INDEPENDENCE DAY

  This weekend we celebrate the independence of Finland. It is also my son´s name day. That all calls for a celebration!

  Snow fell just in time to beautify our yard for the occasion:

This is a sneaked a peek to our neighbor´s. We don´t have a flagpole, so I had to "borrow" it from them. Thanks!

Our backyard. An apple tree, gooseberry bush, pond, and sauna.

  I hosted a small and intimate dinner party to our family and a couple of friends.

I set the table with only little decoration. I honor the ending of WW1 and WW2, and there was not much to set on to the table back then.

Pure well water and (less than pure) diet lemon pop for drinks. Diet pop is on the menu for kids because it can be freely consumed by diabetics too.

Salad of course!

My special treat: cold smoked tofu (straight from the market shelf  =). I love it cold, simply sliced, perhaps with some mustard. Yum!

Plain veggie bites for the kids.

Loads of delicious mashed potatoes!

For dessert something I´ve been wanting to make for years: chocolate & prune cake. I soaked and puréd prunes, then seasoned the mixture with shredded fresh ginger, vanilla, and cinnamon, and filled the cake with it. Then I sprinkled small bits of orange marmalade all over, and covered the treat with whipped (vegan) cream.

Shredded dark chocolate gives great contrast on top of the cream. To crown the whole thing, I snapped a twig of juniper.

 After some twists and turns our party ended up consisting of two grown-ups and three kids. Never before have we celebrated independence day together, so this was a lot of fun and kinda exciting!

After stuffing ourselves, we went outside to play and enjoy the party (and X-mas) lights I had put up.

This year I put lights not only on the outside, but also on the inside, of our garage.

In the end of the evening we all built together this lantern of snowballs, and lit a candle inside it. It is still flickering beautifully outside, reminding us of a wonderful day spent together.

   Happy 96th birthday Finland!