Food. Anyone who follows me on Instagram or is my
Facebook friend knows how I've taken a very keen liking to cooking ever since I
crossed the pond, partially due to the mass amounts of free time throughout my
daily schedule but mostly blamed to my other new obsession: Pinterest. For
those of you who are unaware of Pinterest, think of it as an organize Tumblr.
The site is split into different categories ranging from Food and Drink to
Travel and Humor. Once under a category, people are able to "Pin"
various images and recipes to organized boards of your choice. Some of my
boards include: Healthy Eating, Cheers to the freaking weekend (fun adult
beverages), Wine + Dine, and a board dedicated to my Type A life: Organization.
All of these pins take Pinners to the original source of the image that may
provide a recipe in detail or access to purchase a pinned clothing item. It's
basically the most amazing website created for someone like me with ranging
interests and tons of free time. Anyway, Pinterest has provided me with
hundreds of recipes that have had me contemplating opening up my own
restaurant. They are brilliant! And in case wondering, yes, the majority of the
yummy creations I've posted on my blog are Pinterest inspired. Though it may
seem I am on my road to becoming a happy little housewife in training, grocery
shopping in Europe initially made me want to give up any all effort of becoming
Susie Homemaker. As my recipe book expands and I'm forced to locate ingredients
easily found in any Kroger or Publix in America but damn near impossible to dig
out in Finland. I have certainly taken my familiar grocery experience with
numerous aisle and vast variety of brands and products to chose from for
granted.
Seeing how Europe is the only foreign country I've
lived in, I can only speak from my current experience. Finland has two major
supermarket chains: (1) S or K Citymarket and (2) Lidl. Both are fairly similar
as far as products carried; however Lidl is comparable to Marc's or Food City.
Prisma's are another type of supermarket that is just like our Walmart's and
Target's, they have EVERYTHING…including liquor stores, which can also be found
in local S or K Citymarket's. Having been living in Finland for three months
now -- wow -- I can truly say I've mastered the supermarket. My first trip took
me FOREVER. Not only due to the novelty of the store itself and the language
difference, they have a weighing different system as well. For those of you who
haven't been to Finland, which I'm assuming is basically everyone reading this
blog; they use a personal weighing system for produce. As I mentioned before,
this may be the same for other European countries but I have yet to have to
pleasure of exploring. Anyway, if the produce is not packaged and tagged, it is
assigned a number typically above or below where it's located. Below are some
pictures I took of how this process works.
1. Locate desired produce. In this photo I wanted
some kiwis. Notice the large number associated with it.
2. Take your bagged goodies to a weighing station,
typically located at the end of aisles. There are many of these throughout the
produce section. At the weighing station, place your bag on the scale and
select the corresponding number.
3. A ticket will be dispensed with a bar code and price. Place on bag.
At first I was completely lost at the process and
even now I always forget to tag my bananas but it makes grocery-shopping fun!
I'm able to select how much I want of each product and exercise my memory; it
also makes it easier on the cashiers at checkout. Checkout is also different in
Europe; it's self-sufficient. You load your own groceries to the belt, you are
responsible for putting the divider after all of your groceries have been
placed on the belt to be scanned -- not doing so will earn you a few snarky
looks -- and you are required to bag you own groceries in a bag that can be
added to your total or one that you bring. There are no bags waiting to be used
for free at your leisure. Given my environmental background, I found this feature
to be absolutely awesome in efforts to cut down grocery waste bag waste (a.k.a.
all those bags you have under your sink that have no use except to hold holiday
leftovers) and promoting eco-friendly behavior.
ECO-ALERT: Another great environmental friendly
feature they have is in-store recycling. It's convenient and gives good
Samaritans a monetary reward for keeping track of and bringing in can and
bottles. All you have to do is bring recyclables to a machine like the one
pictured below that can be found in the entrance of the store and the machine
will calculate how much your trash is worth. Press the green button and you
receive a recipe that can be used toward your grocery store purchase or turned
into cash monaaaayyyy!!
Enough about how to navigate and survive a Finnish
grocery store, let me quickly touch upon food. After a few trips to the store a
few things became very apparent; Fins love cheese, meat, yogurt, and butter.
There are SO MANY types of each it can be overwhelming, especially when it comes
to yogurt that has an entire back wall dedicated to various brands, types, and
flavors. I've tried many different types of yogurt and have finally settled in
with an organic brand -- shocker -- in blueberry or strawberry flavor. Yogurt
comes in traditional self-serving sizes or small milk carton-like containers.
As mentioned earlier, Pintrest has owned my cooking interests ever since I set
foot on European soil and many of these recipes call for ingredients I normally
wouldn't even know how to locate in an American store. Now that I am a veteran
grocery shopper, I always make sure I organize my grocery list by food location
and translate any spices or foods I haven't previously bought to save on time
and me idling standing in the wrong aisle for 5 minutes trying to act like I
know what I'm looking for when I really don't (it's happened to me at least 3
times already). So far I've found everything pretty easily, with the exception
of pumpkin puree. It basically doesn't exist in Finland, which brings my back
full circle to my recent obsession with sweet potatoes and all the Pinterest
recipes I've subbed them in for instead of pumpkin.
Has Pinterest brainwashed me? Absolutely and I'm
not ashamed to admit it. It’s a GENIUS concept. Now that I've successfully
subliminally pumped Pinterest into your mind, feel free to go create a FREE
account and have your world turned upside-down and inside out.
Happy Pinning :)
http://www.pinterest.com
Live your passion :: Love on
purpose
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