Finnish eating

I just got back from the World Orienteering Championships in Finland, and I was pleasantly surprised by the food options.  I guess I've only ever been to northern Europe in the winter, where the food options tend to be centered around meat and potatoes, with an emphasis on the potatoes.  But summer! Summer is awesome!  because strawberries!

Strawberries are probably my favoritest food ever, so the fact that there were those small delicious sweet little strawberries for sale everywhere in Finland - from the grocery store to roadside stands to farmers markets (or whatever you'd call the Finnish equivalent) to the arena of the WOC finals - that really made my day.  The nectarines were also pretty awesome, but they were from Italy, not Finland.  Anyway, we were cooking the first week, and at a lot of fish, and strawberries, and nectarines, and my favorite meal probably included the crepes that we filled with fish stuff, though everything was pretty scrumptious.  I never got around to taking photos, but here's a photo of breakfast one day: museli with yogurtti (drinkable yogurt) and strawberries and nectarines.  Good fuel for the day.



Once in the official WOC accommodation, food was taken care of in a cafeteria, buffet-style.  Breakfast was much more boring, with much less fresh fruit than I'd like, but plenty of variety of whole wheat breads, butter, yogurt, jam, and cold cuts.  They reliably had oatmeal, meatballs (?) or mini hotdogs, and baked eggs.  Lunch and dinner both always featured pickled fish in the cold bar, with grated carrots, and often some other pickle options, but not the most inspired salads, as far as I was concerned.  And there was *always* a potato option at lunch and dinner :).  Conveniently, they labeled the food with a picture of whatever animal it came from, so I'm fairly positive I ate reindeer at least once.  Rudolph!  Overall, totally acceptable, but not the most inspired.  Plenty of carrots, beets, and rutabaga.  Not much by way of leafy greens.

I was looking forward to doing some more cooking upon returning home, but it's a gazillion degrees right now, so we've just been eating salads and drinking cold things.  Until this heatwave breaks, that's what's on tap!