Estonian restaurant blogs
I recently found two blogs that review Estonian restaurants in (native speaker) English. The first one, Tartu- City of Good Food, is obviously based in Tartu. The author writes very long, thorough reviews, often with a good dose of tongue-in-cheek humor. The other blog is Heaven & Hell of Restaurants in Tallinn, which– you guessed it– reviews Tallinn eating establishments. The blogger writes honest critical reviews and focuses on various aspects of the dining experience. He also has a considerably larger budget than I do, since many of the places he’s reviewed I don’t even dream of visiting without a special occasion. At one point he also listed some of my favorite places on his list of the worst places in Tallinn, so we clearly have different standards 
. But that’s OK– check out either blog for a good read and some valuable reviews.
Tallinn’s Christmas market ranked among 20 best in Europe
Today I want to share a link to an article in the Times Online about the 20 best Christmas markets in Europe. They’re not ranked per se, but the very first one listed is the Christmas market held on Tallinn’s Town Hall Square, and the picture included at the beginning of the article is absolutely breathtaking. It’s one of those pictures that makes me think, even after more than two years, “Wow– I can’t believe I live here.” This is my city. I get to walk along Medieval cobblestone streets week after week, passing by historical buildings, but most of the time I don’t think about because I’m preoccupied with my work assignments for the day or what ingredients I need for dinner that night. But every once in a while I do look, and I notice the beauty this city has to offer, all of which could have been destroyed during the Soviet occupation but wasn’t. I’m grateful for the chance to live here, a chance that my parents’ generation never had, and every day see evidence of the history that took place, and also that which didn’t. I may complain sometimes, but at the end of the day, I really do love this city.
100 must-eat American foods
Here’s a list of 100 must-eat American foods, which I mentioned the other day when I revisited my Omnivore’s 100 list. This list of 100 American foods one should try before they die was created by Slashfood. All the ones I have eaten before have been made bold.
- New York pizza
- Hoppin’ John
- New Mexico green chile
- Homemade buttermilk biscuits
- Tasso
- Whole Maine lobster (can anyone actually eat a whole Maine lobster? Those things are huge.)
- Calabash-style shrimp and hushpuppies
- Kansas City barbecue ribs
- Hot glazed Krispy Kreme (my sister and I got them for free when we bought coffee! That was a happy moment).
- San Diego fish tacos
- Cheese curds
- Key lime pie
- Philly cheese steak
- Memphis pork barbecue sandwich (Does this mean Memphis style or in Memphis? For all the ones that include a place name, I’m going to assume they mean the style, not that it had to be consumed in said place)
- Lowcountry boil
- Huckleberry pie
- New England clam chowder
- Boiled peanuts
- Buffalo burger
- Eggs Benedict
- Pastrami on rye
- Corned beef and cabbage (does a Reuben count?)
- Pancakes with maple syrup
- Everything bagel with cream cheese and tomato
- Thin Mints (preferably frozen)
- Frito pie
- Potato knish with mustard
- Silver Queen corn on the cob
- Soft pretzel from a street cart
- Fresh-picked blueberries
- Sourwood honey
- State fair funnel cake
- Chesapeake crab cakes
- Candied yams
- Oyster dressing
- Snow cone or snowball
- Wild Alaskan salmon (not absolutely sure I’ve eaten this one)
- Sautéed morels
- Persimmon pudding
- General Tso’s Chicken
- Frozen custard
- Italian sausage with peppers and onions on a hoagie bun
- Chili dog
- Buffalo wings with blue cheese
- Spam musubi
- Saltwater taffy
- Fluffernutter sandwich on Wonder Bread
- Black and white cookie
- Frybread
- BLT with thick-cut applewood bacon
- Baked beans
- Pumpkin pie
- Collards with vinegar and Tabasco
- Tex-Mex fajitas with skirt steak and sautéed peppers
- Fried green tomatoes
- Succotash
- Shrimp and grits
- Hot water cornbread
- Barbecue chicken pizza with red onions
- Chicken fried steak
- Carnitas burrito
- Apple butter
- Geoduck
- Soft-serve ice cream cone dipped in chocolate shell (especially Dairy Queen)
- Pecan pie
- Catfish supper at a church or fire station
- Oysters Rockefeller
- Homemade cranberry sauce
- Pimiento cheese
- MoonPie washed down with R.C. Cola (I don’t know if I’d even want to eat this)
- Pickled watermelon rind
- Cracker Jacks at the ball game
- Smithfield ham
- Meatloaf and mashed potato blue plate special at diner
- Chicken and waffles
- Po’Boy
- Green bean casserole with French’s fried onions
- Stuffed sopaipillas
- Turducken
- Shad roe on toast
- Sweet potato casserole with or without marshmallows
- Cioppino
- New York cheesecake
- Pan-fried river trout
- Jambalaya
- North Carolina pig pickin’
- California rolls
- Burgoo
- Penuche fudge
- Fried peanut butter and banana sandwich (the Elvis)
- Scrapple or livermush
- Elk medallions in red wine reduction
- Muscadine grapes
- Cheeseburger at backyard barbecue
- Open-face turkey sandwich
- Chicago deep dish pizza
- Cobb salad
- Peach pie a la mode
- Macaroni and cheese with Tillamook sharp cheddar
- Root beer float
My grand total is 47, which is only slightly better than my tally for the Omnivore’s 100. A lot of the names were unfamiliar to me and I had to look them up to know what they even were. It seems to me that a large number if items on the list originate in Southern or Midwestern states, most of which I haven’t visited (I am from Maryland, which I don’t really consider the South). That seems a little unfair, but the author readily admits that it’s a very subjective list. Perhaps she herself is from the South?
