Comfort food is, thankfully, different in every place one calls home.
The Finns love their “karjalanpiirakka” or rice pudding filled rye pasties. I think of them as small lifeboats of yum. “Karjala” is a part of Finland and “piirakka” is “pie/pasty/dumpling.” The result is a mild buttery eggy rye taste.
Like all comfort foods, there is a different recipe for every grandma and the preparation and eating rituals lead to stories filled with nostalgia and memory.
If you have a Finn who can share their recipe with you, then go with that. Otherwise, look it up online. If you want to watch a video version of this article, please go to my YouTube channel.
This Finnish dish may not be exciting but I love it. I love the chewy rye, the buttery egg, and the creamy rice pudding. But it also reminds me of my childhood, and nothing is as delicious as food that reminds you of the comfort of a happy place.
Torvehallerne is one of the best food hall markets I’ve been to. I always come here when I visit Copenhagen. They even sell their smorrebrod/open faced sandwiches at the airport.
Sold at the airport as well.Roast pork sandwiches are some of my favorites.
There is a mix of local produce stalls, local Danish food stalls and restaurants, and international food options. The market consists of two covered halls with about 25 vendors in each, a mix of food stalls and eateries. There is also seating around the edges of the halls. Danes love to sit outside and eat.
One of the stalls at the market.In season in June, these strawberries are hand picked.
The market is in a square with a facing skate park square, and located on the metro line. Just north of the walking streets and oh so perfect.
Fresh fish.Fried fish filet. Yum.
The stalls will vacuum pack your food for you so can take fresh meatballs or cheese with you.
Menu at the open faced sandwich stall.
A plus is that almost all Danes speak English. The prices are steep but what cost for edible art?
If you find yourself in Asheville, North Carolina, I recommend going on a food and history tour with Asheville Food Tours. It is a walking and sitting tour that includes food and drink (non-alcoholic can be requested).
Shit on a shingle at Isa’s.
In two hours, you will learn about history and try some of the foods of Asheville. The locations change so no guarantee that you will go to the same places I went.
Grilled cheese and fried okra at Blackbird.
Our tour guide, Sita (as in mamasita — which she told us to call her if we wished), was a font of interesting facts and history of Asheville. This tour is good for those who like fashion, food, drinks, and history.
Sita in front of an image of a tall building.
We had Southern food, learned about fashion history, drank pink cocktails, found out about pensioner history, ate biscuits, heard about famous people history, and something about the hill and tallest building (I was not listening).
A display at the mini fashion museum at Isa’s.
The tour costs $105 (I think) and is a great way to get to see Asheville. For example, Asheville has an old fashioned Woolworth’s. It has a community garden.
Cheerwine. It’s southern thing.
Of the places we went, two of the places were “foreign” and with the other folks on the tour — they were from South Carolina, I would have foregone the taco shop or the Indian stop (the restaurant put on a mini buffet for us so we got out dinner done on the tour!) for a barbecue or second dessert stop like a pie place. That is my recommendation. Seeing the reaction of the blonde faces and how brave they were trying the Indian food… the taco place was too much.
Funny children’s menu…
The tour started well with cocktails and “shit on a shingle” which is sausage gravy on a biscuit. The stop with the fried okra and fancy schmancy grilled cheese sandwich was also great.
The fancy mall, Grove Arcade, has apartments upstairs.
Well it would be for me if I lived in Asheville, North Carolina. But I am a city person so I would not want to live in a cottage in the woods. But Asheville has it all. I can see why this is an attractive place to live. Go on a food tour with Asheville Food Tours to find out more about this city. The Grove Arcade is on the national register for historic places.
A view of the main street.
The airport is expanding too so I have a feeling this place will grow quickly. Asheville was Cherokee land until 500 years ago. There is a lot of history in this town, but as a tourist destination, there is also more than history.
A memorial to where the drovers would take their animals to market.
