Bulgarian Survival (Personally Tried)

BULGARIAN SURVIVAL ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Chris MYRSKI, 2010      Abstract:      The title is, in fact, a bit misleading, because the article is not about the survival of Bulgarian people under our incompetent democracy (because: whatever the demos such is also the -cracy) but about this how we should have tried to survive. With other words, the author here explains some main rules for living by low living standard, which are valid also for other countries, but when one just wonders what to do with his money he may make errors, surely, where we, or at least one big part of our population, simply are not allowed to err, if we want to live relatively passably under the conditions of right-wing (i.e. of the stronger) democracy. The material is motley, but it isn't abstract, and is based on checked by the author methods and techniques, where in the beginning are given some general advices for living (which have mostly philosophical character) and the main strategies for survival, then we continue with concrete recommendations for subsistence in urban environment (for in a village the finding of food is easier, and the author is a city boy), and it ends with some special skills; there is also traditional poetic Appendix. The approximate circle of readers is about a quarter of the population, mainly pensioners, unemployed, housewives, and students, where the possible economy is also more or less the same (and this without overdoing). The only requirement for the person (except time) is that he really wants to economize, not only to think so, but in reality just to wonder what else to buy in order to be modern. Well, it is not much probable that exactly the Bulgarian will turn out to be the cleverest of all the nations (and this will not be fair to them, will it not?), but he may still try, if he is forced to. At least, by sticking to some of these advices, one will lead a healthier life, and one has to pay now for the health care.      [So, and because in many cases the author can't restrain himself to comment in some way the "saint simplicity" of the people, he puts the most tedious commentaries in square brackets like these.] I. GENERAL RECOMMENDATIONS FOR LEADING OF REASONABLE LIFE      Here, broadly speaking, we don't say unknown things, but because they are very common they find wide applications in many life situations, so that it isn't wise to be overlooked (as most people usually do). The reasonable way of life does not necessarily mean better survival, but is directly related with it, because the main purpose of human mind is to make our life better. [If you can do without much reasoning, something that many people usually do, then continue in this way as far as you can — if not for other reasons then at least because however I insist on the contrary you, or at any rate the big part of the population, first acts and then thinks (because the action is more interesting than the boring reflections); I want to say that the intellect of the humans is, in any case, a thing to which one takes recourse only after he has exhausted all other unreasonable ways for achieving of the goal!] 1. Ancient truths      The first two of them have come to us before at least 25 centuries, from Ancient Greece, but they are surely older and eastern, and in the third subsection we explain roughly some basic principles of the Eastern theosophy.      1.1. Nothing excessive (or moderation in all things)      This is obvious out of dialectical considerations (to say also "dialactic" or "diaelastic", i.e. pulling of a elastic rubber band from both sides, in the middle of which some pallet is bound), but this can be illustrated also by a target at which we aim, where it is clear that we must aim at the middle. More interesting is why, when this is obvious and known from ancient times, the people, still, don't stick to it? Well, let me mention one linguistical proof, namely that the middle is related with the moderate (and even mean, in English), and nobody wants to be moderate, we are aiming at the top (at least until we are young, but who considers the old people as such?). But the point is that the middle, besides giving the mean mob, and it is usually easier to live in it, you feel protected by the others, you are alike with them, in addition to this is easier to hit (the example with the target). Anyway, this is clear, so that let us give some examples, which are pretty many.      Because here is the big eating, or drinking, or smoking, or "screwing", or whatever (including the big moderation). And what one does to himself, as our folks say, nobody can do to him (as is the case with the mess with our democracy, isn't it?). I personally am convinced (because I know such persons) that the fat and obese people are such as they are just because they eat much (and, by the way, in Bulgarian such one is called "debel", what, if you ask me, has to be from de + belle, i.e. "not nice" person). It exists, naturally such thing as predisposition of the character, disturbed metabolism, but, still, if these people have not eaten so much then they, surely wouldn't have been so obese (more so when they know that in some aspect they are not exactly like the others). And if one does not want to become fat then he (well, she too, it is clear) must eat highly caloric food, I think, and not on the contrary (i.e. chocolates, grilled meat, and such, as the athletes usually do); and if he has enlarged much his stomach and it wants to be filled with something, then let him eat more cellulose (fruits, but with the skin, and the seeds, too), or popcorn and similar light and airy things for chewing, but also hard for digesting foods (say: raw rice grains, or beans, or small chicken bones — surely there is nothing harmful in this because olive stones are recommended to be swallowed in order to grease the stomach, besides the dogs rarely chew and the cats don't have front teeth). So that in the end, as I have said, immoderation hinders practically everybody, but the people prefer to go to extremities, and later to be healed, when needed (say, because they smoke too many cigarettes, or drink much alcohol, or use drugs).      But the point isn't only in what we take into our bodies, but also in what we do around us, in the environment where we live. It is clear, for example, that it is better to live at up to 3-4 meters above the ground (mostly because of the ... law of the free fall, I suppose, from which follows that in one second one makes 5 meters, and in two the meters become whole 20, or about 6 storeys; but also because one becomes tired to climb high to reach his floor — let us not forget that lifts exist for about 100 years, after the invention of electricity, what happened more or less in 1900). We know this, but nevertheless we shove ourselves in beehives or anthills, thinking that when they are luxurious this changes the situation, but it changes almost nothing. (A propos, I, for various reasons, for some years don't use at all the lift up to the 5th floor, where I live, and, to tell you the truth, after the first pair of months of some discomfort, am feeling much better.) And to mention also, with the corresponding excuses before the Americans, that if they have not had their twin towers there would have been nothing to be destroyed by the terrorists! And take into consideration, please, that this example is not at all particular, on the contrary, this is true for all places where many people are gathered together (stadiums, recreational complexes, air- and other ports, big temples, and so on), which become first targets for terrorist attacks — in the same way as in ancient times the big cities have become main "goal" for the viruses and microbes by epidemics, i.e. the problems, in principle, are not new, but they remain unsolved due to the immoderation of the human wishes. (And if some of you remarks that we build up because we have become too much people and otherwise we can not fit in the towns, then it may be answered to him that this is exactly the problem, that we are too many people on the globe, what also is a question of moderation — and here there is even nothing impossible or difficult, you can be sure about this.)      Generally, I think, it can be stated that the question of moderation is a question of common sense, and vice versa (the common sense is reduced, mainly, to the moderation). There are no problems if one wishes to be at the top in his immediate profession, to want not to be mediocre in it, but in all the left to search the middle — in the food, in his interests, in the love or sex, and so on. This what hinders us to be moderate, in addition to the young age, with the increasing of which we, in one natural way, become more moderate (because the old people, even if they want more, they can lesser and lesser), is, in my view, in the western belief for the meaning of life to be in the incessant fight for climbing up, where the eastern view is that the human is part of the nature (we are in the God-nature, not He is in us), and if so we must try not to impose, but to fit into it! Not that we don't try to do something about the problem, we try, but only after we see that have stuck deep in the mud (because of some immoderation — say, in the armament).      And to mention also one more aspect of our immoderation — the cult to professionalism, in whatever area it may happen, maybe joint with some portion of indolence. For example, not to play sports alone but to look how the others do this; not to sing or dance but to see some show; not to cook us something for eating but to take it ready or go to a restaurant or a pub; not to practice our sex but to look at some porno; and so on, and so on. My personal meaning (maybe because of my advanced age, probably because of this) is that our striving for professionalism, in things for which we are not paid for this, just hampers us to lead an interesting life, where in old times it was not so (when people have made themselves their shows, as well as their dishes, et cetera). It is true that we evolve, but maybe we also degrade a little.      And let me finish this point about the moderation with one popular (and found by me) explanation for this why the man is usually more moderate (and reasonable, as I have said) than the woman, who, as a rule, isn't, as also the small children aren't. It is clear that this can be explained with her greater emotionality, at least by the children this is so, but by the woman there is something more, something ... sexual. There's nothing difficult here (but I, still, have not heard that somebody has put it in this way), the point is that the man not always ... can do it (and don't ask me what is it this thing that the man can, because in the Slavonic languages this is placed in the core of his name — he is called "mazh" or "muzh" or "måzh" (where with the letter "å" I signify that sound as in you "bird", or similar to your "but"), where to can is "moga" or "mogu" or "mozhet"!), he sometimes can but sometimes can not, where the woman always can. In this way the man from an early age, from the puberty, if not even earlier, becomes used to be moderate in order to succeed in his undertakings, where the woman becomes used only to want more and more (be there one who can give it to her); when she, however, comes out of productive age, as well as when she has not entered it, she can very successfully compete with him.      1.2. Know thyself      This ancient slogan is not so much question of reason, as question of honesty, because the reason why people don't want to know themselves is that they will not like themselves. But this is necessary because they are different, and if someone, just as an example — and I beg a pardon from the more squeamish of you — prefers it from behind, then why should he not be aware of this? From the point of view of the reason is logically that the knowledge, almost no matter what is the nature of the question, must be of some use for the grown citizen. Yeah, but mainly for the men, and even for them not always. And why this isn't so for the women the author has asked himself in connection with the biblical meaning of the word "knowledge", which is so not only in Russian (i.e. in Slavonic languages), but also in English, and in other languages, and this surely comes somewhere from the old Hebrew, if not from the Sanskrit. But don't think that this is only because of the "fifth extremity" of the man, with which he gets to know some "cavern" of the woman. No, here the things surely have also the common meaning of the knowledge as reasonable assessment of a given situation, what leads us to the conclusion that the woman, as a rule, of course, we don't speak about the exceptions (which confirm the rule — with their exceptionality), just don't like realistic estimations due to their higher emotionality and partiality, or, in fact, is not much intelligent (what is well known). So that it is clear that the woman will not want to know herself, but the man also is not really "burning" with desire for knowledge (say, that he is man in the above mentioned direct meaning, probably, not oftener than in one percent of the time — on the average 15 minutes per day).      Said in a bit different way, the people don't want to know themselves because they think themselves for something big, because their pride exceeds their abilities, where the Russians have even a separate word for unreasonable (or not motivated) pride, "gordinya" (where the normal pride is "gordost"). But then this "gordinya" is exactly our ... monkey feature, the well known habit of the gorillas, and this maybe chiefly of the male ones, to step forward on some open place in the jungle, when they decide that someone threatens them, and begin to hit themselves with fists on the chest and cry "uhr" or the like (where from the Slavs have learned their "hurrah", the English their "war", the French and other Latins their guerre, because of which the monkey-gorilla and the partisan-guerilla are twin words)! And this, that the monkey in all languages sounds insulting you can maybe check alone (the Bulgarian "maymuna" is the Turkish "maymun"); even (if I am not in error) in the Buddhism one tries to do the right things for to prevent his reincarnation later in a monkey, where if he becomes a pig (or a cockroach, for example) this is not so bad as to become a monkey. So that we are afraid to get to know nearer our monkey traits, but this does not eliminate them at all.      