Two guys, four screens.

Both are playing Genshin Impact. Adrian is supplementing the game with music on YouTube, Eric is looking up something or other.

I’ve been making do with small pieces of scrap yarn for stitch markers for years. I don’t even know why. These green things cost like 35 kr for a few dozen. Or actually double that including postage, but that is still nothing compared to the cost of, say, alpaca yarn.

They are ugly but useful. Which wasn’t really a surprise. One benefit that was a real surprise is that because they are of uniform shape and size, I can see just by looking at them whether all my increases are equidistant from each other. Of course I still count my rows but if I did happen to miscount, I’m pretty sure that the resulting misstep in the rhythm of the line of markers would make the mistake very obvious.

Memm, jag har någonting till dig. Och nej, vi ska inte slänga dem.

“Mum, I’ve got something for you.” (Doesn’t even need to look at me to guess what my response would be to seeing this thing.) “And no, we’re not throwing them away.”

All right then. Mending it is.

The cucumber plant we’re plant-sitting has produced exactly one crooked, fist-sized cucumber.

I don’t eat fish often but if I go without for a month or so, I can get a mild craving for seafood. Ingrid is a stricter vegetarian than the rest of us (except when it comes to sushi because it is her favourite food) so I try to satisfy my craving when Ingrid is away.

Another day, another walk, another set of dramatic clouds in the sky.

The sky was threatening rain and thunder when I went out for my walk today. I went anyway and just stayed close-ish to the house, zig-zagging the nearby roads instead of venturing farther, so I could rush home if/when I got drenched.

The rain never came, even though I could literally feel it in the air. The clouds kept appearing and vanishing right over my head.

For some reason I expect weather to arise somewhere else and then arrive here. Even though I know very well that that is not how later-summer thunderclouds work – hot air rising up and all that. But it still felt weird to literally see clouds appear from nowhere.

Back to work today.

I lost my daily workout routine during vacation. Starting it up again with daily vigorous walks to begin with.

I didn’t take a proper photo today, but I did photograph a cake recipe – the strawberry and elderflower one we’ve had for Midsummer a few times – to send it to my mum, in return for the redcurrant cake recipe. So I guess I could share those with you.

Redcurrant cake

Crust

• 125 g butter
• 75 g sugar
• 2-3 egg yolks
• 250 g flour
• ½ tsp baking powder
• 2-3 tbsp breadcrumbs

Filling

• 4 egg whites
• 200 g sugar
• 75-100 g hazelnuts
• ½ tsp cinnamon
• 500 g redcurrants

Cream butter with sugar. Add egg yolks one by one while stirring. Mix baking powder and flour and add to the butter mixture. Roll the dough into a ball, cover and cool for 50-60 minutes. Line a springform pan with the dough, leave a 5 cm edge. Sprinkle the bottom with breadcrumbs.

Whisk the egg whites. Gradually add sugar. Whisk for another few minutes. Add chopped hazelnuts and cinnamon.

Stir the redcurrants into two thirds of the egg mixture. Pour the filling in the crust. Cover with the rest of the egg mixture (either piping or simply spreading).

Bake at medium heat for about 1 hour. (We interpreted “medium heat” as around 175°C.)

The original Estonian recipe had margarine instead of butter but nobody misses that.

The also recipe called for “nuts” rather than specifying hazelnuts. Back then everybody understood that that’s what you mean when you say “nuts”. Locally grown nuts were simply nuts; exotic, fancy nuts had longer, fancier names. That may still be the case actually.

My mum was able to locate that old recipe for redcurrant cake and Eric was kind enough to make it for me. This, this is what the cake is supposed to be like! A deep crust properly filled with lots of redcurrants – three times as much as the other recipe! Meringue mixed in with the berries, and chopped hazelnuts as well. I had completely forgotten about the nuts but now that I can taste them there, I realize what a difference they make. And the meringue itself is slow-baked so it’s crunchy and crumbly instead of sticky. I’ll be holding on hard to this recipe.