The Frying Finn!

about me

I was born in Rauma, Finland in 1952. We lived on our small farm by the sea not far from a village called Sorkka. We left Finland for Australia in 1958 when I was six, and I have only been back to Finland once in 1977. I was able to visit our old farmhouse (which was abandonded and quite dilapitated by then ). I found my initials and the date 1958 carved into a huge rock beside the farmhouse. It was truly a wonderful couple of months spent re-visiting the sites of all those long ago dim memories.

I grew up mainly in Melbourne, and then spent two years living and working in Papua New Guinea. Back to Melbourne and then travels through Asia and Europe for a year before returning to Melbourne once again. In 1980 I headed North to Cairns where I have now lived for 28 years.

However, my wife and I are both keen on a change in our lives, so we are moving to live in Tasmania in the next few months. We are both hugely excited about this great adventure we are about to embark on.

Food has been a wonderful part of my life as long as I can remember. My childhood was full of the wonderful Finnish foods both my parents cooked (they were both very talented and proficient cooks).

At the time my mother was working with women from many different nationalities and they would often share the food they had brought from home for their lunch. She would come home with stories of the strange and delicious things she had tried at work. Sometimes she would bring something home for us to taste, which I found incredibly exciting and I always loved everything I tasted.

Eventually she obtained recipes from her workmates and she started making these foods herself at home. The first such dish we had at home was Pizza!! Pizza was really totally unknown in the general Australian community in those days, but it bacame a firm favourite in our house.

I have been cooking since I was about 9 years old. My mother showed me a few things and I was off! The first thing she showed me how to make were Finnish crepes (lettu in Finnish).

Within a very short time I was cooking dinner for the family several nights a week. Stuffed capsicums (peppers) was one of my favourite things to cook ~ another recipe from one of mum's work friends.

Favorite Foods:

French, Italian, Indian, Vietnamese, Japanese, (and just about anything else you could think of!!)

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