And it is not only this that we hide from ourselves, this what we also don't like to acknowledge (and to which truth I have come only after the democracy began to reign in our country, because the communists did not allow us to show also our simplicity, it was not so respected as nowadays) is that we just "die" for somebody to deceive us! Today these are all the media, the ads, and the politicians (and the so called public relations, or PR, cadres), which come on place of the church from the recent past (because the nature does not like empty places — she is, hmm, a lady, and always finds with what to fill her arisen niches), in what relation, I think, is pretty clear that in Slavonic the word pastor is also the shepherd (which is "pastir" there). Well, it turns out that this, that we want to be deluded, was a known Latin sentence (so from, roughly, 20 centuries), namely: mundus vult decipi, where, maybe, the only help that you might need in the translation of it is that "decipi" means to deceive. But still, from the point of view of the reasonable knowledge, it is better when one knows that he wants to be deluded, than otherwise, I think.      Together with the knowing of his differences, though, the self awareness helps one also to be aware of the others, because we have many common traits, and this now is clear that helps in our survival. Here is the moment to mention also the term reflexion, i.e. the reflexion of something in our thoughts, and to speak more precisely about levels of reflexion, where the zeroth level is that I only think something (until it turns out that how I sit and think so at the end I just sit, as the saying goes), the first level is that I think that he /she /it thinks, and so on, but usually the second level is already pretty high for the ordinary member of a given group. In any case, at least the first level in necessary, and it is used by all people working with clients, where, maybe, it would not be superfluous to give the first concrete advice: don't think that you can outsmart one organization or system! For example, to outsmart some merchant of shopkeeper — not only because they are professionals and you a mere laic, but rather because they have more information than you, they monitor the sales, and even if they are not very good in the arithmetic (and they surely are more clever than a housewife), they feel what they do (as a driver uses to drive the car reflexively, without thinking). So that if they offer you something very cheap, in your view, then comply with the proposal, but buy just a little, not very much, because if you decide then and there to make the big coup you will almost always make an error! Similarly also with some bank, which will "die" to propose to you some new conditions for deposits, but with the principal goal (in addition to the wish to attract new clients) to force you to cancel an existing deposit and in this way to lose something (for the banks gain only by the differences in some margins, as is also with the changing of money, so that if they can make you to react in a hurry and make a mistake, this is a net win for them). Or to look for something persistently, say, for peppers to make pickles in the autumn — when you search something then you will find the offer, but on a pretty high prices (the supply is according to the demand).      Well, to the question with the pickles we will return later, and now let us remark that the things, naturally, are related one with the other, so that here we touch to the question of moderation, as well as to our next advise: be very careful when you are part of the system (but under the conditions of real market you are always part of it)! In this case this means that changing the demand you will change also the prices, and not only that you will nor, in a long run, help much yourself, but will also hinder the others. If you have not market behavior — and the Bulgarian still, for whole 20 years, could not succeed to learn to react reasonable to the market — then you will only lose; the market, for its part, will find a way to better the things. The Bulgarian continues to hoard things under the impact of fearing neurosis (that something will disappear from the market), he does not buy when it is cheap, because waits for it to become cheaper, but some time goes and it gets and turns more expensive, and exactly then he rushes to buy (expecting for it to become more expensive), and one more time becomes duped. He simply has learned to buy ... at high prices, what is a kind of madness. On the market one must buy when there is some cheap offer, but diminish the acquiring when the prices go up — according to the (Bulgarian) sentence: when they offer you — take, and when they drive you away — run! Or, for example, some company sees that it has many clients and decides that now is the moment to increase its gain (because when it loses nobody of its clients goes to it to help it with some money, right?) and for that purpose it worsens the conditions (say, if this is a bank it lessens the interest rates — you couldn't have missed to notice that the more sought a bank is the lower its rates for deposits are), and in spite of this its clients don't diminish in their numbers but continue to increase, so that it is left with nothing else as to continue in this direction as long as possible, i.e. until its clients at last decide to change their behaviour.      Let us expand a bit this question. By unreasonable reaction of the customers happens something like, for to give more illustrative example, when bathing under the shower you want to make the water warmer and increase the inflow of hot water, but being impatient you forget about the inertness of the system — one more rule — and turn the valve more and more open, until there flows out scorching water, when you begin to turn the valve backward and come to freezing water (where there are no problems for some of your neighbours above or below you also to worsen the situation). The market, obviously, is an inertial system, so that don't impede it, but wait first a little for it to take its measures and just then act also you; if a tradesman has much of some merchandise he will lessen its price, and vice versa, but when the price goes down then take this in consideration and buy a bit, because everybody needs regular income (when can provide it). Well, there are other things to be said but maybe it suffices for the moment.      1.3. The good bad world      Here we will say something about the Eastern theosophy, but have in mind, please, that the things are expressed pretty fragmented, because this philosophy is unknown by us (and, up to a big extent, also to the author). But it is useful for everybody to have some idea about it because, as it looks in this times, it may prove to be more vital than the Greek-Latin one, to say nothing about the Christianity, which has begun to lose positions nowadays; it was also the one that has brought the ancient Greeks to their views in old times (via the Persians and Arabs). So for example in the Buddhism is stated that our real world characterizes with three negations, namely in it: nothing is constant, nothing is perfect, and nothing is isolated! As you see, the biblical conception about the Creation looks like fairy tale for children — you may listen to it if you like it, but God forbid to begin to believe in it. Besides, the Eastern theosophy is so called because it contains not only philosophizing and ploughing of sands (say, whether the matter was before the divine idea, or vice versa; or how God the Father looks, and, in particular, how many hairs has He in His beard), but concepts about the world, life, and gods (i.e. religion, surely, but also morality, and science too, as much as science could have existed in the antiquity, working mainly with qualitative categories, on the level of ideas, not with quantitative laws). Where the Western philosophy, to put it more scientifically (I am citing an encountered phrase in English), is "overly cerebral & inadequately addressing the non-rational dimensions of life"; i.e. it isn't suitable for common citizen, in the same way as the Christian religion can't withstand any logical or scientific verification (and even the contemporary science fiction ideas about parallel universes have started from ancient "Upanishads").      But let us return to the three no-s. This, that nothing is constant, is the ancient Greek phrase: "Παντα ρει, παντα κινειται." (All flows, all changes); this, that nothing is isolated (together with the impermanence, dynamics), leads us to the dialectical unity; and this, that nothing is perfect, can be seen in Greek religion (where the gods quarrel and fight like us, humans; but the Christian religion with its "good God" has no logical ground at all, it is entirely "sucked from the finger", as we say). In the Buddhism exists the term adavaita, meaning literally that nothing can be taken apart or divided, all is one whole thing (and, if you like: the matter and the God-idea; or the above expressed idea that the we are in the God, together with the whole World). Or to mention one interesting Buddhist myth, about this how the whole Universe was created: as emanation of the ... bowels of the god Thatagata (whose name can easily be split in two names: of some Θεοσ /Theos as "Tata"-father (in Bulgarian children jargon tata is like papa-fathy), plus something that we all like to ... get (gepja as Bulgarian jargon, or German get /got, where is their Got, respectively English God), i.e. this proto-deity has just "left a pigeon", as we say. But at the same time this sounds scientifically and isn't much away from the theory of initial blast (The Big Bang)!      Otherwise in the Buddhism there are chiefly three gods: Brahma, Vishnu (with Krishna as one of his incarnations; also Rama is again he), and Shiva. But more interesting is that these names are present in many words around the world, mostly by the Slavs, where: Brahma makes the things to "bråmchat"-buzz, he is the main god and has made the world; Vishnu is the "vårshitel"-doer, he makes the things to "vertet"-rotate, performs the maintenance (this function is missing at all in the Christian idea); and Shiva makes us to ... shiver, or "shibaet"-hits us with some stick when we behave badly, he is the destroyer; similarly also the name of Buddha (who is not a god, as much a Mohamed isn't) means that he awakens (exactly "budit" in Russian, or "budya" in Bulgarian) the people (well, he tries to arouse us but we don't want it), makes us to think and to become conscious. However, let us not divert more our attention with names, but I want to stress on another important (for our life) conclusion, that everything is just! This is so because everything is connected and contradictory, and if for one it seems bad, then for another one it is good, ergo, it is neither good, nor bad, but exactly well measured, justified. This view both, force us to be patient (which is the goal of each religion, but also of each system of rules), and does not prevent us from trying to change something if we can (because nothing is constant, nor perfect). This leads us to the known (for the former socialist countries, I think, from one book of Kurt Vonegut) pray, that says: God, give me strength, to endure this what I can not change, courage, to change this what I can, and wisdom, to distinguish one thing from the other! As you see, this is a pray to God, but it is also a philosophy of life.      From the three negations we come also to the following cardinal conclusion, that out life is the best of all possible alternatives, i.e. the things have settled dialectically so as they are, and if it was possible somehow different, then it would have happened so, or, generally, what happens, it happens motivated and justified. But when everything happens as it can and must happen, and each different variant would have been worse, then we come to some highly polemical situations, for example that: the atomic bomb over Hiroshima was the only possible decision; or the coming of Hitler to power was the best decision; similarly with Stalin; or that the communism, no matter that we renounced it, was the best decision for its time and place; and thousands similar cases. And if one begins to think it will, maybe, turn exactly so, only with some stipulations, that we must not go into details (say, the bomb could have been thrown over the Mount Fujiyama, Hitler could have been named Hans Grobman, for example, and to seize the power two years later, etc.). This is in accordance with one Bulgarian shopsky (around Sofia) saying that "What is needed it is forced by itself". This is also in unison with the former pray, and it looks logical. In other words, although the life is very complicated and there always will be found someone to shiba-hit us and inflict on us something bad (and if there is no one nearby, then we alone can make ourselves harm), the life, still, is maximally good.      [This is up to certain extent like the assertion that the democracy is a bad thing but till the moment we have not found something better; yeah, but it is a bad thing, where, if one has listened to our ardent members of UDF (Union of the Democratic Forces) in their time, then we, having come to the democracy, is nearly the same as to have got the dear Got by the ... — well, by what one can grasp a man, right? And exactly then our problems began. And in addition to this the democracy is not of the things over which we can not exercise influence, and nobody forced us to make it so right-wing, i.e. to return in the rough capitalism of before half a century, so that now we must wait more or less another such period (because 20 years have already passed and we have come only to the "wry plum", as we in Bulgaria say, i.e. in a blind alley), in order to reach again the same (low) standard of life. Because the West, imposes on us justified economical requirements for the contemporary world, such that there may exist dynamics and evolution (the East, too, i.e. the Russians led by Gorbachev, also have seen this in their time, and in other then socialist countries likewise), and which must be common with theirs, but they will not begin to solve our social problems, why should they? The social questions are task for each of the countries, to be solved according with the specific conditions there, and this that we have not yet grasped "What is socialism and has it ground in Bulgaria? (there was before a century such booklet by the founder of our socialist party in 1891, Dimitar Blagoev) — well, this is our problem.]      