I had heard about this local diner in Hendersonville, North Carolina, the Dixie Diner. I wanted to go for breakfast. They are open every day except Christmas day. I heard it from the waitress so it must be true, despite what Google maps tells me. I heard that it was the kind of place where people go regularly. A true diner.
The counter.
The Dixie Diner is in the South and the word, ‘dixie’ is associated with the American South. To read some theories about this, click on this link. Driving to North Carolina, I saw at least three gigantic confederate flags. In many cities, the confederate names and monuments have been changed or removed.
The Dixie Diner.
When we entered the diner, there was no confederate flag, but there were American flags. There were other signs of the South but the decor was not too pimped out for tourists. There was one table of regular customers sitting there and they quickly got up and left when we entered. I think they could see that we would be rowdy out-of-towners.
Typical diner chairs.
The diner had a change in ownership in 2022 as the previous owner/long time waitress was murdered. We did not know about the dramatic history of this diner when we went there.
Typical chairs but clearly new.
We were greeted warmly by a waitress holding a pot of hot but weak coffee (American coffee is notoriously weak). The bowl in the middle of the table was brimming with small containers of jam, jelly, butter, and coffee creamer. We asked for milk. The other waitress skulked around pulling her face up whenever I smiled at her. Maybe she is shy.
Biscuit, sausage, home fries, gravy with sausage, bacon, corned beef hash, and eggs.
As we were in the South, we tried all the Southern specialties such as grits, corned beef hash, and biscuits. When I asked about the corned beef hash, I was told that the cook was very proud of his hash and that he had been up since 4 am making that. I asked about the home fried potatoes and asked if they were deep fried (which is what most city diners do these days) and was reassured that the cook was also proud of his potatoes and only fries them on the flat top. Phew.
Grits are made from treated maize.
The diner is quite large and apparently they also have a buffet. We ordered a la carte. We had a complicated order so it was good that there were no other customers. The food came out and it was typical diner food. Nothing grand and not piping hot but fine.
Corned beef hash made from corned beef.
By the time we were on coffee refills, other customers came in. As we took photos, one of the customers told us that we should meet the guy who’s photo was on the wall.
Famous local guy.
When we left, we were no longer hungry. It was an interesting experience eating at a local diner even if the prices were big city prices, with an omelet costing $9.95 and a short stack of pancakes costing $6.95. The breakfast platters were between $7-15 while a side of bacon cost $3.95.
It has been ten years since I left Bangladesh, but luckily I can once again taste the taste of home cooked authentic Bangladeshi food. Mahmuda is an excellent cook and she sells food from her home. You can also go to her place to experience a home cooked meal and learn about Bangladeshi culture. Mahmuda has a huge personality and speaks English with a feisty animated volume.
Bangladeshi food is spiced but not spicy as in hot on the Scoville scale. There is a lot of clove, cardamom, cinnamon, and mustard seed. There is regional food in Bangladesh and a whole type of cuisine, bhorta, that is sort of like “small plates, mezze, tapas, dim sum…” as in you get many small dishes and pay for what you eat. I hope that Mahmuda will make some of these in the future.
Shrimp in a coconut curry.
In Bangladesh, one eats with one’s right hand. I am not so good at that so I eat with a knife and fork. But you can try eating with your right hand if you want to. A meal at Mahmuda’s includes a starter, main, and dessert even though Bangladeshi food does not follow this concept.
The rice being cooked.
The curries in Bangladesh are not as soupy as they are in Britain or the US. Many of the Indian restaurants in the UK and the US are actually run by Bangladeshis. The Brits list curry —chicken tikka masala as their national dish. The first Indian cooks in the UK were from Sylhet in Bangladesh, in what was India. British curry with the heavy use of tomato puree and cream is an invention, probably in Glasgow, that helped adapt to the British love of gravy.
Dal, lentils.
I am not sure what the prices are but with a group, a meal was around $50 per person. One can also order food for pickup.
Oshwya Ghor translates to “home kitchen” in the local dialect of Barishal.
