Edible Art 1

 

When we published Annikki’s book "Edible Art" about her history of cake designing, the cakes were designed by her, most of the photos were taken by her, the text was written by me, but the maximum hard work of making these photos ready for publication was done by our dear friend SRK, Sriradhakrishnan Polsetti, who was working in Oulu on deputation from Nokia in Bengaluru. 

Annikki’s coffee table book covers her 40 years of making all sorts of cakes from cakes for children, gingerbread houses, birthday cakes for me and herself, wedding cakes for family members, unusual mosaic cakes, cakes with ponds and fishes in them, mountains and many art cakes.

All her cakes were original and showed her talent as an artist. 

Before getting married, she worked in a small Italian cake shop in Shrewsbury near Birmingham in England. Today Sidoli is a huge enterprise.

The first designer cake, a train cake, she made for us a family was for a joint birthday party in 1970 for our two children, Susanna and Jaakko, in our small house in Defence Officer’s  Colony in St. Thomas’s Mount on the outskirts of Madras.

Her first gingerbread house was created in 1974 at our Velacheri Road house in Madras. She worked on it for seven hours. We stayed out of her way. When she was ready, she ran upstairs to call us down to see her creation. When we reached the living room all we could see was our golden retriever, Ruby, licking her lips as she had devoured the entire house.

Then I understood the meaning of Finnish ‘sisu’ as Annikki rolled up her sleeves and made another more beautiful gingerbread house and had  powder sugar floating down to cover the house and make it exactly as  snow covered!

We moved  to Bangalore in 1976 and she won the prize in the cake competition where she displayed her first vegetarian cake made using yoghurt.

Gingerbread house making is an art. Every piece has to be made on cardboard, and the gingerbread baked using these cutout shapes. They then have to be painstakingly stuck together and then decorated.

Annikki always was way above the competition, first to introduce interior lighting and then even fitting doors and windows which could open and shut.

When she was looking after her mother, she first designed the garden so that her mother could sit at the dining table and enjoy her garden. Then she designed a gingerbread construction replicating the garden.

From then it was one new dimension after another and she was winning every gingerbread house competition in Oulu till they finally stopped the competition.

She diversified from traditional gingerbread houses to make Finnish constructions as Lappish kotas and the straw store houses.

Annikki never lost her sense of humour. When she reached the tender age of 60, she created a gingerbread house which she called "ruins". The lighting was entirely the streaming of natural sunlight.

When our grandson, Samu, returned from India before his first birthday, he had learnt one Malayalam word for crow - Kakay.  For his first birthday Annikki made him a cake of a crow sitting on her nest with a lot of eggs, all on a cake pine stump base. Samu looked at the cake pointed and said “Kakay”!

When four young ladies from Aricent, India, asked Annikki to make them a cake, she deswignede one of a typical farm scene!

Annikki’s adventure in cake designing is truly one which was exciting as she tailored each cake to suit the individual she was making it for, especially me, our children, other family members and close friends. It was never a business - just art for the sake of art!

The Finnish vocational school from Espoo did an entire video of Annikki and her cake designing to motivate the elderly in Finland to show them life does not end at 70! (In Finnish)

The book Edible Art” represents all the talents of an unique personality, an artist, a cake designer, a wife, a mother and grandmother, a sister, a great friend of many, a daughter, and a daughter-in-law!

Above all the unrivalled talent of a Findian!

A new artist phase - Wire Mesh....

Annikki goes through phases as an artist. She has been through her chalk drawing, textile designing, ginger bread houses, edible art, rubbish recreation and many other phases in her 60+ years. Each one is ahead of its time and a few years after she has exhausted her phase it can be seen in art decor magazines.

Winner of the 1998 Ginger Bread House Competition.

Her unique cake calendar adorned many tables across the world for the whole of 2005!


The happiest face of this creative designer -
When she has ME guessing!

This year she wanted to protect the sand pit from cats in the neighbourhood who were using it as a toilet.


