For me, the first connotation with ‘pure’ is to do with food. Here in Finland many people have never stopped cooking from scratch, preferably with local ingredients. This give our cooking a refreshing seasonal variation, due to our climate, with long, cold winters and very short growing seasons in summer. You get used to having certain ingredients and dishes only at certain times of the year. Also, in recent years, so-called ‘pure’ restaurants have sprung up, which typically serve ‘raw food’, salads or raw cakes, for example. I tend to associate ‘pure food’ with organic, local ingredients and home-cooking, not necessarily raw. The most important thing for me is that I know where the produce comes from, can trust the producer, and cooking it myself, I know exactly what goes into it. This for me equals ‘pure’.

Home-grown summer vegetables would be really nice but in our tiny town patio “garden”, in front of our home, we can’t obviously grow a lot. One thing that thrives there, though, is rhubarb. It’s always reliable and grows beautiful, thick stems every year, no matter what the previous winter was like. And a definite plus is that it is as organic as you can expect, being surrounded by urban air. At least, no pesticides, no fertilisers, nothing chemical is ever added to the soil it grows in.

There is just enough to either bake a few delicious rhubarb pies or crumbles, or as in the last few years, make my own fresh rhubarb juice. Spicing it with a cinnamon and vanilla stick in the boiling water, makes it a delightful early summer drink that won’t stay long in our fridge before it’s all enjoyed by thirsty family and guests.

Weekly photo challenge – PURE.