There was also dessert. The Bangladeshis love sweets but these were not too sweet. One was a rice pudding and the other a sort of blondie.
See the contrast between this restaurant and the stark white hallway.
One of the special things about living in the Washington, DC, area is Eden Center. Located about seven miles from DC, this shopping mall is like stepping into a whole different world. It is mainly Vietnamese restaurants, bubble tea shops, grocery stores, jewelers, banks, travel agents, and other businesses catering to the Vietnamese American community. Drive in under the red arch and the open strip mall stretches out on three sides.
In the shops, there are many wondrous things to try.
Most people stick to the restaurants, bakeries, bubble shops, and nail salons on surrounding the parking lot. But, go inside and wander down the hallways to find a travel to another time and place. No English spoken.
The game changer — mini crepe.
That said, Truong Tien, 6763 Wilson Boulevard, #6d, Falls Church, Ca 22044, the new restaurant may have changed all that. They have decorated their place to look like in old Saigon. Or at least in the mind’s eye. A Disney style Saigon.
A standard crepe served with utensils for you to cut and assemble.
A video about them went viral and now the gringos are flocking to them. The food is from Hue. They do have noodle soup but not pho. Even more of a game changer is that they make the classic crepe into three small taco style crepes. This is how this dish will become super popular and I imagine many other places will start to copy them.
Chillaxing at the club and charging the phone.
Another place that will get copied soon is TeaDM Plus, a boba shop located out on the parking lot. They have turned their place into a hangar disco club. The vibe is going out but it is safe for families and during the daytime. I can see many places changing to look like this place. It’s another alternative to hanging at a bar. Like a coffee shop but cooler. I foresee that non-alcoholic drinks will trend in 2024.
In a nod to Chinese/Asian new year (February 10, 2024), this article is about a Chinatown. The largest Chinatown is in Flushing, Queens, New York.
A sign in the dim sum house.
We went to eat good Chinese food and we went to Flushing to find it. It is a mere Subway ride (take the 7 from Midtown — also, you can pay by credit card at the Subway turnstile! No need for a ticket.) and get off at the Flushing-Main Street stop. Just down the street to Roosevelt and Prince streets, you will feel and hear the Chinatown atmosphere. Actually, the minute we got above ground, we heard people talking loudly in Mandarin Chinese. The smells made us realize that we were near some dumplings.
After doing some research, we decided (also because it was all last minute) to make our own food tour. There is a new mall called Tangram at the modern fancy end and then “hole in the wall” types of places like the famous White Bear. We headed for White Bear. The dumplings were good but can be had at other places for equal quality. The sauce was not spicy. Also, I felt a bit sad for the staff as they did not seem happy to have gained such fame.
White Bear is only take away. Dumplings with spicy sauce from White Bear.
We were only there for a short while and only had so many stomachs to fill so we ONLY managed to eat at four places in as many hours. After White Bear, we headed to a dim sum place called Nan Xiang Xiao Long Bao (as seen in the first photo at the top of the article). This place had the legit dumplings included their famous soup dumplings (xiao long bao).
Bamboo steamers.Multicolor dumplings are a modern take.
Luckily we got there before noon (yes, we already had the dumplings above before noon) so we only had to wait a few minutes for a table. This restaurant offered warm fresh soy milk which is apparently an authentic thing to have for breakfast. Warm soy milk and a cruller (deep fried dough).
Warm fresh soy milk and crullers is breakfast.The famous soup dumplings.
The soup dumplings were excellent although a touch too big for the spoon so there was no room on the spoon for the soup that ran out of the dumplings when poked with a chop stick. In some places in the world, the soup dumpling is so big that it is served with a straw. This is a gimmick. It is an amateur move to try and put the whole dumpling in one’s mouth. This is steamed dumpling and if you bite into it whole, it will explode like a magma filled volcano. I poked my dumpling over a bowl and drank the soup from there. There is a soy and ginger sauce for the soup dumpling but I loved the dumpling as it was. Inside was a lovely pork meatball juicy with soup.
