Warm Relationship with Riga Black Balsam on Cold Season

I usually don't get that excited to write 4 tweets about the same thing in 15 minutes. But it happened to me today and I guess that's a sign I should write a blog about it... In fact, I already did it... a year ago... Here: Where to Get The Best Medicine Ever - Honey, Herbs and Riga Black Balsam? 

The thing is that this story will be about that one magical ingredient  - Riga Black Balsam. 

I know I've been lazy (again) and I actually should write a blog about my Poland - Italy trip, but there are some obvious reasons I feel I should write about Riga Black Balsam today.

1) My Riga Black Balsam season has started exactly today

2) Riga Black Balsam is one of the best things in Riga

3) 2 days ago I tried (yes, the first time in my life) Riga Coffee (with the same magical ingredient) - although home-made coffee with balsam has been my love for several years

4) With my flatmates today we discovered a new recipe to fight cold (with the same magical ingredient)

5)  I discovered @RigaBlackBalsam on Twitter

And here come some explanations:

Riga Black Balsam season lasts from around October to March, so - cold season. No,that's not any kind of official season, that's my personal season. This beverage is good on summer with ice-cream too, but there is one big reason why cold months of the year is Black Balsam season. I've got out of all winter colds and sicknesses without any strong medicine for 2 winters because I use this magical ingredient. No, it doesn't mean I've been walking around drunk. It means that if I say that remedy for everything is Riga Black Balsam  - I really mean it.

My flatmate caught first awful autumn cold, and we are not people who have medicine at home. I'm usually the one people ask how to get out of cold (probably my old traditional recipes that do not include medicine you get at your doctor or pharmacy work well and do not hurt wallets). You already know my answer for cold season, so we were running to shop to get it. Well, since today at least all cold season we will keep it at home as I've done it for previous winters. 

And here comes our new recipe to fight cold:

Mix together hot water, honey, Riga Black Balsam, some pieces of lemon, a bit of cinnamon and black pepper. Ehm... That all to taste... We find it not only delicious, but also extremely helpful hot drink. (We invented it today, just in case if someone else hasn't discovered it before us although I'm not so sure about it).

My German friends totally love Riga Black Balsam, but two days ago I met a guy from Brazil who told me - "Oh, you mean that strong dark brown drink! Well... Some shots with it was my mistake last night, so I was totally wasted..." I didn't ask how many shots he drunk, but talking about me - I definitely feel much better having coffee with Riga Black Balsam especially when the central heating in Riga is not on yet and cold is knocking on windows.

So, if you are coming to Riga - at least try it! You can get it in almost every shop, cafe and bar. I don't ask you to drink it plain, try it in cocktails or coffee - it is delicious!

Where to Get The Best Medicine Ever - Honey, Herbs and Riga Black Balsam?

Inspiring #TTOT (Travel Talk on Twitter), cold and dark November outside and my own home pushed me to write about it (finally). When I say that remedy for everything is Riga Black Balsam  - I really mean it. (And everyone is laughing at me). So here is my Latvian recipe of surviving cold and dark period of the year - the content of my Latvian medicine cabinet: honey, herbs and Riga Black Balsam. 

You probably are aware of medicinal properties of honey (I mean real countryside honey made by real bees from real nectar from flowers). Our ancestors knew it and used it and we keep doing the same. Such a nice medicine - even children love it! If you are in Riga, here are some places to get ecological Latvian honey: for example Honey Room next to St. Peters church in the Old Town.

Another important thing - herbs for tea. I have no idea how aware of all this herbs thing you are, but in Latvia it's a must in summers to go to meadows and woods and gather herbs for yourself, dry them and use. A lot of magic in Latvia is around Summer Solstice and Midsummers Night - it is also the best day to gather powerfull herbs. Using the right herbs at the right time will save you from all disasters of cold and winter viruses. If you've been lazy on summer and haven't picked herbs from meadows, you can get them at Riga Central Market or at one of these small eco-shops which are growing in Riga like mushrooms after the rain.

Honey + herbal tea is almost perfect combination. But there is 3rd component not less important than previous two: Riga Black Balsam. It is petty strong – made in Latvia –  herbal liquer since 1752. Add it to your herbal tea with honey, to your morning coffee, mix it with backcurrant juice, enjoy it in cocktails and party with it. You can get it everywhere around Riga, everywhere in Latvia.

Now I have told you all 3 secret components. All of them tasty separated and tasty together. I have them all at home. I really avoid useing pharmaceutical drugs and this combination of 3 (including a lot of variations of herbs) - is the key to say happy "Hi!" to cold season and enjoy it!

