Answers to today’s questions at thefridayfive@DW

1. What is your favorite vegetable?

I don’t like vegetables – they’re a necessary evil and I only eat some because you’re supposed to. No wait – potato is a vegetable, isn’t it? I never think of it as such it’s just… potato, the Finnish staple. Potatoes are okay and I eat them a lot! People my age and older grew up on them. New/summer potatoes are even delicious!

2. What is your favorite fruit?

Either strawberry or pineapple, they’re pretty much even for me. Strawberry is more special because the growth season is short and they are available here for only about 1,5 months a year (some small amount of strawberries are imported throughtout the whole year these days but I don’t buy those). Pineapple (at least canned, but also fresh increasingly) is available in large quantities all year round. But the fruit I eat the most is the banana because it’s filling and neat to eat even on the go.

3. What is your favorite cheese?

I love cheese, but pretty much all the cheese isn’t great here anymore – they taste industrial and bland and feel sort of cardboardy and/or plasticky. The cheese that I think has best retained its goodness is the Aura blue cheese, but that’s not the kind you put on your bread everyday. I used to love several of our cheeses such as Oltermanni and Edam but now I don’t anymore… it’s more in the vein of what’s least bad. It’s tragic.

4. What is your favorite dessert?

I’m not used to having dessert immediately after the main meal, so I don’t know about that. I do love whipped cream strawberry cake, as well as most chocolate cakes but those aren’t the type of things thought of as desserts here. They’re the star of the kahvipöytä (coffee table is the literal translation) when you’re celebrating a birthday or something and have people over for coffee.

5. What is your favorite beverage?

Frezza Choco Loco – a cold chocolate coffee drink by Paulig.