But to finish with this, that the world is not perfect — which word, let be in clear, is twin (in the Slavonic languages) with accomplished, performed ("swårshen" and "såvårshen" in Bulgarian), i.e. it is not yet finished, it continues, what is so also in the Latin where "perfect" means bygone and accomplished, and that is why Vishnu and Shiva were necessary —, but it is also the best of possible ones (the parallel universes). It remains only to add that the world (or the Creation) is also arbitrary, in order to have contemporary meaning (where it isn't impossible for it to be created by whatever gods we want and again with the usage of arbitrariness, i.e. there are no reasons — no matter that the Christian Church fears like "the devil the incense" the idea of arbitrariness and /or evolution — to think that we know how to make arbitrary events — like throwing of coins, for example — but our omnipotent God does not know such elementary things; is he a God or a "head of onion"?). Or to cite the cardinal idea of the probability theory that: the arbitrariness is necessary, and the necessity is arbitrary!      Well, such is the world and in it we must survive, and the more poor one is, the more efforts one has to apply in order to survive, so that let us consider now the basic strategies for accomplishing of this goal. 2. Strategies for survival      They also are not so much, may be counted on fingers and are, broadly speaking, known long ago, but as far as are of principal importance we must not jump over them.      2.1. Divide and conquer (divide ed impera)      Hardly can be found an adult who has not heard about the famous Latin (and, hence, old Greek and even older) rule "divide and conquer" (and similarly in other languages), which works practically without fail in various situations. It is expressed in such useful dividing of some task in parts, so that the simpler things can be performed easier or with bigger profit, or the very parts (if they are animated) to begin to mess one with the other and in this way to help us to retain the power or to increase our dividends.      For example, if it goes about investing of money (respectively about buying of shares), then it should not be bought all in one heap, but to be divided: on one hand by currencies (making of currency basket), on other hand by banks (in order not to lose all our money at once), and also according to the accessibility (liquidity) of the money (or of the duration of deposits). One exemplifying scheme for deposits is more or less the following: the half (or maybe 2/3) of the money you invest in two-three banks, divided in pair of currencies (now these are US dollars and euros) for a quite long term (normally an year, but maybe also for two or three years), in order to gain maximal profit, where the dates of the deposits diverge on smaller and equal periods (three months is the best variant); then the half of the left half (circa 1/4 to 1/5 of all the money) invest in our main currency (although here also is possible to divide the sum in a pair of currencies) in other banks for a short term (usually monthly); and the left quarter (or 1/5) you keep on demand or in a current account (or with a card for ATM, or in two accounts, because the current account is with practically zero percent interest) in another bank (for quick access). In this way you can periodically add or withdraw money from the long term accounts, and have a good liquidity for running costs; the only problems here are to have enough time to do this (say, once in a month to go to a bank), as well as to be able to divide the whole sum in so many parts (because usually for each deposit exists minimal amount). But don't allow yourself to be caught on the "hooks" of the banks that, for example: there is no need to make 4 yearly deposits by 3 months when you can make one for a term of 3 months and have the same access (because the interest will be different), or that in the moment you can get for a 3-months deposit the same percent as for an annual one (because this, surely, is only temporary and in this way you will never succeed to "weave" you basket), and other tricks. In addition to this you must always be ready, if the bank decides to change drastically the interest rates, to abandon it and go to another one, but, as I have said, not panic-stricken, but when the term of your deposit expires. And if your have a lot of money then you may buy also shares, or movable property (cars, caravans, yachts), or unmovable one, as well also [the democracy allows you this, doesn't it?] banks (or at least chares of banks), gas stations, islands in the tropics (maybe also parcels on the Moon, but I personally don't advise you to do this because you will not live long enough to make use of them), or space shuttles.      This strategy is applicable not only for banks, nothing hinders you, for example, instead of one sexual partner, as we call it nowadays, to have a pair of them, so that when you quarrel with the one then to go to the other. Or to have two cars (one for working days, the other for holidays, and maybe also one caravan — the people on the West do exactly this), or several homes (our politicians often do so), or several parcels of land (for a garden, for a vineyard, also for the son or the daughter), and other similar variants. On the whole, the principle is clear, but you must also understand that it is invented for big powers /owners; applied on a small scale this often wastes your time , and in many cases you fall below the threshold of its reasonable use. Where the big owner wins largely because of it! (Surely not because of much brains or sales skills, because if he is a big owner then he elementary will buy himself other capable persons who will do the work for him — this is called proof of the contrary, if you don't know. And this, that many powerful man — businessman or politicians, which most often then not are both things —, assert that the able always succeeded — well, somebody must deceive you somehow in order to make you work for him with enthusiasm; the big fishes need the smaller ones, otherwise what will they eat, the poor things?)      Said in another way, the big owner profits from one thing and loses from another, but under a progressive, as a rule, in most cases and periods of time, evolvement the business goes on, so that, as a whole, or integrally looked at the things, he (even if he is incompetent) wins. But the curious moment in the case of big-scale property (and this what psychologically motivates it) is that a large number of people who are absolutely sure that they will never own something really big (money or other substantial property) are the first who shout that they want it, and fight to make it possible; the indisputably reach ones just wait peacefully, they may even have pro-socialist convictions. And this is what makes this principle so stable: the very small fishes eat one another (because so much are their brains).      2.2. Counterflow principle      This is rather a technical principle, but I think that it also was known from ancient times. It maintains that in various cases is useful to move against the main flow (here of the demand), or on the contrary to the mob. For example: not to look for tomatoes for preservation when all look for the same, or eggs on Easter, or, say, slender girls in the Western countries, et cetera, but to search something else which is to be got almost for nothing (say, girls with pear-shaped bodies in this countries, or then, if we are somewhere on the East, then there to search French-type women). This is not something especially difficult, and taking into account that in most cases this is a matter of taste, or of time and place, then we must modify our tastes according to the supply and demand, or wait for the proper time to come. (In relation to the possible shifting of some official holidays or traditions in this way: well, I don't say that we must not celebrate Easter, or New Year, etc., but rather that we should not overdo the things on these dates, besides one easily becomes fed with everything (how earlier we have become tired of all the marches and manifestations), but instead of this to add  some new, personal, holidays, when nobody will hinder us to look for whatever we want, and having in mind that on such days we will celebrate but the others won't, then we may even like this. For example I propose (and have proposed to some of my friends, but they did not take it seriously and for a long time) to celebrate all the dates with equal day and month — some of them are already celebrated officially, but most of them are not (say: 4.4, 5.5, 6.6, etc.). Or to celebrate birthdays (or other important for us days) each month on the given day (or at least twice in an year); or starting from certain date to add each time one and the same number (e.g. 17, or 33, or as you like it) and then to celebrate again; or just to choose from time to time some day for a holiday, or like an imitation of the menu of known holiday, or something of the kind.)      And what concerns the searching by everyone of one and the same things, which are not in their season, so I personally can't grasp why people widely buy tomatoes and cucumbers during the winter (to say nothing about marrows, or strawberries, or something exotic in this time), and don't wait till the proper time comes, because it is pretty clear that such out-if-season goods have not grown by normal conditions, they are either out of greenhouses, or mutants, or both, and don't have the taste of natural ones (this is, maybe, as if to look for 40-year-old virgin, just because this rarely happens). Earlier, when there were not such alternatives, we searched not fresh tomatoes in the winter, used different sorts of pickles, and we have come to nothing bad (say, the raki still tasted good to us); and, generally, I don't think that if something is possible it has always to be done, such behaviour usually is an indication for insufficient maturity of the person, unless he has the excuse to just have not what to do with his money. So that in similar cases, when the main current flows not in the right direction (something is not healthy, or is luxurious, or even harmful — as the narcotics are, for example) is entirely motivated to move in counterflow; even if this is only for economies, even then this might prove a good strategy, because it is not excluded that the new tastes have also some other advantages (in the next chapter I will give some examples about strange tastes).      But then, taking into account that the tastes of the masses in the majority of cases are a result of momentary delusion or vogue, as also this, that the searched thing, at least in Bulgaria, often is of deteriorated quality (because the people don't choose much but take it in a hurry), where by the promotion of some untypical product on the market it is made more painstakingly in order to conquer the market, and is also sold cheaper, then it will, maybe, turn out that if one moves counter the main flow (demand), he will in the most cases do the right thing! But mark, only while he is moving counterflow, because if one promoted product begins to be sought then it at once will either rise in price, and/or its quality will deteriorate, so that then you must quickly return to your old tastes. Well, you may find it uncomfortable incessantly to change your tastes, because people (and animals, too) like their habits, especially the old people, due to the fact that the stereotypical behaviour is easier (one has not to think and decide, hence, at least for this reason, one can not make an error), but for this reason the people (as also the animals) are caught exactly on stereotypes! The market is dynamical, just as the life is, and each participant in it must try to show the fastest possible adaptation, otherwise he is a loser, so that let me give the next advice to you: change your habits according to the conditions.      And it turns out that on this place it is appropriate to say something about the advertisements. They obviously (despite of my disliking) are useful for the business, and it is useful for the people, so that, in general, they are in the interest of the population, but, still, in some limits, where in this connection I would have raised the slogan: the use of advertisements leads to stupidity! I am against them because they contradict to my aesthetical disposition and are exceedingly vulgar — but each nation deserves its ads (as well as its rulers, by the way), and they, the ads (and the rulers), in different countries, really, are quite different — but they also are paid by the client (first by the companies, but, ultimately, by the buyers, who restore to the firms their expenses for advertisements, in some way similarly to the returning of the VAT tax to the state!), i.e. the ads increase the cost of the goods, and because of this are not good for poor countries, more so in conditions of stagnation or crisis (and we, maybe, have still not exited the crisis since the time when we turned down our former communist boss "uncle Tosho"). Under a normal economy and well-off population, which just wonders how to spend their money (or, as another criterion for prosperity, spends on food only 10 to 20% of their income — and for us this figure surely is above 50%), they may not be so bad, they enliven the life, but not in countries as ours. Though, as the folk says, there is a blessing in disguise, so that (due to the dialectical connecting of the things) from the ads can be derived some benefit, if one has enough brains to use them accordingly. What I have in mind is that there are advertised only products which are not demanded (otherwise nobody would have made efforts to increase their cost, for to diminish with this the demand), and, as I have said, they increase the price, hence, the advertisements may be used as excellent indicator for this, what one should not buy — clear and simple, isn't it? Put it in another way, if we don't know where the main flow is, so these are the ads, and, hence, the counterflow is against them. Until we all begin to react in a similar way to that rubbish, till that time they (the companies and the ads) will make us crazy (when we like this), so that everything is a matter of taste.      