Woke up in the morning, took a tour of Klara and Ivan's home and property. A lot of work was done while I was gone. Their son Misha built a picnic shelter and table in the courtyard, so could eat meals outdoors. Also replaced the wooden walkway through the garden with a cement sidewalk.
The cherries, strawberries, and rasberries are all gone, but there are plenty of other fruits and vegetables. Onions, garlic, and walnuts are drying, along with field corn.
There are 4 types of grapes growing - green, red, purple, and black.
In the garden are the hottest peppers I've ever tried. These peppers are tiny - just about an inch or two long, but HOT!! I had just a tiny bite, and my mouth was burning for an hour.
In the garden are huge beets; some beets are as large as a child's head.
The branches of all the fruit trees are loaded down with fruit: apples, pears, plumbs, apricots. The ground is covered with fruit which has fallen, especially apples. I asked Klara if they fed the apples to the pigs; she told me the pigs won't eat them. That was a surprise; if I was I pig, I'd want some apples.
Klara already has done much canning. She showed me pickles, pickled tomatoes, peppers, mushrooms, lekvar, and fruit preserves called "varenya".
For breakfast, Klara gave me tea with strawberry varenya. Delicious! Forget about American artificially flavored teas, like raspberry tea, etc. Try some tea with fruit preserves or jams - it naturally sweetens the tea and adds fruit flavor - completely natural, nothing artificial!
And here is another home-made ham - the equal of any prosciutto I've had!
After breakfast, I went to Misha's house, then into town to buy a Ukrainian cell phone, picked up Katya and Little Misha from school, went to Great Aunt Elizabeth's for dinner. Woke up Tuesday, Ivan made bliny with varenya. I worked in the garden like a serf while Ivan cooked Ukrainian Borshch (I'll give you the recipe tomorrow), then went into Uzhgorod on my own. I'll write about all this tomorrow!
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