Even here at Nan Xiang, there was some concession to being in the US. There were colorful dumplings made to please the eye, vegetarian dumplings, the scallion pancake made too sweet, and the cucumber salad not smashed (apparently the way I like Chinese cucumber salad is too garlicky — which is not authentic).
Notice our order ticket taped to our table?
As we ordered dishes, our ticket was taped to our table. Once we stopped ordering and had paid, we were told, gently, to leave, as there were long lines of people waiting for our table. So we left. But then went on to have dessert soup. I wrote about that in my article about my spirit starch. After a walk around Tangram mall, we went and had Peking Duck at Jiang Nan. Read about that in my article about that. It had gold leaf on it.
We ended our self made food tour of Mandarin Chinatown Flushing and headed back to Midtown New York. I do not think we ate anymore that day.
Oh, I tell a lie. We had boba tea. Which is a meal in of itself. More on that in another article.
Unique experiences are often retro. The Arlington Cinema and Drafthouse on Columbia Pike in South Arlington is one of those places. Long before the lounger style dine in movie theaters, one could go to the Drafthouse and watch a show while eating dinner. Built in 1940 in art deco style, it was originally called “Arlington Theater & Bowling Alleys” as it was part of a larger recreational center which included a bowling alley. In 1985, new owners took over and created the dine-in concept. In 2007, the ownership changed again and live entertainment was allowed at the drafthouse.
This is how I came to see a stand up comedian perform live. I saw Michael Kosta for $35. He even took photos with us afterwards.
To this day, one can still get pizza and a beer, but the menu also includes vegan burgers, quesadillas, lava cake, and cocktails named after movies. And of course, popcorn. The tickets for the show are separate from the food an drink. The staff manage the entire food service while you sit watching the show.
As the cuisine at the drafthouse is perhaps not haute cuisine, that strip of Columbia Pike has many other options for before or/and after.
While there are official holidays in the United States, there is no mandatory vacation time. These are the federal (national government) holidays (paid days off) from the US government site, OPM:
Monday, January 01
New Year’s Day (since 1870)
Monday, January 15
Birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr. (observed since 1986 but only by all states since 2000)
Monday, February 19 *
Washington’s Birthday (since 1879 on February 22 but became the third Monday from 1968)
Monday, May 27
Memorial Day (since 1888 as Decoration Day)
Wednesday, June 19
Juneteenth National Independence Day (since 2021)
Thursday, July 04
Independence Day (since 1870)
Monday, September 02
Labor Day (since 1894)
Monday, October 14
Columbus Day (since 1968)
Monday, November 11
Veterans Day (since 1938 as Armistice Day to commemorate the cessation of fighting on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month)
Thursday, November 28
Thanksgiving Day (since 1941)
Wednesday, December 25
Christmas Day (since 1870)
*This holiday is designated as “Washington’s Birthday” in section 6103(a) of title 5 of the United States Code, which is the law that specifies holidays for Federal employees. Though other institutions such as state and local governments and private businesses may use other names, it is our policy to always refer to holidays by the names designated in the law.
If the holiday is on a Saturday, then the holiday is on the Friday before and if the holiday is on Sunday, then the holiday is observed on the Monday following. Oddly for the past many years, most holidays on the weekend have been on Sundays. The only holidays that do not change date are New Year’s, Juneteenth, July 4, Veterans Day, Thanksgiving, and Christmas. The others are considered “floating.”
In some countries like Italy or Peru, a “bridge” weekend would be when people take the day off between the holiday and the weekend. I think in the US, it is called a long weekend. For example, I can predict that because July 4 falls on a Thursday, many people will take vacation on Friday, July 5 to make a long weekend, just as many do on the Friday after Thanksgiving.
There are two holidays for the armed forces, Memorial Day and Veterans Day. Memorial Day is for those who died in while serving in the armed forces and Veterans is for those who served in the armed forces. As of 2018, there 18 million veterans in the United States, seven percent of the adult population.