2.3. The unity makes the power      This slogan surely has been clear to the ... monkey before it has descended from the tree; we have it above our National Assembly (our Parliament) but don't pay any attention to it (but maybe that is why we have it as a slogan, because we don't pay any attention to it), we have also the parable about the bunch of sticks and our khan Kubrat (in the 7th century, who had shown to his sons how easy it is to break one stick, but how difficult it is when they are many, to teach them not to oppose one against the other), which was very old because here is the ... fascism, for fascis in Latin means a bunch of sticks (which burn and then say "fss"), but while for the West these sticks just burn and the people are enjoying this (they fascinate themselves, made fiestas and Fashings), for us they are, maybe, symbol for clubbing the buttocks, I don't know, but we never think for uniting under some idea (especially now, in the democratic times). Well, the bunch of sticks surely isn't always something good, the fascism, for example, turned out to be one big .. fishek, as the Turks say (a firecracker)! But to jump to the other end also is not a great merit, is it? And the idea for uniting really is very old because we live in a world of the strong, and the only possibility for the weaker to become stronger is to unite with another human, feeble as himself and having similar views to the things as he has. This (as if communist) idea, but in another form and with other words, turns out that have existed also on the ... American one-dollar bill, where is pictured a Masonic pyramid and is written in Latin "E Pluribus Unum", what surely means something like "to make unity out of plurality".      So that everything is clear, only that we don't act properly. We don't like to unite not because this is a communist slogan, no (for we are such people for a ling time, since centuries before the communism), we are just a bit wilder tribe — sorry, sorry —, or, put it more properly, we have no social feeling. This may have its advantages, sometimes, because we have a powerful gene, and this may be good in a planetary scale (i.e.: for the world it is good, but for us is bad!), but we like just to harm one another. But divided the people can survive harder, i.e. we pay greater social price. This social feeling, in my view (but I have heard such definition also from others), is not so much matter of eastern or western view, as of dividing north - south; I want to say that on the north, where the living conditions are more difficult and the survival is harder, there the people help one another better (have you, occasionally, heard about: 15-years-long Eskimo War, or the Great Aleutian Battle, or Chukchi-Eskimo War — well, I haven't, because there were not such things), where on the south (under, say: Greeks, Italians, Spaniards, Georgians, Arabs, Persians, Hindus, Gypsies, and others), where one can feed oneself only tearing some fruit or killing an animal, and sleep in the open, there one does not much help to the other people around, because this is not especially necessary. Well, this is so, but if we have problems in our survival then we are forced to help one another.      And we, since the coming of our democracy, have even more neglected the social cares and simply instances, where one can fulfill something important for living, say: to eat up a cheap tripe soup (or onion soup for the West), to sleep the night in a cheap hostel, to wash his clothes in some public point, et cetera. We have not more even public baths! Precisely since someone bought our central mineral bath in Sofia and it ceased to work more. To say nothing about the 10-fold increase of the prices of public transport , or the central heating, or the electricity. [Now one transport ticket in Sofia is 1/2 euro, and in Europe it is one euro, but the minimal salary in Bulgaria is 130 euros, in 2010, where in the European Union one can not find a country where it is less than 500-600, and in the normal countries it is about 2000.] Yet these are known things.      But can we alone do something? Well, in principle we can, for example: a pair of neighbouring families buy together one washing machine, divide its price in correspondence with the number of people in each family, use it for 4-5 years, till it does amortize quickly, and in this way each economizes about the half of its price (because an appliance wears also if it is not used, just aging; especially the washing machine begins to crack if it is not used for more than a week, and goes out of fashion when there pass more than 10 years; I would have proposed to use in the same way also the wives, respectively the husbands, but there have left no more families, so that I don't know to tell this to you or not to tell); similarly may be proceeded also with the cars (for those who have them), or (what I know is done on the West) several people go to work with one car, dividing the expenses (for two persons it, still, turns more expensive than the public transport, only the third person makes it suitable for use), but it isn't right to have a car and use it only to go once in summer to the sea, or to drive it a pair of times in month to go to the village; and surely other ways for economizing, but, of course, it is better if there are some common premises in the basements of the blocks (and they usually are present) and to use them for washing and drying machines, maybe for sterilizing pickles, an so on (but they are not used in Bulgaria; in the other countries, though, it is mot so).      2.4. Search the alternative      This isn't some special strategy, but it is good to have it in mind in order to provide rapid reaction, i.e. one has always to have a "plan B", alternative product to buy when this, what he is looking for, is missing, or it is much more expensive in the moment (say: meat, chickens, sausages, and eggs; or rice, noodles, and potatoes; or cabbage, marrows, green beans; or common oil, olive oil, lard, butter, margarine; and so on). We know this, usually, but despite of it stubbornly try to find this, what we have decided to buy, no matter what are the prices. And to explain also that the very word "alternative" starts from the Latin alter, what means another, but also older one (in different languages, say in German), i.e. the new variant is just one (well forgotten) old. This, in its turn, tells us that we often have here a cyclical process, what simplifies the choice, because we just return to something old.      Well, let us say that with this we have exhausted general life truths and strategies, and to proceed to some concrete advises. II. SURVIVAL IN URBAN CONDITIONS      But let me warn you from the start that here it goes not about this how to find where to sleep in a town if you have not money for a hotel, or how to travel gratis in the tram, or how to cheat somebody or fake something. It is first of all about some methods and tricks for economy in the house, for feeding and preparing supplies for winter, as also about using of untypical foods and wild grasses and fruits, because, as I have said, when one has low standard of live his primary problem is his sustenance, and even in a town (or around it) may be found what to gather that can be used as food (the Russians name this "gathering of what lies in the feet", switching to feeding like in pasture, as the wild pigs do; but this must not mean that one can't find something tasty in this way, or at least useful, as you will see); at the end there are also some pieces of advice about leading of healthy life. In other words, we take for granted that the readers have a home, yes or not as regards the paid work or pension, but have enough free time and want to economize in what they can (because they must do this, or even to fill their time), or, alternatively looked at the matter, want to eat something natural, not from "chemical-and-food" industry. 1. Economies at home      About the economies, and because this has become lately a major trick in advertising, let us warn the readers that at least in 95% of the cases when someone (with the exception of yours truly, of course) speaks about economies, then this means exactly the opposite, new expenses! (In general, no one ad must be taken in its face value — at least until the opposite is proved.) For example, many are the people who now renovate their homes from the outside so that to be seen from afar that they can allow this, but the neighbour around, above, or below them can not. Well, if you just have money in excess, which if you will not spend for something lasting then will eat and drink them up, then, of course, good cheer in the sanitation, but don't think that you save something in this way, because you can put interior insulation wallpapers, which are only 4 mm thick and do the same work, and they will cost you about 10 times less (because the price for a square meter outside sanitation is about 20 euros — I will translate all prices in euros, in the year of narration, also in other places —, and of the wallpaper is maybe one and a half euro, anyway, there are rolls of 5 m2 for 5 euros, if I am not in error). In addition to this do also another arithmetic: when you give about 700 - 1000 euros for such renovation, and if it will spare you by 30 - 40 euros in an year (because I don't think it will be more, you'll see) then this gives repayment for about 25 years (if not more), and to that time this thing will hardly last, or you will want to make something new and better, or will not live to that time, or, God forbid, the building may fall down — in fact, nothing is planed for a period longer than 10 - 15 years ahead.      Or a similar economy of circa 10 percent (questionably) from replacing the window frames with aluminum, which costs (roughly) for one window more than the central heating for the whole apartment for an year (or the entire glazed area will give a bit more than the above sanitation. Or installing of floor heating (especially in a central heated home, where you always pay something, even if you have cut out the radiators), and similar bamboozling (say, that the energy saving light bulbs, which are 10-15 times more expensive, but nobody guarantees you that they will work longer then 2-3 common ones, and economize per about 1/2 eurocent per hour — calculate: if it saves you 50 watts, i.e. if it is 12 watts instead of 60, and if the price of the electricity is 10 eurocents per kWh, and in the moment it is 9 cents on the average, for a whole day it gives more or less the same —, so that for 3 years the bulb will be roughly repaid if you use it for an hour per day, but if you switch it on only for 15-20 min., then this gives again 10 years or so; had it cost as much as 2 common bulbs one might have tried it, but the situation isn't such). But if you want to live in a modern home and can afford this — well, that's another matter.      So, and now about some of the communal expenses.      1.1. Central heating      We begin with it because it is the most expensive (150 - 200 euro in an year for a two-room flat of about 60 m2). Here it is right to start with this that, want we it or not, but the very method of calculating of the consumption, approved with normative acts and undisputed by anybody, is ... rotten, because it does not conform with the personal devices for measuring of the consumption! It does not conform because there is a big part (about 55%) of the consumption, which goes for the whole building, but there pure and simple is no other heating equipment for heating of the structure, they are the same devices (the radiators in the rooms and the riser pipes in the bathrooms), that heat the building and give the heating of the whole structure (there can't be spoken about common premises, because at least in the building entrance where I live in such places — in the staircase areas — the radiators were cut out and taken away for many years). Such double counting might have been a big mistake but it isn't so — just the method is erroneous — because the electricity is counted for 0.038 euro /kWh (it varies a bit each month, I don't know why), where otherwise its average price in the moment (of writing of the material) by me is around 0.085 euro /kWh (so that, if the actual consumption for the whole structure is 45% from the given, then 0.45 * 0.085 = 0.03825 euros, or again the same value that they use for the electricity price); the calculations in general turn to be the same (and the expenses of those who heat their flats only by electricity are not twice cheaper, surely), but this is not the correct calculation (it is as if faked, in order to produce the same expenses for the various ways of heating).      Yeah, but this sabotages the individual measurement, because if the half of the expenses (roughly speaking) come from the cubature of the dwelling and can't be personally changed, and from the other part for heating of the property again about a half (usually a bit more then this, but let us not be so precise) goes to the riser pipes, which also can't be individually regulated, then it turns out that this, what can be regulated, is just 1/4 of the whole consumption; put it in another way, this means that if someone (like me, for example) saves about 40% (what is not at all little, I'll tell you, but I live alone and during the winter stay only in the kitchen and don't heat the two rooms) then this will express itself in 10% economy of the whole consumption (what in its turn is not at all much). In money equivalent this means that hardly somebody will gain (respectively spend more) than 20-30 euros per year for the same 2-room flat. Having in mind that by individual metering something must be paid also to the firm doing this (it is not charitable organization, and the company providing the heating does not want to do this measuring), which sum for the present is about 10 euros, then it seems that the people are right raising the question, why was it necessary at all to go to this individual measuring? And the curious moment is that this time, too, the answer is paradoxical (because nothing in Bulgaria is like in other countries), namely that this measuring was needed in order to make us to economize, how it really happened (because otherwise everybody would have forced the heating to the maximum, to avoid being a loser).      