The Black And White Blog. Contemporary Art In Helsinki And Chocolate Truffles

The year is moving into the black and white season with dark nights, snow and black and white tree trunks against the winter landscape. I have always loved black & white photography and am a great admirer of Ansel Adams’ photography. I think it accentuates textures and we view it completely differently from colour.

In the old days, we always had a special camera kept aside with black and white film. Since we went digital it is a bit different and a lot of fun converting colour pictures to black and white.

Playing around with black and white images led me to think of all the other important, basic and luxurious things we specifically love in black and white, such as leather, lace, velvet, brides dresses, snow, dark chocolate, satin, the game of chess, op-art, etc. So I started looking around for black and white images in everyday life that either need no or only a very subtle conversion.

The most obvious are roads and signs

Less obvious is the Helsinki Contemporary Art Museum Kiasma. The museum always features interesting exhibitions and I have never been disappointed by any of my visits there. Not only an interesting building in terms of architecture, the whole inside of the building is decorated in black and white.

And, during August, an exhibition called Horror Vacui featered this Sculpture by artist Kimmo Schroderus It was just perfect for inclusion in my blog. Don't miss out on a visit to this art museum if you are in town.



Last came the thoughts of black and white foods. Think of marbled black and white cheesecakes. Then chocolate truffles came to mind.

My truffle recipe is a very quick and easy one, given to me by my younger sister and close friend, Vicki, who lives in Western Australia. I called it Truffles a la Vicki.

Chocolate Truffles a la Vicki

150g Dark Chocolate (I used Lindt 80% cocoa)
100g Milk Chocolate
90g Sweet Butter
2 Tablespoons Liqueur of your choice
Cocoa Powder

• Melt the butter and chocolate over hot water or in a double boiler.
  
• Add the liqueur, I used mint.
  
• Let it cool.
  
• When almost set, roll into balls and roll in cocoa powder.
  
• I also melted 50g of white chocolate and dipped some of the truffles tops in the white chocolate.
  
• Decorate with dark and white chocolate hearts or leaves.
  

And while I am carrying on about black and white, the landscape is changing colour. And I am flying away to France for a holiday touring the Cote D’ Azur and Provence and a few days in Paris. Salut.

Autumn Skies And The Autumn Harvest

The late summer is lingering. Fine weather, wildflowers and all sorts of mushrooms everywhere. Large cumulus decorate the sky everyday. Every time you put your foot out the door you feel like taking another photo of the clouds. This scene of clouds over the recycling station and cement works on the way to the arboretum made such a colourful picture that I could not resist taking a snap of it.

In the evenings a few picnickers rug up to enjoy the evenings outside next to the river before it gets too cold. Next to the bay, near the rapids, all the old Vikings are fishing for pike-perch and trout. Some use a huge net and others a line. I love listening to them and watching them. Some of those men are artists with their fishing lines.

Everywhere the animals and humans are busy harvesting and preparing for the winter. Along the river trail I saw a few squirrels running around with pinecones in their mouths. Characteristically shy, they never let you get near enough to get a photo. I finally managed to sneak up on one and use my digital zoom, but he had already buried his treasure.

Simply hundreds of Barnacle Geese are gathering in the bay. Very, very early in the mornings, when a keen jogger or cyclist disturbs them, the loud quacking chorus wakes everyone who thought they could sleep in for a while. Another sign that harvest time is almost over and the big cold approaching, is the fact that all the roadside stalls that sell peas, berries and dried mushrooms are closing. Quite a few of the ice-cream kiosks have also closed already even though most days are still warm enough to want to snack on some icy delights.

Obviously, the abundance of fresh berries for sale everywhere is one of the pleasures of living here. But to my opinion, the fresh peas top the list. I have never eaten such delicious fresh peas anywhere else. I end up buying big bags full and we eat them like sweets or snack on them with our drinks. The Finns like to make pea soup but I simply cannot imagine cooking them. I have several great recipes that use fresh peas, but we never get round to making them. They always get eaten, as is, before I get round to even take a saucepan or wok out of the cupboard to start cooking them. The problem of cooking peas then being resolved, I decided to use some of many mushrooms currently available everywhere, from growing wild to the stalls and stores.

Chanterelles are the most common, but I also bought some tiny shiitake mushrooms. It was time to bake another bread, so I baked mushroom bread.

