Fresh

Strawberries.  Finland will forever be associated, in my mind at least, with strawberries.  Not the American, available-by-January, mammoth monstrosities bred for durability to survive the long truck ride to the grocery store strawberries.  Small, succulent, juicy, pungent, best-strawberries-I´ve-ever-eaten strawberries.  We bought them in the market in Helsinki from a handsome youngish Finn in a striped scarf.  He seemed a bit bewildered by my enthusiasm.  But he´d probably never eaten American strawberries.

Then we had lunch in a little cafe.  I opted for the more traditional Finnish lunch, so Robert chose the pork in some sort of sauce.  I thought for sure I´d win Round One of the ordering competition, but I was wrong.  We knew the sauce was a tomato sauce, but I couldn´t put my finger on the other ingredients, the elusive combination that made it sublime.  So I asked.  And after the cooks came back from their smoke break, they gave up the list:  tomatoes, garlic, chicken stock, rosemary.  Nothing to account for that flavor.  ¨But,¨ the waitress stressed for the third time, ¨the tomatoes are fresh.¨

I buy organic.  I shop the Farmer´s markets.  And yet somehow fresh tastes different--dare I say better--in Finland.  We prayed in some beautiful churches.  We strolled through cobbled streets.  We bought gaudy 3 euro umbrellas to shield us from the sprinkles.  But tonight, when I´m finally ensconsed in our Madrid hotel and able to succumb to a jet-lagged slumber, I´ll dream of the strawberries.