorough planning and first class ingredients. I can spend hours in the kitchen to prepare a 3-course meal. Cooking is not only ‘me-time’ but it is very therapeutic and stress relieving in addition to being an excellent way to test over and over again my creativity and to improve my skills to reach the beauty I am after. And finally, when the meal is served, not all the satisfaction comes from the food itself but from the precious moment when I have my whole family sitting together at the dinner table. 

Nice to meet you all in My Celtic Cross-Kitchen! The story is to begin now...