　

Wild Mushroom Bread With Jalapenos

250g Chanterelle Mushrooms
150g Shiitake Mushrooms
1 Tablespoon Jalapeno - chopped finely
1 Tablespoon Butter
30g Fresh Yeast
1 Cup of Lukewarm Water
2 Tablespoons Maple Syrup
1 Egg
2 teaspoons Sea Salt
1 teaspoon White Pepper – finely ground
1 teaspoon Nutmeg – freshly grated
2 Cups Wholewheat Flour
2 Cups Bread Flour

• Melt the butter over a medium heat in a pan.
• Trim the mushroom stems and chop roughly. Leave the smaller mushrooms whole.
• Gently fry the mushrooms till all the juices have been released and cooked dry.
• Set the mushrooms aside to cool.
• Beat the egg with the maple syrup.
• Add the jalapenos and cool mushrooms to the egg mixture.
• Dissolve the yeast in the cup of lukewarm water.
• Put the wholewheat flour, salt and spices in a bowl.
• Add the yeast and egg mixtures to the flour and mix well.
• Add the bread flour, half cup at a time till the dough becomes firm.
• Gently knead in the rest of the flour and knead the dough for a few minutes till elastic.
• Let it rise till doubled in size - it will take approximately 2 hours.
• Deflate the dough, knead a few times and form a loaf.
• Put the bread in a loaf pan and let it rise for another half hour.
• While it is rising, preheat the oven to 200 C.
• Put the bread in the oven. Afer few minutes, when back up to temperature, turn the heat down to 180 C and bake for 30-40 minutes till it sounds hollow when tapped.
• Let it cool a while in the pan and turn out.
  

I used preserved jalapenos and the taste was mild and not overpowering. Together with the pepper and nutmeg it adds a subtle warm and spicy flavour that complements the taste of the mushrooms. Serve with a mild soft goat cheese or cream cheese and pickled gherkins.

Stockholm Magic And Muffins For Lunch

We have just spent a weekend in Stockholm and discovered some magic. The city, spread out over 14 islands offers many fine views of the waterfront. We walked well over 20 kms on the first day hiking in the Royal Gardens and exploring the old town called Gamla Stan, looking at interesting sights, shops and fashions. It is a lively city with no shortage of interesting events advertised everywhere.

Most of Sunday was spent in the National Museum looking at their art collections and afterwards we went strolling through some of the more trendy shopping areas. The Swedes are famous for their glass art and this set of his and hers glasses by artist Mats Jonasson caught our eye.

We ended the 2nd day by having a drink at one of the open air cafés on the esplanade listening to a live concert that was being held in support of the people who are on a hunger strike in Iran. Then a leisurely stroll back to the hotel to go and get ready for our flight back to Helsinki very, very early the next morning. We had no trouble waking up at 4am on Monday morning. The allnight sportsbar around the corner saw to it that we did not oversleep and got up at the appropriate hour simply by keeping us awake all night.

Crayfish Season

The crayfish season in Sweden and Finland happens during August and September and is coming to its end soon. Crayfish parties are apparently common, judging by the amount of special crayfish party goodies that is on sale in the supermarkets. The Finns serve their crayfish cold. Prawns and lobster are not readily available here due to the low salinity of the Baltic Sea. We can buy those tiny shrimps and, from August, the red crayfish which is, of course, a freshwater creature and not one of my favourite snacks. Nevertheless, I felt that I should bake something that uses seafood as part of the ingredients and chose one of my favourite muffin recipes that combines prawns or shrimps, salmon, sweetcorn and some cheese.

Now, taking photos of a muffin is not really the most exciting or challenging thing to get involved with. So I had to think about a few props to make things a bit more interesting to look at. Eventually I came up with origami and started folding all sorts of sea creatures to accompany the muffins to my photo studio/kitchen counter.

If you are keen to get folding as well, here are links to some really good sites on origami that contains diagrams that can be downloaded.

Origami club has clear diagrams as well as animated instructions for each design. Diagrams are rated in terms of difficulty

Origami.com has approx 21 pages of diagrams that can be downloaded as pdf documents, and
Wannalearn.com has a list of links to different origami sights and pages.

And if paper folding isn’t your thing, I have also included some links to sights where you fill find diagrams and instructions for really good and interesting paper models.

Yamaha has a great sight with all types of paper models as well as very detailed, complicated models of their motorbikes.
Spacestation 42 has a list of papertoys, crafts and models for all ages and include links to the Canon, Epson and Hitachi papercraft pages as well as Yamaha.

Seafood Muffins With Cheese and Sweetcorn

½ Cup Milk
3 Large Eggs
140g Tin of Sweetcorn Kernels – do not drain
1 Cup Cheddar Cheese – grated or small cubes, plus extra for the topping
Few Spring Onions - chopped
1 Cup Prawns – roughly chopped or:
Shrimp – defrosted, if using frozen shrimp
1 Cup of Smoked Salmon – cubed (I used hot smoked salmon)
2 ½ Cups Self-Raising Flour
1 scant teaspoon Cayenne Pepper
½ teaspoon Salt

• Prepare muffin pans – I used the large American style muffin cups because these muffins really stick to the pan. The recipe makes about 10 muffins.
• Preheat the oven to 200 C.
• Beat the milk and eggs.
• Add the sweetcorn and its juice and stir.
• Put the flour, pepper and salt in a bowl.
• Add the fish, prawns and cheese to the flour.
• Stir in the wet ingredients.
• Put into the muffin cups.
• Sprinkle the tops of the muffins with grated cheese.
• Sprinkle with smoked paprika.
• Add a large frozen prawn on top – if available.
• Bake for about 25-30 minutes.