But these were things mainly for information (of those for whom the knowledge is of some use). Now some more concrete (though not new) recommendations. First, make you window frames thicker, from this job can be saved from 5 to 10% (there are different types of sealing, or you may seal the frames with common adhesive tape, which in the spring have to peal off — in the "unbreakable Union of the Free Republics", USSR, before some 40 years, they sold special paper tapes that were glued to the frames with usual flour starch), and most importantly: don't open the windows! In any case, I don't open them at all, there is an air hole in the bathroom, as also a chimney in one of the rooms that may also be used as outlet, so that there are no problems. Well, if one wants to smoke in the room, especially in the bed, then it is more difficult, but he can do this in the bath. And in addition to this keep a pair of flower pots with good leaves (ficus, lemon, laurel tree) in each room, and in this way, at least when the sun shines, you will have purification of the air. And maintain constant temperature about 18º in the rooms, and where you sleep even 16º, using sleeping bag or warm blankets; this means also that there is no need to incessantly turn the regulator back and forth — you will not save much in this way, but can even lose more (if you forget to turn it down when going out), neither will have one and the same temperature, and may happen that you jump to the other end, i.e. you increase because it has become colder, but in the substation also increase the heating because they have automatic regulation, respectively when you turn it down, in short: unneeded headaches. The only inconvenience is, that 18º is not very comfortable temperature, but it is healthy! [The democracy, in some cases, has its advantages, when makes us do something useful for us, say, to give up the cigarettes, and similar things.] If you build now your own home then, maybe, it will be better to install floor or wall heating, or local gas heating (as they do around the world), but if you live in a home with central heating then better keep still and adjust to it. And make your calculations, because the heating company gives that one degree was equal to 6% heating, so that if you live by 18o instead of normally accepted 20o you will save at least 10%, but if you can endure by 15-16o then you will reduce the consumption with 1/4.      Ah, one more thing: If out of the central heating we can not escape, then the hot water we can economize as much as we want. At the moment the heating of one cubic meter (and as cold water separately) costs about 2.5 euros and by an average consumption per person by 2 m3 this gives 5 euros monthly (summer and winter) per capita, so that from it may be saved. Well, I don't say not to bathe, but if you only bathe once in a week (by 30 l, or 3 buckets of warm — hot by me it never becomes — water) this makes about 150 l per person, or (if you add some more for to wash a thing) nearly 10 times less. And is this possible — well, I do this several years now (wash the dishes with cold water). Though here the things depend on the neighbours and the size of the family, i.e. if when you turn the hot water on and after 1/2 - 1 liter it reaches at least 40º, then it may be used for washing of dishes, but when you are forced to drain at least 10 l, then — no passaran. As far as I remember there were once talks about installing of double-tariff water meters for hot water, that are to measure it as hot only if its temperature was above 36º (how it was somewhere on the world), but the things did not move, because we are Bulgaria, so that judge for yourself. But let me mention also that using, as much as it is possible, of cold water is healthy, especially for washing of the face and hands in the morning (and the right way was even to wash and rub your face with a bath towel, what I personally have seen once in a student dormitory in Germany). So that here also one can benefit from the inconvenience, if one looks for a benefit.      1.2. Electricity      It is supposed to be less than the heating, but not much, if you count it for an year (as it must be done), so that here also can be made some recommendations. The simplest is: act according to the seasons, i.e. cook more meals during the winter, especially in the oven (stews, casseroles, pastries, cookies, breads, and so on — for example baked potatoes), because it has a large volume and is difficult to warm; where in the summer do chiefly with lighter food: our so called tarator soup of yogurt, cheese, tomatoes, sausages, what, anyway, people usually do. Whatever you cook then, ultimately, the used for the cooking energy goes to the environment, it surely is not absorbed by some chemical reaction with the food (or at least I think so). It is natural also to economize using pressure cooker, or heating of the water in the middle (easier with water heater), or using microwave oven for what it is suitable. (I have to tell you that sometimes I make my morning tea ... on the sun, but this is rather for the sake of experiment. It would be nice to use also alternative energy sources, such as wind power — at least to warm, without maintaining some stable voltage — but for the moment I can't see a real use of this in Bulgaria, or some system with a mirror — parabolic, I think — for warming by the sun, but it is hardly worth the "gunpowder"; where using of solar panels is something positively good, especially if they are flexible and one can stick them on the windows during the summer — they both, shade, and give current — but for this we will have to wait until they become cheaper enough.)      Also to tell you that in the summer the biggest consumer at home becomes ... the refrigerator! I personally have measured (with electric meter) that an average refrigerator of 250 l and with freezer spends usually (measured for a whole month, for to eliminate the fluctuations) about 0.7 kWh daily but in the winter, where in the summer it reaches 1.4 kWh or twice much; in money equivalent this gives for us 6 eurocents in winter (or ... half an egg) and 12 cents in summer (a bit more than an egg). Together with this, however, the refrigerator also heats the room. From what follows that, if you are alone (or even for two persons), regarding the economies, is better to turn out the fridge at least during March - May, and September - November (because in this time the average outside temperature is about 5-10ºС, or how much it is in the fridge), in the winter (December - February) keep it on to heat your home (for comfort, but also not to open a terrace, if that is where you store the food), and during the summer — if you want then stop it, or if not then don't (because then is when you most need it).      1.3. Other communal expenses      Another cost in your home is the telephone, where is clear that who can must close his stationary phone, but the point is that the system is to wait: when many people close them then they, more that certain, will become cheaper (because there is no reason why I have to pay by 10 eurocents per min for calls within the same city, and if I walk 200 m away from home to be able to speak with USA or China for the same amount). [Well, in Bulgaria almost in every democratic change there is no reason, but that's the situation. For information, let me remind to the readers that in totalitarian years was paid by 2 cents of that time for a call, however prolonged it was (the norm being 15-20 min), and within the limit of 50 or so calls per month even by one cent per call; and don't think, please, that the prices are incomparable because at that time, for example: one egg was worth 13 cents, a kilo pork was 5.60, one bread was 40 cents, etc., where on the average this gives that the prices of the food products now (but in new levs) are circa 1.5 up to 2 times maximum higher (and one lev is 0.5 euro, so that this gives that now the prices in euros are a bit cheaper than in totalitarian times in totalitarian levs), but at the same time the communications now are 20-something times more expensive (say, a bus ticket was 0.06 levs and now it is 1.0 lev).] Together with the telephone may be mentioned also the letters and the city transport, but there all is clear: don't write letters (the Internet is more useful), and about the transport: find a company that will pay your transport (because with monthly pass is not good, but with ticket is also bad, and if one has a car then it is even worse, i.e. more expensive).      It remains also the cable TV and/or Internet, where I am not to advise you whatever (because up to my mind there is no one decent Bulgarian TV, but the other people watch all of them, especially the dumbest shows; and the Internet is simply a necessity). There is an interesting moment with the water, which is the most important (because just imagine that you have to stay each morning in a queue across two blocks around the third for to wash yourself, to bring two buckets of water for cooking, and to use also the toilet — how it is, say, in some camping sites), and it is the cheapest (about 5 times cheaper than the electricity). But maybe it is still early, when we wait some 10 years or so it will jump twice up, ah? 2. Food and preparing of winter supplies      Well, here I will not give you recipes about what to prepare for winter, not for these things that you do, maybe for something extraordinary, but about this I will speak in the next point. Here I will say first when to do this. Good, when you can do it, and when you find cheaper raw material. For example tomatoes may be put in jars at any time of the year, and in many cases in June - July you may find cheaper tomatoes, that are ideal for preserving (say, soft and juicy, not like the sort "for canning"); similarly also peppers, cabbage (with a pair of months earlier), or something else. It is not that the people don't know this, but there are two reasons why they don't behave in the right way: one is that they can't adjust themselves quickly, they stick to the tradition, and the other is that they think the jars can be spoiled and will not last till the winter. For the first, however, we have spoken, that it is useful to fight as often as possible with traditions which come out more expensive for us, and about the spoiling, this isn't true at all, because sterilized jars last very well up to 4-5 years. More than this, it is even right to keep canned things for 2-3 years (and I personally do so) because, as a rule, there do not happen two adjacent years with equal prices (especially in Bulgaria, where the aspirations of every producer is to "fill the throat", so that, having seen that the last year something was high-priced, he rushes to plant this year almost only this, and it both, in this year the yield is higher — because two adjacent identical years in climatic terms also don't happen —, and all producers think like him — moving with the main stream — and in result of this the prices fall twice; and the next year they don't plant and the prices go up).      Besides, although there are sold now many out-of-season foods, there is still better to can jars because in this way one will save up to 4-5 times, and the difference in taste (in my view) isn't in favour of what is out of season. For example: during the whole summer (at least from May till July or so) can be found cheap marrows (for 25 - 30 eurocents, or, say, 2-3 eggs per kg), which in the winter will be sold for 1.5 euro, right? And the canning is not expensive, I have measured it and have got that for one big jar (0.8 l) is spent circa 2.5 cents, or as much as the price of one jar cap (it isn't difficult to be calculated: if you sterilize in an usual deep tin of cheese (20 l) then in one level normally can be placed 4 jars, the water heater usually is 650 W or 2/3 kW, the water begins to boil for about an hour and will be sterilized for another 1/2 h, so that the entire time will become 3/2 h, or, as studied in primary school, 2/3 * 3/2 = 1 kWh, or about 10 eurocents).      What you do with tomatoes or marrows can be done also with cut peppers with little tomato sauce (adding to practically all dishes), with green beans (maybe boiled a bit before), with hot peppers with tomato sauce (or boiled a little in hot oil and closed without sterilizing, just how are heated), with the things about which we shall speak in the next point, with compotes, non lasting marmalades, and so on. Even if you decide to stop the refrigerator and in this way not to fill much the freezer (because otherwise, without switching it off at least for a day, you often forget what have put there, especially if several persons put in and take out things, and it becomes spoiled after an year or two), then you may sterilize food also for near use (as I said, only one day work of it in summer costs as much as the sterilizing of 4 jars!), or alternatively to salt vegetables (with salt and vinegar; I know some keep so parsley and dill). Generally, there surely are various ways for preserving of food because otherwise, having in mind that the refrigerators are from about 1/2 of a century, the people would have perished long ago.      So, for this, that in the shops you must buy when they offer you something cheap, and not when you have decided to search something, we have already spoken, as also about not overdoing whatever. Also don't allow yourself to be caught (or at least try not to) on different catches that you will win some prize, if you buy the products of certain company, or will accumulate some points (as the totalitarian interest-points for buying a home, which I still keep heaved but nobody gives me anything for them ), or that only in this shop they have launched something cheap (it is almost certain that if in one place something has fallen down in price then the same thing will happen in other one, too, only that it may pass some time for this to happen), and so on — when they offer you to win something more it is clear that somebody like you has to pay for it, and the probability for gain is surely less than, say, in the Lotto. Further, prefer to see the main ingredient of the product, not only to guess about it, at least in Bulgaria this is an important requirement — i.e. if meatballs and fresh salami (God forbid also pates) come out the same in the moment then give preference to the mincemeat (and if they are cheaper than the minced then they are even bigger fake; not that minced meat can't be faked, but then mince the meat yourself).      