Dinner at the Taskinen Home

Saturday, February 10, 1996 - 7:30 - 11:00 PM: Saturday evening after his sauna Mr. Napoli joined Hannu and Sirpa Taskinen and their guests for a wonderful traditional Finnish dinner and some lively conversation.The guests included Maija Berndtson, Director, and Sirkka Svedberg, Deputy Director, of the Helsinki City Library; Pentti Vattulainen, Director of Finland's National Repository Library and his wife Kristiina Vattulainen, a Librarian at the Helsinki City Library; and Mikael Böök, Managing Director of Katto-Meny Cooperative Society
	From left to right: Pentti Vattulainen Director, National Repository Library Sirkka Svedberg Deputy Director, Helsinki City Library Hannu Taskinen, Principal Librarian for Public Libraries in Finland Mrs. Kristiina Vattulainen Helsinki City Librarian & Pentti's wife Mikael Böök Managing Director of Katto-Meny Maija Berndtson Director, Helsinki City Library; Sirpa Taskinen. Ph. D., author & Hannu's wife
Photo by Don Napoli using SJCPL's digital camera

The meal began with a dry French sparkling wine and an appetizer - a salad of blinis with roe of muikku (a small species of white fish), raw onion and smetana, a Russian type sour cream. This was followed with roasted raindeer filets with lingonberry / red currant jam, mashed potatoes with gravy, green beans, rye and white bread, all served with the sparking French wine and a South African Pinotage red wine which had a very nice flavor. Dessert was a parfait of Finnish berries which ripen slowly during the long northern summer days that Finland has, and they had a most delicious aroma. This was followed by coffee, cognac and chocolates. The above photo was e-mailed back to staff while Mr. Napoli was still in Finland. Unfortunately, several staff members wondered about the amount of drinking that went on at the meal based on the absence of food and the quantity of glasses on the dining room table. Mr. Napoli assured his staff upon returning that much excellent, good food was consumed during the meal and the photo was taken after most of the food, but not all of the drinks, were consumed. For a description of the gastronomy of Finland, see Anna-Maija Tanttu's article written for the Finnish Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
From left to right: Sirpa Taskinen Don Napoli Pentti Vattulainen Sirkka Svedberg
	Photo by M. Taskinen using SJCPL's digital camera