Culinaristic travels of this summer

It's been a looong time since I wrote something in my blog..I feel like I haven't been spending so much time in the kitchen OR at my computer, since we have been on the road quite a lot, visiting three weddings, then moving out. But now I want to update some summer (food) stories here with a "slight" delay - here's first a very subjective repotage from the longer travels of this summer.



What the Finns are most mesmerised about when being abroad? Fruits! Just imagine that the only domestic fruits we can get here are apples, between August and October..it was just a pure delight to spend the first morning (and last as well) in France by picking up cherries and eating them very fresh, under the cherry tree. Also abricots, nectarines, peaches, melons etc. were very tasty and juicy...



Croissants! That's one of the things I miss most from French food culture when being in Finland. They are never quite the same, although we have some cafés and bakeries that try to make up for the loss, for example Labrioche here in Tampere. It's great to begin a new day with a fresh croissant, some honey or marmalade on it and a cup of green tea.



From Paris we traveled to Ghent, a cute Belgian town, which seemed calm and relaxed after a hot, crowded, busy Paris..I couldn't help stopping at every cute shop display to admire all those cute compositions of candy, kitchen ware, household decoration etc.



A raspberry-scented candy speciality of Ghent called cuberdons, which weren't unfortunately anymore so liquid inside when I ate them at home as they were fresh. Maybe it was the constant +30 weather that dried them ;)




World famous Belgian chocolate was sold in many shops :) I was caught in pfotographing action in front of this shop by the owner of it and she was very pleased to hear that the display was so cute, just look at those retro packages! If you can't afford buying hand-made chocolate, buy in a supermarket Galler chocolate bars - I tried pistachio and grand marnier, mmmm!



I can't say that I would be a big fan of French fries, but on this travel we ate them quite many times! This picture presents actually FRENCH fries somewhere near the Clignancourt flea markets, but I must admit that I fell for the Belgian ones ;) Their secret is to fry them twice, which makes them very crispy and tasty. We ate the best fries of Ghent in Frituur 't Puntzakje which you can find at Kleine Vismarkt 9.



I can proudly say that I have managed to drink a beer! Completely on my own! I hate beer taste and smell, but as a real culinarist I can't say no to something that is pink and smells of raspberry :)