These are the country-wide official government holidays but some states have their own holidays as well. Every four years, Inauguration day is a federal holiday when the new president is sworn in. 
The only days when almost everything is closed (for half a day sometimes) are Thanksgiving and Christmas day. On those days, the airports are open and Chinese restaurants are especially busy. For many Americans who work for the private sector, they have to choose between certain days off such as Columbus Day.
Ronald Reagan National Airport
For many, Memorial Day and Labor Day mark the beginning and ending of summer. In some states, outdoor pools may be only open during this season. And some people only where white slacks during this season. Or is it white shoes?
Supposedly George Washington sent produce from Mount Vernon to be sold at the Alexandria Farmers Market (I presume the “Old” came in later). The Old Town Alexandria Farmers Market has been on the same spot since 1753. Yes, you read that right. There is very little in the USA that has that sort of age (insert pun here).
Fall brings fall veg.In the downtown square of Old Town Alexandria.
A friend told me about this market and I had “been” many times when talking with her while she was walking there. But I finally went.
Apples of all types.Veg forward food.
At first I was a bit so so about it because it seemed more like just a bunch of tents set up. But then I became alright with that. Not every market can be alleyways in a souk. This market was sunny and cool on this crisp fall day.
The pie line was too long.Pumpkin is a thing in America in the fall.
Lots of people selling all kinds of things from fresh milk, apples, pies, pastries, artwork, coffee, chocolate, dumplings, cider, vegetables, hummus, and veg-forward food (vegetarian).
The sausage breakfast sandwich making factory.Good but not going to stand in line good.
I had read about the breakfast sausage sandwich from Hog Heaven. I stood in line for 30 minutes for my breakfast sandwich. It was good but not something I would stand in line for again. I guess I wish that all breakfast sandwiches were so good that a sandwich like that was the norm.
Samples are a great way to make sure you like it.
On the other hand, Coulter Farms is my new crush. Their fresh milk is so creamy and delicious that I drank a gallon (3.75 liters) in two days. They also sell cheese, yogurt, kefir, chocolate milk, chilli, meat, and granola. But, it’s about the milk. I ask them if they made cream and clotted cream and was told, “Only when there is leftover milk.” Well, I can see why there isn’t. I would drink it all.
The yellow of the butter warms my cockles.
I reached out to Coulter Farms to see if we could visit their farm in Pennsylvania. Eeeek! I got a friendly email from Ma Coulter saying that they will be opening a B&B soon. So excited!
See the crowds?
Anyway, the Old Town Alexandria Farmers market is open every Saturday, rain, shine, hot, warm, freezing, from 7-12 noon. Yes, even in the winter. Get there early.
Every year for the last 40 (at least), the Finnish society here in the DC area, Kipinäkerho, now called Finn Spark, has put on a holiday market. It is always held in Bethesda, Maryland, at a church in the woods (Finland has a lot of woods).
Finnish prune star pastry.
There is food to buy and food to eat there. I went to buy the Karelian pies and cardamom milk bread, pulla, (like challah) and the gingerbread… almost everything was sold out by noon. Those Finns get up early!
Rye flour “dumplings” which are served with egg butter (eggs mashed with butter).A gingerbread house that sits on a cup or glass.
I also bought rye bread. Finnish rye bread is made from a mother yeast extracted from the air. This is not strong yeast so the bread is mild and flat. And dense. I recall chewing quite hard as a kid to eat this bread. Now as an adult, I love it even more because of the memories it brings me.
Memories are often the thing that makes a food delicious. Nostalgia is a strong ingredient.
Knitwear and Finnish American.More stuff for sale.
There were also other things for sale, but I was less interested in those. They were giving away free cookbooks so I took one of those. Maybe I will try a recipe. But more likely, I will wait till next year to get more gingerbread. Or I can go into Mikko’s cafe in Dupont.
Traditional woven birch bark shoes.
All five of the Nordic countries have holiday markets in the fall. I will have to catch them all next year.
