All it takes is a piece of cake

Instead of talking about how done I am with this weather and how the weather in Helsinki was equally as miserable (if not worse) and how all the pictures of warm places with people in anything less than a winter coat and boots are making me crazy... I'm going to tell you about all the food we ate on our trip.

That's pretty much what we did. We ate. So let's first talk about the Mexican-style brunch. Anything with a slight resemblance to Mexican food and we're there. I will admit now that it was worth the cold, wet walk over. I'm not even sure what some of the items were exactly, but I will tell you they were delicious and spicy, just how I like it. Then there was Fafa's. Giant falafals in fluffy pita bread. I got the one with pesto and goat cheese. Yes, to die for. The restaurant was out of this old, white van look-alike. Think stationary food truck. There were only about 15 seats total, which makes you feel like you snagged a highly coveted spot. It's located in the middle of a bunch of office buildings, so you would never find it just walking around, but we were on a mission. Then there's my favorite, well favorites, which were all the cute cafés around town. The one that really took the cake (I'll tell you more about that in a moment) was this small little café tucked in a corner, down the street from where we were staying. Give me a cinnamon roll or croissant with a cappuccino for breakfast and I am a happy camper. It's one of those places that would be very dangerous to live by because it would be calling my name every time I passed by. In fact it did one of the days we were there. We were going to walk by on the way back to our apartment so I took that as an opportunity to try a slice of cake. I'm not a huge cake person, well really just not a huge frosting person, but these cakes were of the homemade variety. They were different every day. Who eats cake in the middle of the day with no special occasion, you ask? I asked myself the same question, after my teeth were already covered in chocolatey goodness, and I decided the answer was that people who live by this place do. So as I was temporarily living there for a couple of days, I should do as the locals do.

Clearly we needed some comforting from the weather. And we found it in the food. It really is amazing how much the weather dictates what you eat. So to survive this next month of on and off rain/snow/sleet, we're going to be making some really comforting food around here. Starting with our favorite Moroccan-style stew. Mmmmm...I can already taste those melt-in-your-mouth sweet potatoes infused with the sweet sweet spices.