It is true that about the butter I can't give you advice (because the margarines have to be 4 times cheaper than the butter — it is so on the West, it was so by us before, too, — and they are only 2 times cheaper, besides, it turns out that with them you buy oil on three times higher prices — for they usually are with 40% fat, and if 1/2 kilo of such margarine costs 0.63 euros, than with normal content of 80% fat it has to be 1.25 euros, and respectively 1 kg makes 2.5 euros, what is about 3 l cooking oil; as also the lard must be cheaper than the oil, but in Bulgaria this is not so), but at least for mayonnaise I can give you an easy recipe, which surely makes it 3 times cheaper. It is the following: for one middle size egg is added 100 ml oil (if more than it may get botched) some grains citric acid, a pinch of salt, and run the blender for about 1/2 of a minute (the trick is to do this in a jar, where for 0.8 l you put 4 eggs, and leave 3 fingers place for not to spill over); I even prefer this one because it is sour, where the Bulgarian ranks of oil (or else some companies add something in order to make it cheaper, say, yogurt and starch).      And now let me do some philosophizing about the strange (untypical for us) tastes, because if you consume some alternative products you may gain by thus. For example, supposedly circa 90% of people (and I, too, was between them) think that if they do not add tomatoes to some meal then the dish will not get palatable, but this is not so. It is not so, if you want, only because of the fact that the tomatoes have come from America and up to 5 centuries before folks has used alternatives; but even not so much earlier, for two centuries ago tomatoes were sown only here and there with decorative purposes. This, with what they can be substituted, is clear, it is something else sour, like vinegar, especially natural obtained from fruits (and homemade, as I will explain at some time), or sour fruits, what for out climatic conditions are mainly ... wild plumbs (dzhanki in Bulgarian; otherwise this may be lemons or oranges). Another peculiarity is to put apples (grated or in chips) in some dish, or in pickles. Or to make raisins of ... mulberries. And some similar things, for which we shall speak in the next point, but which will cost you nothing. 3. Grasses, herbs and wild fruits      3.1. Nettle      The nettle, surely, all eat occasionally, but I am afraid that not enough often, and don't know how exactly, so that let me say a pair of sentences. For soup (or in the oven with rice), also of other green things, is important to have enough: oil, acid, onion, white cheese and/or yogurt, and ground nuts. It was impossible to be sterilized (I have not tried but believe in this), but it is easily dried (preferably roughly cut), where in this case it is not necessary for it to be barely grown, might be also one-two spans high, it is cut with knife and gloves, then the shoots are grouped in tufts and cut until the leaves ended and the stems are thrown away. Dried in this way nettle is good for a soup in the winter, but when there go even 10 years (it is not ... rusting) it may be rubbed with hands and made to flour. With adding of this flour one can make good soda bread (I have heard that the Germans make such bread but have not tried it personally), where I put also ground nuts (for more proteins), an egg is also welcome, and for raising use baking soda and vinegar (even don't add yogurt, although it will not make it worse). You can't imagine how palatable for one is this in winter (a pair of times in month), because the organism obviously knows what it needs. There are no problems to add from this flour to other dishes, too, like minced meat, curds, porridges, et cetera. (Do not forget that many animals eat nettle, and the peasants give it to the pigs, chickens, or what they keep in the courtyard.)      3.2. Dandelion      Now, such thing the Bulgarian does not eat (he is not so poor, ah?). The Greeks eat salad of dandelions, the Germans use it for soups and for what they can, only the Bulgarians stay "above the dandelion"! But it is not that we don't know that it is healing herb (hence, surely is not harmful), contains much vitamin C, strengthens the gums, and helps to digestion. The salad is made just cutting it, with green onions, maybe lettuce, too, a stalk of rhubarb or wild garlic (there is one called levurda, a Turkish name if you ask me), or whatever green and not poisonous thing one can find, but this if it is March and the herb is very young (then it is gathered by cutting to the root, with long knife and is cleared like lettuce); around April, or when it begins to bloom it becomes a bit bitter, so that in that time one can add only a pair of leaves, or to pour hot water above it and when cools then it is added to the salad; when later it can be steamed with hot water and drunk only the decoction (with the needed salt is really dainty, in addition to being very healthy). Soup is made in the same way as out of nettle, where for a change one may alternate them, once out of nettle, then of dandelion, or sometimes with both things (for stew with rice it isn't so suitable). There are no problems, however, to add a squeeze of it to each soup (out of chicken, veal, mushrooms, beans, or whatever) for greenery; in addition, it is good for sterilizing (circa 15 min) but for this purpose it must be still very young (if there happens a flower bud or two there is nothing alarming in this). It can be preserved (like also the nettle) raw in a jar with salt and vinegar, or in a freezer. In principle one may make also dandelion ... honey, but about this we will speak later (exactly this honey is not something unsurpassed in taste, but it is healing herb and if so I think that it is better to use some such herb even when one is not ill to have an explicit need of it — in order not to become so that he will need it, i.e. for not to become ill — because the herbs are broad-spectrum mediums, which may not help much, but they also don't harm).      3.3. Wild rhubarb      Also here I don't discover America, because the wild or monks rhubarb (lapad in Bulgarian, loboda in Russian) is even old-Greek λαπαθον, where (in my view) are two associative lines: the one is that it is good for ... gulping (lapam in Bulgarian, in jargon use), for filling of the throat or of some hole (for there is Greek λαπαρα as stomach, there is Latin labia as a mouth, and first of all not this one with which we eat, and other words); the other is that its leaves are big like a paw (lapa in Bulgarian, but the Germans have also heard the word because for them Fusslappen is the sole of a foot; also Lappen is a rag, tatter, but there the idea is that the wrist of the hand of the foot is torn — let us not indulge into details); besides, there is Russian lapsha as noodles (they are also ragged) and this word has come from Tartarian (where laksha meant small fragment of dough). Be it as it may, but this rhubarb is good for gulping and is alternative, or v.v., of the spinach. Not everybody will recognize it (there are other similar leaves), but having tried it a pair of times you will know it (the nettle also, come to think of this, can be confused). Well, it performs slightly loosening effect on the stomach, but sometimes this also is useful. And how to use it? All right, it is possible like the previously discussed green soups, but with more white cheese and to boil just for a pair of minutes; another variant is something cooked with rhubarb (also chicken, veal, turkey, maybe a lamb, too, and other good meats — it is not for pork); but maybe for pies (for our so called banitzas, as also the nettle, but is better than it) with cheese, milk, eggs, maybe boiled rice; or maybe to have a ready green mass (you first fry chopped onion, then add or not some dandelion, nettle, wild onion, grounded pepper — black, red, hot, sweet — and at the end the rhubarb and the salt), from which to take 2-3 soup spoons, and break an egg or two above. It may be sterilized, if you find that it is worth the effort, because it grows in abundance for 3 months in the spring (and a month in the autumn); and can be also put in the freezer, if one decides to honour it so.      3.4. Other green grasses      Well, there is the mentioned levurda-wild-garlic, but it grows higher, not in towns, and there is one wild onion (as also real wild garlic, because the levurda looks not like garlic). This last onion is like the green onion (and the garlic is like a garlic), with hollow tubular leaves, but under the ground has very small (with diameter of 2-3 mm) garlics, not onions, yet it is met here and there in our parks (the garlic, too) and can be recognized by this that during the winter (it does not freeze), when the grass everywhere is withered, you will see in some places fresh greenery. The point here is not in the economy but in its specific sharp taste and guaranteed purity (i.e. it has no nitrates, nobody will become to throw them in the parks). (I even succeeded to see this winter in one of our supermarkets to sell "wild onion from Greece", but surely at enormous prices.) There is also some wild cabbage, that has practically no flavor (but it is important not to be bitter, because the grass is bitter), and which somewhere was used for our banitza-pies (with cabbage) in the spring. Can be gathered (and eaten, don't forget this) also the ... primrose — its leaves, but the flowers are gathered, where there are many of them, say in the Rhodopes, for herbal tee. It shoots first in the spring (that's why is called so in Latin, or primula), with the snowdrops, where for the Bulgarians it is like a small needle (igla, and the flower is iglika), but for the Germans like a small key (Schlüssel, and Schlüsselblume), contains much vitamin C, dries green, and may also be added to every dish as healthful (although nearly tasteless) greenery. There are, certainly, other edible herbs, but the important thing is that all this (with the exception of the levurda) I find in the housing complex where I live, in the nearby park.      3.5. Greenery from trees      The main green woody thing that I mean are the leaves of lime tree! It is clear that the lime tree is not harmful, so that they can be gathered, but for what they are good? Well, like alternative of vine leaves, for making of stuffed cabbage rolls (the so called sarmi), only that you have to look for limes with bigger leaves (like the palm of a hand), because there are also such with small ones, and are gathered usually from offshoots at the root (or small trees), because there the leaves are bigger. You walk in the spring and, if they have grown enough, tear off a piece and chew it for a test (because if you have missed the right time they will be tough). It is easy to freeze them rolled in the freezer, but may also be sterilized (with some salt and a pair of spoons of vinegar), as long as you do not overboil them and they begin to tear (but then you may fry them with an egg or two and eat them in this way, because this is a pure greenery).      Well, about other exactly leaves of trees that can be eaten I can not think, but maybe it is right to mention the beverage from blossoms of elder (around 24 of May, our holiday of Slavonic alphabet), which is known to many people but done by few of them. The recipe slightly varies, but is reduced roughly to this: in a bucket are mixed: 20-25 medium sized clusters of blossoms of the elder tree (which is older or elder — from here your name in my view —, because there is also a similar bush that, though healthful, is very bitter and not used) and without long stems, 0.5 kilo lemons minced with grinding mill, 0.5 (to 0.6) kg white sugar, one teaspoon citric acid, and 2.5 l water, what must be stirred often and stays so for 3 to 3.5 days (it depends on the temperature, but not more than 4 days), then the juice is filtered and poured in bottles (this is a concentrate), which may be kept even without refrigerator about two months; after this with the marc is made 2nd harvest adding: 0.25 kg sugar, 1/2 teaspoon citric acid, and 1.3 l water, what stays for 4 days, again is filtered and this time the marc is thrown away (though I have put from it to green soups, or nettle in the oven). The good thing with the elder blossom is that it can be put in a freezer and in this way to make again of this beverage a pair of times later. In addition to this soft drink you may make also syrups from: cherries, raspberries, cornels, etc., in order to have for the entire year, so that not to buy at all soft drinks form the shops, because they are only essences and sweeteners (and that is why they are between the mostly advertised things), and if you want natural juices then make them alone.      