I’m surprised about a few things that aren’t on here. What about a Philly cheese steak? Or scrapple? (Oops– just looked back and realized that scrapple actually IS on the list). And what about Hershey’s chocolate? Was there any candy on the list at all? There are plenty of unique regional candies. (There are two on the list– saltwater taffy and penuche fudge). Once again, a fun list but rather uneven (and lacking in my #1 American food, chocolate chip cookies 
).
I wonder if there’s a list like this about Estonia. If there’s not, we should make one, something like “50 Foods You Must Eat Before You Can Understand Estonians”. The first three items should be dark rye bread, sült, and boiled Estonian potatoes with dill. What else?
All dressed up for Halloween
As promised, here are some pictures of mine and J’s Halloween costumes. I’ll go first, although you won’t recognize who I’m supposed to be unless you’re familiar with Nordic children’s literature.
If you do happen to know Muumi (the Moomins)and his group of friends, then hopefully you can tell that I was dressed up as Little My (Väike My in Estonian and Pikku Myy in Finnish).
And then there was J.
He decided pretty quickly that he wanted to be a zombie, and he wanted to use real blood in his costume (and of course I mean pig’s blood, NOT human). It was surprisingly difficult to find, and although he was finally able to locate some– begging a free bag from the butchers at the central market– he realized that it might not be safe to put on his face. So, relax– that stuff all over his face is NOT real blood (he used it to create the brownish stains on his shirt). Creating fake blood took some problem-solving skills, since every single fake blood recipe we found on the internet called for food coloring. Guess what they don’t carry in Rimi, our neighborhood grocery store? That’s right. So there I was in the store on Halloween, trying to think of a substitute, something else that could dye things red. I ended up grabbing the reddest thing I could think of– marinated beets.
Blood-making station
The “recipe” J ended up using borrowed components from a few different ones we’d read on the net. He started with dark syrup and beet juice, but it was too pink, so I suggested cocoa powder to help get a browner tone. A little bit of cornstarch was thrown in as thickener, and voila– gross, sticky, convincing, and totally edible (albeit funny-tasting) fake blood.
Halloween at our place
Like I mentioned last year, Halloween is not a big deal in Estonia. But we still like it, so this year we figured we could make Halloween happen by having it at our apartment. It was fairly last-minute– we sent the invitation out less than a week before– but I think we pulled it off very nicely .
J took care of decorations. I love the fact that even though he didn’t have the experience of carving a jack’o'lantern until he was 25 years old, he still really wanted to do it this year. He got two small pumpkins from the central market in Tallinn, and carved one in the same style as he did his first-ever pumpkin:
and one with a slight variation:
I love the fangs! I think they look very spider-esque. And the red smeared all over is red candle wax, which added a particularly creepy touch.
I, of course, was in charge of food. I decided to try my hand at these vampire cookies from Baking Bites. Not only were they fun to make, but they also tasted amazing– a basic butter cookie surrounding a pocket of raspberry jam. Luckily our guests liked them too .
For the rest of the food, I kept it pretty simple. I put out some veggies and dip with creepy carrots “fingers” emerging from it, mozzarella-olive “eyeballs”, candy corn (which my mother sent to me again this year– thank you ema!!!), orange slices, guacamole, and some little “dirt cups”.
We lit some candles, turned off the lights, played some scary movies in the background (well, not that scary– the ones we ended up watching in their entirety were Scream and Shaun of the Dead), and that was it– the makings of a casual, fun Halloween party for grownups (or, you know, grownups who still like to dress up in costumes once a year). I’ll share pictures of our costumes tomorrow!