To tease your taste buds get to know Latvian food at Taste The Place

What's in a jar in Latvia?

That's it: no more food in fields, woods and gardens. Winter is just a step away. Those who worked and picked up different goodies the nature gives us, will get their healthy summer portion in winter too. Those who didn't... ups... those who didn't will have to hope that they will be invited to enjoy goodies in a jar by some nice family in a countryside. If for some people salting, marinating, boiling jam, preparing winter salad etc is just a hobby, for some people it's lifestyle. People at the countryside of Latvia has always kept this great habit, and of course economical crisis have made a lot of people to come back to the wisdom of our ancestries and take again in their hands grandmothers receipt notes. What's in a jar in Latvia?

And not only that. As you know - it depends on family traditions and taste buds. Add to the list of these goodies mentioned before - potatoes, carrots, cabbages, honey and herbs.

Old Latvian wisdom says "Make the sled in the summer and the wheels in winter". Isn't it a nice quote?

More about Latvian food: Taste The Place

3 in 1: Art Gallery, Shop and Restaurant

„Istaba” (The Room) is an art-gallery – shop and restaurant. The small gallery-shop will make you wonder – you can find there interesting and original things from greeting cards to tableware, jevelry, matches, souveniers, home design objects – all created by local artists. Monthly exhibitions to highlight different types of art work  are organized here, so what will you see there when you come depends on the exhibition which is currently on. If you are searching for original gifts or souveniers, this place is just perfect – no trite nonsense  or rubbish, but pure art even in small practical things!

If the shop already takes you into a little dream world where every thing around you is a piece of art than the restaurant „Istabas Bufete” on the first floor allows you to dwell longer in this little La Boheme world. I think the best thing to order here is a glass of wine, although the food here is prapared by one of Latvia’s most popular local chefs Mārtiņš Sirmais. Here is just a small daily menu and if you want to eat something here the chef himself will consult you what to order. That’s also the reason why it’s not possible to know how much money you have to take with you. You can get soup, fish, meat and vagetables around 3 – 8Ls, not the cheapest place, but the food there is always fresh, ecological and high quality – these are the values of the chief.

People are admiring or hating this place. Some of them goes away from there totally unsatisfied with service – no menu, no big choise, just what the chief offers, others leave with smiling faces and always returns there to enjoy it’s atmosphere and celebrate the life with a glass of wine and intellectual talks for hours.

Address: Kr. Barona iela 31a

Working hours: Monday to Saturday: gallery-shop 12.00 – 20.00, restaurant: 12.00– 24.00, Sunday – closed

"Rāma" - get your inner balance while eating! Vegetarian food. Little India.

If you are interested in Latvian cuisine, check the page "Taste The Place"! Yes, we are eating meat a lot...

For those who are not used to hearty Latvian food and also doesn’t want to make their wallet empty because of it, there is affordable vegetarian food at Indian bistro „Rāma”. And this is one more place in Riga with added value – actually the whole place where you will find „Rāma” is called Hare Krishna centre – there is an Indian shop in cellar with incense stics, cosmetics, food, pictures of deities, jewelry etc., there is also vedic yoga centre, girls working there are wearing saris and the place is filled with Indian chants. That’s the place where you can find light and tasty vegetarian food – rice, cutlets, salad, buns, snacks, vegetarian pizza, lassi, fresh juice and a big variety of teas with a special accent on yoga teas. Happy hour form 18.30 – 19.30 is the time when you get hot dishes with  25% discount and buying yoga tea you can get any of their Eastern sweets for free. And even without these discounts you will pay around 2 -3Ls for a good meal. Sounds good, no? This place invites you to get your inner balance while eating.

Working hours: Mo – Fr 10:00 - 19:30; Sa: 11:00 - 19:30; Su: 11:00 - 19:00.

Address: Riga, Kr. Barona Street 56

Bohemian Street - Away From Touristic Riga

 The Street of Peace (Miera iela) is like a little Riga's secret out of the touristic centre, - new born  bohemian paradise, but still in the centre of the city 20 - 30 min walk away from The Old Town. No drunk crowds, no screaming party-people, but special places to celebrate the life everyday. My heart belongs there and it's not because I was born there.  It's also not because already more than one year I see how the sun goes down and how it's rising on mornings over the roofs of this street through my window.  

 The street long time ago was made as the road to cemeteries out of the city. Close to the main street in Riga - Freedom street, close to the one of the biggest theatres in Riga "Dailes Teātris". On this street you will find the factory of the best Latvian chocolate "Laima". (Yes, sometimes the smell of chocolate is really impossible to avaoid, because it comes in over the opened windows and takes over the street). You will find here houses where 200 years ago lived aristocrats and you will see beautiful wooden architecture. 

