A berry discovery

At the weekend, we swung into a Lithuanian supermarket that had been advertising 25% off on its products. I love shopping Eastern European, esp. their dairy section with their kefir, smetana and tvarog, their sourdough breads (very similar to German), and their sausages and oily herrings.

This supermarket was quite large and had a sizeable fresh section with mouth-watering cakes, tortes, again very similar to German in-store Konditoreien -- unfortunately I'm trying to drop the pounds right now to take the weight off my perma-protesting ankles, so the cakes were a no. There was a huge herbal-tea section, also similar to Germany, where I stocked up on Bronchialtee (lung-supporting herbs plus liquorice -- good for upper respiratory complaints in winter) and juniper tea (good for arthritis apparently). They also had nettle tea but we'll have plenty of fresh nettles on the allotment so will harvest them once the snow has gone again.

I instructed OH to look out for frozen mushrooms and other goodies you would never see in Tesco's -- and he found them! Almost half a kilo of frozen chanterelles for about £3, another one of bay boletes. And he also discovered, and this made me very happy, half-kilo bags of sea buckthorn (Sanddorn) berries, also for £3 and a bit. I'd been raving to him about sea buckthorn syrup that you'd expensively buy in the German version of Holland and Barretts, packed full of vitamin C and other goodies, so oily and rich you thought it was gravy. "Ah," he said, "I can make you syrup!" and threw 2 bags in the basket.

In the evening I made us the last of the kale-filled ravioli with some fried chanterelles and home-grown parsley, and OH made a bottle and a half of very tasty sea buckthorn syrup. It goes really well with sparkling water as it's quite acidic in itself, and a friend and I tried it as a sea buckthorn bellini, mixed with prosecco, also very nice.

OH has now been loudly demanding "sea buckthorn shrubs" on the allotment and in the garden but I'm not so sure because that's another thorny shrub for me to skewer myself with as I weed around and underneath it. I'd much rather bug the warden on the nature reserve up the coast that has loads of sea buckthorn on it, esp. since OH has said they wanted to get rid of the shrubs anyway.