Cat intruder protector disguised as a wire mesh wigwam

So she created a wigwam from chicken wire mesh, but her thoughts were not just about the protection as she was already thinking artistically as to how that wire mesh would look as winter snow and frost descended on Oulu.

A few weeks later she was hunting in Oulu hardware shops for all sorts of wire mesh as she had entered a wire mesh designing phase


Cone covers for plants

Her first attempt was to create some cone covers for new plantings.



Then she created a bird which she hung on the tree in front of the garden,


Wigwam now gets clouds

Then she decided her wigwam needed some clouds hovering over it.


What is this going to turn out to be?

Many more creations have found their way into the garden. But now she has got me foxed as she has put a bundle in a wooden drum in the front of the garden and she has me guessing what this is going to turn out to be.

I will have a prize for anyone who correctly forecasts her intentions! (Honest, I have no idea what it is going to turn out to be!)

It's great fun to be married to someone who has retained her little girl character and enjoys playing with things!

Indian contingent due in Oulu

Posted on Jacob's Blog and the Oulu CHAFF Blog.

November 2007 will see a large increase of the Indian engineer population in Oulu. There is a contingent of 20 Indians some with wives and children due to arrive in Oulu during the month.

The first group of 5 are already scheduled to arrive on the 1st of November. The others are waiting for their visas and other papers to arrive.

They are looking for houses, furnished if possible, to rent.

If any of you have any offers to make, please get in touch with me and let me know, as I can put you in direct touch with those arriving.

If they are unable to get furnished appartments, they may need furniture and other household equipment. If you have any, please let me know as I am compiling a list of stuff required against what is available.

Kamu just informed me that he has a good dining table with 4 chairs available for under € 100. We were able to provide a tv, coffee maker, toaster to a young student last week from our existing stock. We still have lots of cups, saucers, glasses, from the summer flea market remains.

This week's CHAFF meeting will be at the Coffee Shop, entrance on Isokatu as well as from the Rotuari Square. Those attending will probably be there after 13:00 hours.

One of the questions that we may discuss this week is the setting up of a Kindergarten, especially for the children who may have to go back to the Indian Education System, which can never be from a Finnish run Play Schools.

This is an enormous social issue and one which needs to be taken very seriously. If there are enough people interested, then we should take it up with the companies, especially the Indian companies, who are deputing their personnel to Oulu.

My recent discussion with the Oulu City Manager for International Affairs was rather disappointing on this front concerning one child, who, because of the pressure we put, will now get admission into an English Platy School by January 2008, after having had to languish in a Finnush language Play School for over a year.

Let it be understood that Oulu, although it claims to be an International City, is far from being International, and the City Authorities neither have the resources or the will to help out those who need their help. They may write nice letters, but that is just not enough!

As was so correctly put by one family (to the City Manager of Oulu International Affairs) which has gone through misery and from pillar to post:

"Thanks you for your understanding.

Teachers in xxxxxxxx Kindergarten asked us to give an application to the yyyyyyyyyy kindergarten.  We gave the application. It was in fact the same application which my wife gave to yyyyyyyyyy in Nov 2006.

They told us that there may be openings in 2008 only.

I think this is too late for us.

We have severe problems with Language issues already now.

Since our native language is not Finnish and our stay in Finland is not confirmed to be permanent, we want to pursue our daughter's studies in English. We are unable to help her with her simple questions due to the language issue. This is getting worse day by day.

May you please expedite this matter and help us in getting some place in yyyyyyyyyy sooner than 2008.

Thanks again for your time."

To solve these problems, yet to be able to meet the requirements of a short stay in Finland, it is imperative that the Indian Style Kindergarten has to be started in Oulu. Annikki and I are willing to help, but the onus must lie on the Indian Companies who are deputing their staff to live and work in Oulu. Expect nothing but lip service and a lot of red tape from local authorities who are just not in the know of what an international environment demands!

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