One of the reasons to come here is it's bohemian atmosphere. DAD cafe - on Miera iela 17 - piano, jazz, vintage furniture, poetry, photograpy... TAKA on Miera iela 10 - colorfull  place with origami birds in windows & comfortable sofas, home-made wine from Latvia, sometimes tasty smell of soup makes you to stop passing by this place... Tea-room "ILLUSEUM" on Miera iela 19 - to collect your thoughts over the cup of tea: exceptional collection of teas from all over the world... Vintage shops and high quality handicrafts. People with bicycles, the tram nr. 11, cobbled streets... It's like peacefull Sunday mood or evening talks over the cup of tea are living right on this street.

If you keep walking this street 5 more minutes the direction away from the Freedom Street (Brīvības iela) you will see in front park - cemetery called The Great Graveyard: one of the most interesting cemeteries I have seen. See some pictures here: The Lost World Cemetery With The Soul

From Zeppelins to Food - Riga Central Market

This is definitely a very special place - located betwean The Old Town and Riga’s own ‘Moscow suburbs’, right next to the Central train terminal and bus station. Even if you are not planning to shop, there are a lot of reasons to visit this market.

 

The buildings here, today used as market pavilions, were initially built as hangars for the German army’s zeppelins. Now next to the imported food you will find here delicious, fresh, ecological food from the countryside of Latvia, and it’s cheaper than in any shop. The meat pavilion, grocery, greengrocery and fish pavilions, the open air market area. And there  are a lot of opportunities to taste the food before buying it! If you look at clothes/shoes – it’s „Made in China” paradise, but betwean that all you can find here also high quality stuff. It is the second biggest market–place in Europe.

 

On my free weekends I take my shopping bag and go to the Central Market to get the best (fresh & cheap) food in the city. It’s not only market-place, it also holds cultural events and shows a little different face of Riga than you will see in The Old Town.

Get to the Central Market to feel the sell & buy atmosphere! 

You might also like:  

Riga Central Market on Travellers blog

The Old Town - Heart of Riga

What to do when it's too hot in Riga?

Riga which you don't find in tourist guides

Spring, Easter, Birch juice, Summer caffes & Beer gardens

Your friend in Riga is glad to tell you how nice the weather is here last days!!! Oh, such a pleasure! On Easter I, of course, left my dear Riga to enjoy the beauty of the countryside. Do you drink Birch juice? Yes, the juice you get from the Birches, from trees. You can also get them at the Riga Central Market on spring, but I’m afraid this year the season is over. (Riga Central Market is the first place which reacts to any natural local benefits you can get accordingly to the season) So I got the last birch juices of this spring. In the picture you can see the way of getting fresh, healthy and tasty birch juice!

I also was painting eggs, enjoying egg-fights with my relatives and yeah... And painting eggs for Easter in a traditional  way is  like magical game for kids and a little meditation for adults: first you go out to find the first herbs, small leaves and grass, than you prepare onionskin, you tie herbs to eggs, you boil that all and at the end you see the result - a little magic is in that process. In this picture you see how beautifull eggs you can get painting them in a traditional way  - using what pure nature gives you. And food... A lot of food... That’s how it happens when you go to a countryside for any kind of celebration...  Oh, food...

Huh, it has to be enough food now for at least a week and that’s good – if I save the money on eating, I have more to spend in all those cozy summer caffes & beer gardens in Riga! Yes, The Old Town is again in it’s most beautiful period of the year (it’s just my opinion). Summer caffes with a big choice of beers and live music on evenings are opened.  People are smiling, enjoying the weather sitting outside with a glass of beer or cup of coffee, places for smokers, places for non-smokers, music, what a great music!!!

People sitting in their offices can’t wait for the end of the day to get out to enjoy the sun and cosy atmosphere of the Old Town. Just a little bit and all gardens and parks will get green, flowering and pleasantly smelling. Ahh... Such a dream of a sunny day which you spend in the office listening to joyfull voices outside: steps from the pavement of the old town are coming inside through the window, laughter from outside is breaking the silence in the office and the sun, sun, sun...

Latvian Christmas Traditions

For Latvians Christmas is the time when all family comes together. And December 24th is peacefull Christmas Eve when families go to the church and afterwards have Cristmas meal together. Many of the Christian traditions in Latvia are intertwined with earlier pagan traditions. Christmas Eve is a celebration of the birth of Jesus, but in many families it is also a celebration of the Winter Solstice, the time  when days become longer and the nights become shorter again. We just celebrate Christmas in both ways – pagan and christian – as they both are about the light coming into life. Also on morning of the 25th of December families goes to the church. Well, usually people choose – 24th or 25th (or 26th). 

