What Falls at Our Feet
There’s a hard to describe fresh, crisp sense of ease and contentment that doesn’t just hang in the air in Helsinki but rather floats unassumingly among the city’s charming quaintness, its bold, refreshing displays of modernity and the arts, and its brightest culinary hotspots. Perhaps because I visited on the precipice of summer, the eve of the Summer Solstice, Helsinki welcomed me with a supercharged seductive vitality. Even though this time of year the Midsummer holiday celebrations can draw many of the locals to the lakes and beaches leaving Helsinki quieter than usual, the city was still brimming with a summer-is-finally-about-to-descend-upon-us-vigor.
And for this gastronomy geek, there were still plenty of bites and sips to keep me satiated and inspired. In less than 72 hours I had three standout meals. My first meal was at Gaijin, where opting in to their tasting menu meant a parade of plates filled me with bold and sometimes unpredictable flavors from North Asia. Some might wonder - why this restaurant and why this cuisine in Finland of all places? Quite frankly because over the years, I’ve come to trust my gut and what it pulls me toward, and the more I obey the better I eat!
Beef Tartare on Crispy Wonton with Mustard Dressing at Gaijin
But the question brings up a sort of unspoken tension when we travel. There can be so much noise and silly pressure to follow some unofficial conventional playbook so much so that even as I write this, I feel like I have to justify my choices. But then I remind myself, as I often have to do in navigating my own way around the establishment and its ‘must-see’ templates and status quo standards that the only playbook that matters when we’re traveling untethered is ours.
If it’s not obvious at this point, I love taste. I respectfully, and best as I can exhaustingly explore a new place through this gateway. It not only guarantees I walk away fulfilled but replenished from stomach to soul. Intentional travel is not just a commitment to being right and only where we are but having the courage and the self-awareness to explore this world through our own gateways and callings not someone else’s.
This ultimately comes together through a willingness to invest in self-discovery. If that sounds daunting, we can start small by more earnestly paying attention to our inner talk track and recurring dreams and desires. We can also make a more concerted effort to take note of when we have to begrudgingly suppress, dismiss and reject something. We shouldn’t be afraid to put under the microscope too any conventions, myths, unfounded fears, insecurities and people who routinely compromise our wants and needs. From this point, we will find that a path to our unique better way to travel starts to emerge. It’s up to us however to mindfully shape and clear it with our passions, curiosities and convictions.
Taking in the bountiful flavors of Finland was always part of my agenda in Helsinki. And taste, as per my typical MO was always central in making the decision to pay a quick visit to the Nordics. I would ultimately and wholeheartedly succumb to the country’s traditional cuisine at the lively Ravintola Kappeli from a too-cute two-top in one of the restaurant’s charming little glass rotunda rooms (remember it was a holiday so sometimes even a solo untethered traveler scores!).
The Epic Salmon Soup - Lohikeitto - a Finnish Specialty
Here looking out over a sunny, brisk day in the capital’s shopping district, I would add more shape and dimension to my taste journey. First, I took the plunge and fell in love with a dish that I had quietly but willfully avoided my whole life – smoked fish. Let me tell you, it took but one bite and one bite only to forever squash such petty, misinformed behavior. Three types of smoked fish later I was talking out of both sides of my well-fed mouth - praising myself for gallantly giving it a try and chastising myself for ignorantly avoiding it for four decades. Even more surprising still than turning that corner, was the feedback my tastebuds gave me when I took my first slurp of Lohikeitto (Salmon Soup). My whole life and I mean every minute of it I have hated cooked salmon. Fittingly, steps from the Gulf of Finland and somewhere in the distance between this bowl of Finland’s specialty and my lips, an epic reappraisal and reversal of a lifelong, unbudging disdain for cooked salmon took hold. That’s exactly what travel can do if we fully embrace its transformative powers. It can give us the space and freedom to bend, try and wonder. Metaphorically speaking it can change the way we taste and indulge life, risk, love and even buttery, moist, flakey… cooked salmon.
That evening, I took my more accepting, fine-tuned palate out for an ambitious multi-course meal at Kulta Kitchen. Kulta’s range and execution was special. I would have eaten the cutlery there everything was so delicious! The ambiance was energetic and innovative, and the meal amongst locals would become one of my favorite in the Nordics. It was a no pretense, full tilt flavor treat at the end of a full and fulfilling day in Finland.
“The Snowball” dessert at Kutla Kitchen. I can still remember how stingingly cold and utterly delicious this was!
[If at this point there’s some question about my capacity to eat (and eat), I should mention I have but one real physical talent in this life and I wouldn’t trade it out for any other superpower. I can make room for anything – the obvious being dessert but I’ve also been known to accommodate a second dinner, a table pancake, and two different steak tartares from two different restaurants on the same day. I never doubt that every part of me is all-in when it comes to the pursuit of good taste].
Beyond the food, one of the highlights of my time in Finland was a short-day trip to the picturesque village of Porvoo. Excited to see shops open during the Midsummer holiday, I walked the old town’s corridors under a blue sky browsing Porvoo’s artisan, craft and chocolate shops before making my first purchase from a grumpy, busting-at-the-seams antique shop – nothing ostentatious just a really soulful pastel oil of the town itself painted on a simple brass rectangular tray. It wasn’t long after, I was shopping the delicate, timeless linen silhouettes in this tiny but fabulous boutique called A La Louko, I stumbled upon one of those this-had-to-be-made-just-for-me bespoke pieces – a classic beige linen A-line dress with a metallic gold thread texture and matching jacket which without being too posey gave off just the right touch of signature Chanel tweed cardigan vibes.
Riverside in Porvoo during Midsummer Holiday
I can still vividly remember the impression the store’s super elegant and crazy cool owner/designer made on me. I wanted so badly to have her entrepreneurial spirit, her gumption and her style. I wanted to live and activate my passion and talent just as she was doing. I knew then, someday I too, would answer the call to create and sustain something of my own. I sensed this softly as if taking it in from the sidelines of my own life but I by no means dwelled on it. I bought a few more pieces in addition to the beige dress and wouldn’t spend another minute thinking about the effect this fateful encounter had had on me until many, many months later.
It’s easy to see it now after I’ve defined and set my purpose. But when living through it, I wasn’t ready, willing or able to recognize just how the universe had been choreographing all the right collisions with all the right places and all the right people all along. In looking back, I was met incredibly by one ultra poignant moment after another. Each collision no doubt designed to stir up enough of a sense of curiosity, independence and determination within me that I would finally stop skirting around and resisting where I was supposed to be and who I was supposed to be when I got there. Instead of spawning any meaningful transformation or metamorphosis however, at the time all of these moments seemed to just stack up at my feet. They registered they just didn’t motivate change or unstick me. Serendipitously though, they had come to land right where I needed them to be last November. They not only cushioned my fall when I stumbled, they bounced me right back up onto a path and purpose that’s been waiting for me to claim it since I got my first passport stamp some 20 years ago.
