Helena-Reet: Bread without leaven, Dance Festival and more about the consumer society

30 Jun, 2017 by Helena-Reet Ennet

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NordenBladet – Yesterday I wrote on my blog that I value simplicity and nature more and more. I feel that at one point our current consumer society is about to collapse – people will simply fall ill. Õismäe silver willow has been gaining ground in media recently, but it is just the tip of the iceberg – consistently building these cold stone blocks and destroying nature has been given a kick-start that sooner or later this “endeavour” will be a success and the dot will be put for a long time.

I like the message the Avatar movie delivers – everything is connected in nature. In my opinion, that is the way it is. When you spray-use chemical pesticides on your plants, to eradicate pests, you actually poison your own food. By violating and destroying nature, you destroy your own life. There are too many cars and more coming. Many cars are so old and should be scrapped, but they are still driving and nonstop emitting poisonous black exhaust gases to our atmosphere. Everything is so artificial and automatized – every step and move we make is with a remote, all the things are wired or with batteries. The raspberry jam you buy from the shop might not be from real raspberries because different flavour substitutes replace them more cheaply. Food can be preserved for years. The seams of clothes tear before the first wash and kids’ toys break on the same day when handed to them. Everything is built up in the way to bring us around again. Children do not have any favourite toys because none of the things can become a favourite one as they break up before. Today, most of the people do not know how a tomato straight from the greenhouse tastes like and what colour is the egg in reality. Eco-shops do not differ a lot from the usual shops these days – natural products are actually not that natural and ecological there. Estonian products are mixed with the Polish in the markets – it is cheaper this way, it is more profitable. People’s words and promises are worth less and less nowadays – thus the lawyers earn more and more because agreements have to be formalised for everything today, not to lose anything. Perhaps I have painted such a black picture now.

But what shall we do? First of all, start with yourself. It is nice to be a smart ass, but the reality is that small things lead to big changes. For example, I always buy only Estonian products wherever I can to support our local farmers. I also do it in Sweden and Finland – if possible, I always support local farmers, I do not buy things from China, Poland and so on. I have grown simple things myself for a long time – for instance, tea. I only drink lime-blossom, chamomile and peppermint tea grown by myself. Every year I preserve berries, raw jam and apple juice. I also grow dill, parsley and other herbs. While shopping I try to choose primary food products (potatoes, flour, oat flakes, etc.), not processed food or prepared food (canned soups, cakes, food in vacuum packaging, etc.). Recently I have even baked bread myself. As I do not like spending too much time in the kitchen I have my own simple recipes and methods how to prepare complicated recipes easily and deliciously. As an example, I make bread without leaven and it still tastes like bread.

The recipe: 60% of oatmeal, 35% of rice flour, 5% of almond meal, 2 eggs, 2 tablespoons of oil, 2 tablespoons of blackcurrant jam, some sunflower seeds, sesame seeds and raisins and water. Put a pinch of oat flakes on the top of the bread, it just looks nice. I like to bake bread in muffin moulds because in a usual bread mould my dough stays half-baked, in smaller moulds it is baked evenly and the bread muffins are lovely and small.

I have to stop now. Ivanka Shoshana will go to see dance celebration with her grandmothers and grandfather and I have to take Estella Elisheva to Festival Arena to practice for the song festival. They say there are already traffic jams, so I have to set myself going. All the best!