What happens with Christmas gifts? In many resources on the internet I found this: „Latvians believe that Father Christmas brings presents on each of the 12 days of Christmas starting on Christmas Eve.” I don’t know where are these strange Latvians who believe in it. I don’t know any family which does it. And actually I red it for the first time today on the internet... We receive gifts just once – 24th on evening or 25th on morning. Usually in some special moment (for example, when the family goes to the church) when nobody sees it – gifts are left under the Christmas tree. But it’s not so easy to get them: in order to get a present you have to recite a short poem while standing next to the Christmas tree! So kids before Christmas are really learning by heart a lot of poems. Well, you can also sing, play some music instrument or even dance to get your gift.

Christmas meal: by christian traditions on Christmas Eve it’s not allowed to eat meat, but Latvians are real meat lovers. So there is Christmas Eve when there have to be 9 different dishes (by pagan tradition) which do not include meat (by christian tradition). These traditions perfectly live together. You definitely have to eat boiled grey peas – if you do it, you wont have to cry the next year.

Traditional food for Christmas is grey peas with bacon, gingerbread, bacon rolls, and pork – all head of a pork on the table. Of course, we drink hot wine – German „gluhwine” is all around the world.

Other pagan traditions you will probably meet in Latvia on Christmas time involves a wooden block that is rolled around the house to drive away any evil spirits from the home. You will see it even in the Riga Old Town and for example Etnographical Open-Air museum. By the way, I think that the Etnographical Open-Air museum in Riga is the best place to get to know Latvian traditions. In the countryside people often go masquerading from one home to the next while singing and playing different games – they also do it in open-air museum. In this masquerade will also definitely come The Death. Don’t be afraid – if you are a friend of Death and especially if you dance with Death during Winter Solstice – you are not going to die the next year. 

Happy Christmas – Priecīgus Ziemassvētkus! 

Pictures:  1) Celebration at Open-Air museum with traditional head of a pork 2-3) Taditional food: bacon rolls and grey peas with bacon 4) Winter Solstice masquerade

To Eat Or Not To Eat...

Check this out: I found some rules on the internet under the title „Professional Travel Health Advice”:

·         Don’t use unpasteurised milk, non bottled drinks , and uncooked food etc.

·         Use bottled or boiled water for cleaning your teeth and don't open your mouth and drink water in the shower.

·         Dishes containing raw or undercooked eggs, such as home-made mayonnaise, some sauces (e.g. hollandaise) and some desserts (e.g. mousses), are not a good idea.

·         Ice-cream that doesn't have a recognisable international brand name, and could be made locally, is often contaminated and could be a danger.

·         When confronted with cooked food, the holidaymaker should ensure that it has been thoroughly and freshly cooked.

·          Ice should be avoided unless made from safe water.

So, better don’t eat! Don’t wash! Don’t try any traditional food! And dangerous ice-cream... Well, I was always thinking that it’s a part of travelling...

I’m not a doctor and I can’t tell what’s better for you. My rules for travel healh would be: 1) If you know what kind of food you can’t eat, don’t eat it. 2) If you go to some exotic countries, check before – maybe you need some vaccine. 3) Keep with you some simple first aid things: a plaster, tissue-paper etc. 4) Sleep well 5) Try traditional food, but don’t get too excited by eating it, it can end up with vomiting even if you don’t feel it at the beginning, even if the food is extremally delicious (unfortunately). I had this experience with grape-leaves...6) In case of some unexpected health problems – please, look for a doctor. I mean, alternative medicine is very cool thing, but if you understand what is happening. Well, if you think your leg is broken better to go to a doctor.

There was also one very nice „professional” advice:

·         Drinks such as wine or beer, hot tea or coffee, and carbonated soft drinks or fruit juices that are bottled or otherwise packaged are usually safe to drink.

As long as you are able to see, smell, taste and understand – everything is ok with you. Enjoy!

Pictures: 1) Ice-cream - my favorite one from my childhood – made in Latvia. 2) Riga Black Balsam – made in Latvia and only in Latvia – pretty strong herbal liquer what makes it to be the best medicine in winter if you add it to your tee/coffee/hot balckcurrant juice... 3) „Green Spoon” – this symbol on food is the sign –qualitative food made in Latvia from high-quality staples.

Next time I’ll tell you some special traditional things Latvians do to keep themselves healty... Alternative methods you have to try here...