So Obsessed

Answers to this week’s question over at https://thefridayfive.livejournal.com/214890.html

1. What is your favorite meal to order in a restaurant?

Lehtipihvi (leaf steak, a steak that is about 3-5mm thick and large) with French fries.

2. What is your favorite home cooked meal?

Fried vendace and mashed potatoes, as made by my Mom and her SO. Mom fries the fish just right, and her SO makes the best mashed potatoes I’ve ever tasted.

3. What was the best meal you ever ate?

I’m not sure. It’s not the food through, it’s always the company that would make it #1.

4. Do you ever try to re-create a meal you’ve eaten that someone else cooked?

I’ve tried to re-create many of the foods and meals my Mom makes. I just can’t get them to taste the same even though I do exactly like she does. They taste good, but not the same.

5. What’s the first meal you tried cooking yourself?

No idea. I was always under hand and foot when I was a kid when Mom and Dad cooked or baked. I’d help them chop things, measure flour, sugar etc. I learned to cook and bake by watching them and helping them. I do remember that by the time we had home economics in years 8 and 9, and got the home work assignment to plan and cook a meal from scratch for the family, that I had already done that enough times that that I was an old hat at it (while some of my class mates never had cooked or done anything but eat in the kitchen if it wasn’t a home assignment and the full meal was very difficult for them while for me it was easy). Although even then I preferred baking over cooking, and did a lot of that on my own after school even when I was just like 10 or 11 years old and was alone at home.

My Mom used to say that she never knew what she’d come home to from work – nice and clean kitchen, or a little bit of flour on the floor, all baking utensil waiting to be washed and bakes cooling. I was better baker than cleaner LOL But I was never scolded for that – Mom said later when I wondered about it as an adult, that Dad and her thought it was better than I’d get used to doing stuff and using the kitchen and that in time I’d learn to clean better too; that it’s a good thing a kid learns to feel that the kitchen is theirs too! They were right – a friend of mine never baked or cooked as a kid except for home work assignments; her parents didn’t like her messing up the kitchen so she never learned except for school and never enjoys it 30+ years later. She eats mostly take out even though she likes home cooked food a lot. But she’s never gotten over the scolding and feels like she’s doing a bad thing if she messes up the kitchen even a little and no matter how well she cleans up after.

Answers to today’s questions @ f.riday5.com

1. How ticklish are you?

Quite ticklish. It’s also made more uncomfortable because the skin on many places on my body, if it’s tickled, can start to itch as the result of tickling. Fun (not!) feature of having atopic skin. Often tickling also feels unpleasant, or even hurts, if I’m having rashes. So people have learned not to to tickle me because I have made it clear I don’t like it; if they try to, everything ends there because I get seriously angry and I either leave, or kick them out. They don’t usually try a second time.

2. When did you most recently experience physical numbness?

This morning when I woke up. The fingers and palm of my left hand were numb because I’d slept on it. This happens all the time; one or the other hand is usually numb at some point when I sleep.

3. What’s caused you recently to squirm?

Nothing.

4. What recently caused you to gag?

Taking my morning pills this morning.

5. Which item in your wardrobe is most uncomfortable to wear?

All my bras are uncomfortable! And a lot of shoes rub my heels bloody unless I plaster them within inch of their life. It’s a toss up between the two.

17 – World Baking Day: Do you bake or are you more of a fan of watching others baking, for example, watching the Great British Bake Off or other shows of that type? If you do bake, what are some of your favourite things to bake?

I love baking! But I don’t watch baking shows except very occasionally while bored & channel surfing. The last time I watched some was years ago. I did once make a point of watching a Nigella Lawson baking show episodes if I was at home at the time, but that was like 15 years ago I think.

The last few years I’ve been making bread a lot, and even more recently, bread rolls and teeleipä (thin, flat scones? not sweet!). Back when I was healthy my favorite thing to bake was layer cake, with lots of whipped cream to top it off. But it’s too much these day, and all the creams have become bad and weird – they don’t make good whipped cream anymore and it just melts in a few hours. This isn’t just me – it’s a common topic in the Facebook baking groups – the hunt for a good whippable cream! So I don’t make layer cakes much anymore because of the cream thing.

I also love baking fruit and berry pies and chocolate cake.

18 – International Museum Day: When was the last time you visited a museum? Which one was it, and what was your favourite exhibit?

Museums are one of the things I can’t afford to buy tickets to. I don’t think I’ve been to a museum since our London trip in 2008 when we went to the Natural History Museum there. The Natural History Museum is always cool (I think – I’ve only been to twice!) but my all time favorite exhibit was from my first visit there in 1997 with my best friend. There was this huge full sized dinosaur skeleton in a hall which was simply awesome, and then there was this department with prehistoric like Stone Age scenes of animals, humans, villages and life that looked so real!

19 – World Meditation Day: Do you meditate? If yes, describe your usual practice. If not, is meditation something you’d consider trying?

I do mindfullness but I don’t meditate. And nope.

20 – Weights And Measures Day: Imperial or Metric or a combo of the two depending on what you’re weighing/measuring?

Metric all the way! Never learned anything else. Continue reading Jo’s Daily Questions – May 17-31, 2023

Answers to tomorrow’s thefridayfive questions!

1. What was the first album you ever bought?

Wicked Game by Chris Isaak is the first one I remember buying with my own work earned money. I had also bought like a dozen vinyl albums from a second hand book shop and new cassettes with my weekly allowance or birthday money before, but I don’t count them as first anything for some reason.

2. What format was it? (cassette, CD, other?)

A CD.

3. How old were you?

My Mom bought me a stereo tower for my 17th birthday, and I bought the CD soonish after that. So I’d have turned 17 a few weeks or a few months earlier, can’t remember exactly. I only know for sure that it was before I moved to Helsinki Metropolitan Area for the library studies, and that move happened in the fall about three months before my 18th birthday.

4. Where did you hear it?

Home.

5. Did your parents approve?

My Dad had just died a year ago, but my Mom was fine with it! She also enjoys the CD in question. I first made her a cassette copy, and then when computers came along, made her a CD copy. I still have it and it’s still one of my best favorites ever.