But there is something else fresh, that can be torn in spring. For example a ... blossom of acacia. The only important moment is that you must prowl and check, because there is only about a week time, around 20 - 25 May, when you may gather it (the flowers fade quickly), and it is preferable if before this was rained, for all to be washed good (well, if you have the luck for the sun to be shining, then in such nice May weather it is simply pity not to walk a bit in the park, and then walking to gather himself some acacia blossoms). For what it may be used? Well, in one word, for eating. Some gather entire flower clusters and then ... bread them (fry them covered with bred crumbs and eggs, in Bulgarian it is called paniram, what just must be related with the panis-bread and god Pan). I personally apply another system, by which I make out of them three things: liqueur (or vodka, infusion, cordial) of acacia, for making of which I will speak later (in the special skills), addition to minced meat for meatballs or sandwiches, and honey of acacia (to which we nearly came). So you do the following: choose one brighter (say, light green — the colour is a matter of aesthetic pleasure), of middle size, and clear, plastic bag (and one more to put outside in order to strengthen it) and go in the park, where you look for acacia which is accessible (not very high, in order not to carry a ladder with you, right?); then you gather only the blossoms tearing them from the flower stems until you fill the bag; then return home and pour the contents of the bag on a newspaper in some crate which place on the terrace (for to provide opportunity for all misguided flies and bugs to escape from the blossoms); after a pair of hours you pour the blossoms in a big pot and fill it with water until it covers the flowers, but slightly pressed above with a plate (depending on the bag you will need between 1.5 and 2 l water — if this is not so then you have made somewhere error), and keep this so for two, but not more than three, days(it depends on the outside temperature, not to allow the fermentation to begin but just the flowers to release their fragrance).      Good, then you first put aside 600 ml of the liquid (filtered), which goes for making of (one liter) vodka of acacia (which, by the way, is slightly afrodisiac — nectar, you know); then put on the stove the remaining in the pot mixture to boil for about 1/2 hour, out of this, when it cools a little, you fill 4-5 jars of baby food with the blossom (but there is no need to squeeze it very much) which you sterilize (or, alternatively, put in the freezer), plus circa 200 g for immediate use, which blossom is added to minced meat (you see, the blossom of acacia is more or less as big as minced meat, only that it is tender in taste and aromatic, something like alternative of grated onion); and from the left filtered decoction you make honey of acacia by the following next recipe. This is called non-waste technology.      3.6. Jams from wild fruits and artificial (Ersatz) honey      There are no problems to make jams (we distinguish sladko-more-sweet-concoction from jam-something-for-spreading-on-bread, but let us not go into details now) of small wild fruits like: wild strawberries, cherries (only that you have to take away their stones with some small hook), raspberries, brambles, blueberries, and others. But this is usually known: one adds sugar and water and boils this (where if the fruit is a bit tough it may be boiled for some time without sugar), and the sugar is normally in equal parts with the fruit, only that they are by volume, not by weight (though I prefer to put in the beginning some sugar, and then add more until it becomes very sweet, and then add citric acid, more or less by a teaspoon for a kilo sugar, so that to adjust its taste). Also in some cases may be made marmalade instead of jam — say, the brambles are with big seeds, so that I boil them a bit without sugar, then make quickly to puree (well, the seeds remained, but till now it has not happened to ... grow brambles in my stomach), and then boil them to the end with some sugar (for the marmalade it must be less), but my contribution in this case is that I add also ... berries of elder in ratio of 2:1 for the brambles (the elder is also healing plant, and I mean again the tree, not the bush, which is also healthy but very bitter; in folk medicine these berries are given to nursing mothers, they are acclaimed as blood forming; in fact, this is what the name of elder in Slavonic means — busina in Russian, where bosaja, this time in Bulgarian, is to suck, what the babies do).      Marmalade may be made also from usual (let's name them semi-wild) pears; very delicious is jam out of grated quinces; also jelly of quinces (from the seeds and peels, which otherwise are thrown away); it is healthy also jam from grated carrots (for their vitamin A; it is made like from the quinces, with possible boiling for some time without sugar, but it becomes rapidly sugared); a very nice thing, too, is the so called rachel out of pumpkins (which name is somewhere from Persia, but is related well with Bulgarian jargon "racha" something, meaning to wish eagerly, i.e. everybody wants rachel; for this purpose, however, the fruit must be soaked for some time in lime milk, i.e. highly diluted with water hydrated lime, and it is better to be combined in addition to the pieces of pumpkin also with apples, quinces, pears, big grains of grapes without seeds, plumbs, walnuts, and maybe something more); jam can be made also out of orange peels (rolled in helixes), but I prefer to make from grated oranges, what is the typical English marmalade; can be used green walnuts, too (but soaked for three weeks in water, and then peeled); also of watermelon peels; and many other variants. All this one may make alone, and in this case it turns to be 2 to 3 times cheaper (in Bulgaria it is so; on the West might not be profitable for one to lose his time with this but for us it is justified, more so when something is not sold, like marmalade of oranges, for example, or jelly of quinces, some of the honeys, etc.).      And the artificial (substitute of) honey is made mainly as pine honey, in which case is proceeded as follows: tips of pine trees long between 5 and 10 cm are gathered (in the beginning of April), or also whole small pine cones (later on, if one has missed the right moment, but from the tips is better), they are gathered in such way that at least 3-4 tips must remain where you tear them (because these are future branches, so that it is like to cut the "arms" of the trees), then they are boiled only with water for 5-6 hours, till they begin to became pulpy when you squeeze them, then the tips are pressed with hands and only the juice is filtered (you may also sew them in advance in a cheesecloth), which juice is boiled later with sugar (to your taste and as much as it takes) until it becomes dense (it is good to add citric acid, too). This honey is very important remedy against cough, for children and adults, also for smokers, but is very tasty, too. By the same technology (with initial boiling without sugar, even with sinking the row material for a pair of days in water, and subsequent boiling to the end) is made honey also out of acacia, dandelion, if you want of something else (maybe of mint, I don't know); it might be combined pine honey with something else, but I prefer to make them separate (at lest because the pine tips must be boiled very long time).      3.7. Wild fruits and berries      Some of them are not entirely wild, i.e. they may be cultivated, but are not. For example: apples, pears, cherries, wild plumbs (first of all, dzhanki in Bulgarian, and not in Russian, this is something Balkan, Turkish maybe) in the residential complexes, but also some others; their main difference from the cultivated is that they are not sprayed against pests and for that reason they have many worms, but for some things (say, for wines, to what we shall come at the end) this is of no importance. Let me begin with the simplest, with the dzhanka-wild-plum. It, surely, is good for making of raki (our, i.e. Turkish and Arabic, fruit vodka), but the point is that one can not make raki at home — it requires intensive use of energy (and because of this I prefer to make liqueurs or cordials). But this plum is good for eating and preserving as compotes, though this is trivial and known by everyone. That, what people don't know, or if know don't do, is that it is ideal acid as green, i.e. ideal alternative of the tomato, and is preferable for green dishes (from grasses like nettle, dandelion, etc., from green beans, with cabbage, fresh or pickled, and in other cases — at least combined with some tomatoes).      I personally boil a bag of dzhankis-plumbs in a pot for about half an hour, until they are well boiled and the stones begin to separate, rub them through a strainer or some mesh (say, for frying of potatoes), and then sterilize them (10 min are enough) in small jars — when they make tomato paste, then why me not make dzhankis paste? But at least boil some and put in small buckets or cups in the freezer (not that they can't be with their stones, but without them is much refined), because this acid is more sugary than that of tomatos (they put in the tomato paste sugar, where the dzhanka has its sweetness, though one may add here also a spoon of sugar); I have even tried this year to keep such puree also without sterilizing and outside the fridge — just put a tablet of aspirin in a bottle with it (well, some salt, too) and it remain in ideal condition for more than a month. Many nations know about this wild plumbs, in Bulgaria in rural areas people probably use them, but our citizen can be made to do something useful for him only when he pays for it.      Then there come the cherries, for which is well known that they are good for jams, compotes, syrups, cookies, and what not (especially liqueurs); in fact, on the West people even prefer sour cherries (we have separate word, vishni) before the sweet ones (chereshi; but in Latin both things are called ceresia, or Kirsche in German), though in Bulgaria this is not so, by us the sour ones, if you can find them on the market, are twice cheaper than the sweet, or if not so then they are to be very sweet; the Bulgarian, as a rule, is not interested at all about the taste, he likes that something be just sweet (a typically oriental taste, where the folks drink sherbet /sorbet of sugar and water and even in great heats — read 1001 Nights — where the right thing in such cases is to drink something sour, or to bite in a lemon). So that from sour cherries very good jam (rather sladko) can be made, when you take their stones away, you may combine them with strawberries (cut in pieces if they are very big — I personally prefer always to combine, if this is possible, different things that grow at about the same time), you can make syrups, or you can preserve them raw and without stones adding plenty of sugar (I have tried this, if they begin to ferment then you just add more sugar till get more or less equal weight amount of fruit and sugar), only look to have left some place at the top of the jar and keep it, just in case, in the bathroom, in order not to stain the place; in this way the cherries last till the winter, when they may be used for cakes or pies.      Then let us mention the mulberries (white or black, but the latter are better and contain more vitamins), which (I read this in a book about Afghanistan and have tried it) can, besides for eating in fresh form (if you do nor drink much water after them, for they are a bit laxative), to be dried in hot sun (on a backing dish or tray, it doesn't matter that they leave much juice, something remains of them), in what way you get a kind of raisins! Then they may be added (possibly combined with other fruits) in fruit pies or cakes, in a bread, or where you like; they, certainly, are not better than the natural grape raisins, but almost surely they contain more vitamins).      Thereafter come the apples, eventually the quinces (if you find free growing quinces, but even to buy them is not a big expense). I mean not only the compotes, neither the jam of grated quinces, nor the jelly of quince seeds, nor the apple pulp (jam of apples becomes not very good, and for marmalades it is combined with something, usually with rosehips), nor also apple wines (or cognacs, if you are a company, but this is not typical for Bulgaria), but this that you may make ... pickles out of apples and quinces, well, at least to add to sauerkraut (but it is possible also separate). This also is known by country folks, I have tried it, and such pickles are quite decent, and in whatever dish you add sour apple it will not make it worse — it can give it strange taste, but maybe this is exactly what lacks it (because you surely have heard about turkey with apples; and I can't see what so bad may be to stew a rabbit with onions, carrots, and apples, for example, or make a beef stew with quinces, or something of the kind — try it!). The only thing that you must know is that one should not make brine out of salt only, but putting salt and vinegar is equal proportion, even more vinegar (two parts) and less salt. But for such pickles the usual wild apples that rot everywhere in the autumn do very good job (correspondingly cut and cleaned from seeds and "animal" additions).      Anyway, there are other fruits, that are not necessarily wild growing, they can be found on the market, but are second quality, and in this case the people don't buy them. For example the usual apples for baking and cookies (the cooking apples in English); in the same way can sometimes be found oranges for "cooking", or kiwis or lemons again for this purpose (what is recognized by this, that they are sold on half price of the normal ones). I, for my part, use such fruits without problems for making of wines, but also for vinegars, though for cooking, too (say, veal with half of an orange, maybe taken out from a vinegar, as you will see at the end), or pieces of lemon to stew with chicken or fish, and other variants. Well, get used to such things, ladies and gentlemen. When the world makes this why the Bulgarians must stay behind? I will add only one linguistic proof (in fact, two) for this, that fruit and vegetable are very near things: the Bulgarian word ovoshka, what is fruit (tree), and the Russian word ovoshchi (usually in plural), which means vegetable (because the fruits there are frukti); the other thing is that in my view these ovoshchi must be the same as the German Obst, what is a fruit, and which word was old Teutonic meaning just something for eating (something über /ober us, what we may tear from above, if you ask me; where the ovoshki-fruits we may relate with something like "o, vot", i.e. "look here" — what a tasty thing this is).      