Berries, berries everywhere I look!

I look at my watch before taking off from home on my bike. It is 8:47 on a Tuesday morning. Sunny, lovely and summerlike. I bike away to the local market place; it is only a few minutes ride away from my home. I can already feel the sweet, fresh taste, the lovely smell… of fresh strawberries, picked this morning. This is the best thing with summer – fresh strawberries. Here, in the land of the midnight sun the growth period is short but intense. When the berries grow, they grow 24 hours per day. I cannot seem to get enough of strawberries in the summer, I have at least one liter per day. Most certainly I buy as many liters as my co-citizens who freeze a lot of berries to last until next berry season. Mine never make it to the freezer.

We are spoilt with the clean and pure nature and environment here in the north. I think sometimes we do not realize how lucky we are, it is totally OK to eat blueberries from the forest, to pick wild mushrooms and berries. There are a lot of superfoods in our forests and luckily Finns are quite good in taking care of it. Probably the long winter has taught us to preserve the flavours and vitamins of the summer sun to be enjoyed during the cold winter months.

This brings my thoughts back to the first time I was served Crème Brûlé with berries at Restaurant Ukonkivi. There were some blueberries and some raspberries on top of the picture perfect and well known desert. They seemed fresh, but it was in the middle of winter and imported or cultivated berries do not have this kind of flavor. Later I asked the restaurant keeper, Heikki, what is the secret with the berries. He told me they are wild raspberries, they grow at the back of his garden and he handpicks them, freezes gently and takes up just the right amount for desert. Amazing, I thought. A restaurant owner who picks all the berries served in his restaurant. What a job, it is a lot of berries! No, but it is a hobby, so it does not even feel like work, Heikki explains.

Another berry-story is hidden in the desert of Forest Restaurant Huilinki. The berries are marinated in a light syrup, just the right amount of sugar to take off the sourness of the lingonberries and cranberries. Handpicked by the restaurant owners Hannu and Tellervo. “Well, they grow just there outside our home”; Tellervo laughed. Last fall I stayed in one of the cabins of LomaLopotti, that is on the premises of Forest Restaurant Huilinki and learnt mushrooms really grow in plentiful around the cabins. It was a dream to pick mushrooms, go indoors and prepare a delicious soup.

But it is not yet mushroom time, it is time to enjoy some tastes of summer. Back home with my daily portion of sunshine and vitamins, I sit down in my hammock and tuck in. There is not a better flavor than a sunwarm strawberry, picked this morning.