3.8. Homemade spices      In addition to what we may "steal" from the nature there are some things that we may keep on our terraces. I personally (since, maybe, 20 years or so) instead of flowers plant some spices, like: parsley, celery, dill, anise, dzhodzhen-mint (because there are other mint plants), basil, kalofer (specific herb for beans and other legumes which does not freeze in winter and I leave it in the open), hot peppers (but from the very hot ones), savory, lovage, from this year also wild thyme, and others (if sometime I decide to try something new). Tomatoes and peppers (marrows, etc.) probably may also be grown, but there is no point in this (according to the prices you will not succeed to cover the expenses for watering), while with the spices there is a reason, they are always fresh (and not nitrated), and in some cases there remains enough for to dry for winter. (Together with this personally for me there is another important motive in their tearing leaf by leaf, as a kind of religious rite, during which time I sunbathe long enough, for what activity I usually have not enough endurance.) It is clear that the celery and the parsley are to be sown anew each year, but in the winter I leave some plants in the staircase where is warm enough, because if they succeed to remain till the spring they grow stalks with seeds (being biennial); similarly is sown also the dill and the anise, where the dill always sprouts, but surely is very tasty for the plant lice because they attack it in mass, and the anise I cut nearly to the earth when it grows enough, because else it grows with very high stem, and after a month it gives fresh shoots for the autumn (with the dill this trick doesn't work). It is clear also that in shallow caskets can't grow "real" celery with heads, in rare cases the head grow as big as wild plum, but so much more tender are its stems and leaves. And something more, in order not to leave snug places for the plant lice, but also for aesthetic reasons, I tear each leaf in direction to the root (don't cut them) and do this often enough, because otherwise the bottom leaves wither; in this manner the stems turn bare and grow up, but are clear from lice (as much as this is possible without special chemicals). And for fertilizing use processed dry tea.      Well, this is enough till now about the greenery, but see also the lyrical addendum at the and. 4. How not to visit physicians      As far as the medical treatment in conditions of the Western democracy is considered for the same business as, say, the carpentry, and many people just can't allow themselves to become ill, then I feel myself obliged to share with you some of my elementary (but effective) pieces of advice. The things are given sporadically, for I don't know in what order to organize them, but they are personally checked.      General healing procedures are the frictions with cold water in the morning, but chiefly at the end of bathing, after you have warmed yourself well with almost scolding water, you leave then only the cold one (where the point is to do this in the winter, with as much freezing the water is). I have done this for many years with big success (this, in fact, lies at the bottom of the sauna), but I neglected it lately for economies of hot water (and if you do not warm youself well enough beforehand this should not be done), but I apply another variant, the quartz lamp (the so called "home-sun", which has dimensions of span by span and can be put on the table). This is widely used method for hardening of the body and prophylaxis during the winter, but hardly 5% of the people in Bulgaria do this, but not because they go to solariums (as it is around the world), no, just because they think that this is superfluous, where it is very healthy. I personally practice the following: from 15 of November till 15 of March I do 5 to 10 min exposure under such sun once in a week, after bath, from about 40 to 80 cm (for I have not enough patience to stay farther and for longer time), but do not forget the throat (by opened mouth), and everywhere, where I can; if I notice that begin to become ill, or some flu tries to catch me, then I expose myself to the lamp even each day (the worst is for my face to begin to peel a little). Add to this strong hip tee (with other herbs) in cold weather, possibly also a tablet of aspirin (in older times also quinine), and this is almost all for healing of colds that I use (the folk medicine recommends also rubbing with brandy, and intensive sweating as a result of this, what is also very effective); in the latest 4-5 years, though, maybe because of the low heating that I maintain, I can't remember to have taken even aspirin (so that it is highly possible that a package of it will remain by me after I pass away).      Another very good commonly strengthening activity, and perfectly well known, is the running, or rather jumping, the jogging. I, for my part, have laughed at such people, but when I jumped over my 50, and when began to have aches in one knee (and in one elbow joint), and to have difficulties in going downstairs, and 2-3 times in an year to have unexpected piercing aches in the region of heart (as if a nerve is tearing), and other minor complaints (of which one can not die but they are not pleasant), then I decided to take measures. I done several things together, so that I can't tell you exactly which one from them is the most important, but the one thing was that I stopped to use the lift to the 5th floor (in both directions, and with whatever luggage), and the other thing was that I began to jump in the corridor of the apartment (some 3 or so meters and with a turn another meter, and back). And after a pair of months I began to feel much better, and after two years I as if became younger; and must be mentioned that I have begun with just 50 jumps in the beginning, and raised them with 50 in a week, and long ago am on 1500, where I stopped (for I don't intend to go to olympiads). I want to say that the important thing is when one exceeds its 50 to begin to think about his health and to take measures, just not to go physicians (because they always will find some illness by you — that's why you pay them); and what is significant are not the records, but the small and not tiring exertions. Well, together with this I make also by 30-40 lousy pushups (with curved backbone, but still straighten the arms) after bathing (also once in a week), just to delude myself, but this has its effect, I am feeling better. Ah, I have given up the cigarettes, as also have increased the calcium, to what I am coming now.      This about the calcium I also have not invented personally, I just recalled some things, considered the matter and tried, and am now glad, so that let me share with you my experience. Because: why one drinks milk (fresh or sour) and eats cheese? Well, because of the calcium, which I don't know exactly how much percents is in the milk, but it contained circa 7% salts, from which the chief ones must be those of the calcium. The cows (and the bulls, but they are not interesting in the moment) surely find it from the grass, the hens (and the cocks, which are also not interesting) peck pebbles (to allow their gizzards to grind the food, but to "pack" their eggs, too). And what are people to do? Well, to eat the ... egg shells (when we can't feed on grass). I have heard this from a physicians, have done it before, but have forgotten about. But with the age [and the democracy, because, as our folks say, one must pay for the cheese] one begins to have greater need of calcium, which builds not only the bones and the teeth, but the blood vessels, too, so that it prevents arteriosclerosis. Well, I prevent the sclerosis, arthritis, and whatever can, with egg shells, from 5 to 10 eggs monthly (even less), which I bake on the grill along with my morning sandwich, and for 3-4 times they are ready (though there are no problems if you gather them in a heap and bake later in a plate, also in the oven, where they may be also from boiled eggs but later again baked; as well as you can crush them, or crunch them like cookies, if you have what with). This is a mean that I recommend to all children and elderly people, together with and independent from the milk or cheese (I have not heard that much calcium is harmful); unless you prefer to go to the physician and, having paid him the needed sum, take the recipe that he will write and go and buy some medicament with calcium as main ingredient, but which will cost you, say, 10 euros per month.      Now to tell you something about the cigarettes, because I have smoked them a long time (not very active but stable, by 26-27 packages per month), and have given them up twice, so that let me tell you at least the method for abandoning them, which is mine (though I am not pretending for authorship here). Well, the method is nasty (but I don't think the others are better, they are maybe only faster) and it is the following: gradually reducing to zero! This will say that I count my cigarettes and begin from 15 (say) daily and so the first week; then 14 and 13 daily (because they are very near) during the next week; then 12 and 11 daily for one week; then 10; then 9; and so on until I reach to (I suppose) 2 cigarettes daily, after what for a pair of days go down to one and to zero (because a whole week by just one cigarette a day is a horrible ordeal), and be very careful till there pass 3 days without cigarettes. That's it, but if you have a wife to make you angry during this time (about 3 months), then you better get divorced first, and if you become nervous at work, then take leave for at least the last month.      So, and at the end let me tell you something about the smoking itself, something untraditional but true (at least I insist that this is true), namely that the cigarettes first ... help, and then cause harm, because they have already accustomed your organism to receive help (in whatever it may be)! Not that people are entirely unaware about this, this is the idea of English fixing to the narcotics, but I specially emphasize on the first help, because they have very broad range of impact, they are like the folk medicine (where one herb heals a big amount of diseases). The cigarettes act directly contradictive, come to think of it, because, for example, when you are sleepy, then burning one cigarette you awaken yourself; but if you are very restless and can't fall asleep, then smoking one cigarette helps you to calm down and fall into slumber, right? Or when you are hungry, but have not time for eating or some food at hand, then one cigarette kills your appetite, but having eaten your full then the cigarette accelerates the digestion. How can you explain this effect? Or to add also that one smokes in two (polar) situations: either when he has mush to do (and must concentrate himself, irritates that has not enough time), or else when he has practically nothing to do (feels bored and wonders what to do). Well, in this case I personally can't see another possibility unless that the cigarettes are psychotropic (i.e. they affect the psyche) helping you to do what you want, or support the will. So that, if you don't want to be treated like small children, who can't do alone what they must do, then better don't begin to smoke. Clear and simple, isn't it? Only that the people are precisely like the children, they have no will — at lest looking on which elementary advertising tricks are caught 90% of us then this, obviously, is so. Therefore the simplest advice is: either don't smoke in Bulgaria (where one pack of cigarettes costs 1/3 of the minimal daily pay, with tendency to reach at least 1/2 of such salary), or go in a normal country (where a pack of cigarettes amounts to 1/20, or 5%, of such salary).      Well, these are my recommendations for good health, together with the natural healthy food, about which I have spoken and will speak, and even if they don't help in all cases, then I simply can't see how they can harm one. III. SPECIAL SKILLS      These are not some difficult things, for which special education is required, bur are also not for entirely ignorant persons, some experience is necessary. But with some desire and persistence there are no problems for each of you, who has enough time to spend, to achieve results in this undertaking. 1. Picking of wild mushrooms      This is something that for me personally is traditional skill in the family, I have not learned it in democratic times, but it helps me now, because the mushroom is a food, but it is also healthful — contains some micro-elements, that, in my view, come predominantly from the macro-"elements", which are dropped by cows, horses, and other big (essentially herbivorous) animals. This, that I dare to tell you something about this topic, does not mean that you can learn how to pick mushrooms only from these pair of pages, no, for this purpose you must in all cases have some praxis and a person whom to ask if you are in doubt, because the mushrooms, as you know, may be also poisonous. Besides, on the question are written books, so that you first read one of them, then find yourself a consultant (in the worst case go to the market and ask those who sell wild mushrooms), or else use some person for tasting — the best choice is the ... mother in law, or the wife, but as a last resort a dog can also be used (and I suppose that the women may use correspondingly the son in law or the husband). So, but this what I will tell you here may help you as initial impetus, and also as set of expert rules (which may not always work properly, but are simple, and in most of the cases helpful).      Do not pick mushrooms which you don't know well, and when you master certain types then begin with a pair of types only.      Do not pick small (for their type) or undeveloped exemplars.      Learn good first the poisonous twins, at least the fly agarics.      Avoid mushrooms that have poisonous twins.      Avoid white mushrooms (people most often become poisoned with twins of champignons).      Do not give mushrooms to small children (at least till 5-6 years) without you having eaten from them the day before.      If you are in doubt then taste a bit (even a raw mushroom) and wait till the next day; just in case have some fresh milk at hand.      Now let me give some short explanations. To know some type of mushrooms means that you personally have gathered it and eaten at your responsibility, not that you have picked it with somebody and think it is the same (here is useful to make a parallel with looking for an address, when somebody leads you, and when you alone look for it — you may have gone several times and, still, when you begin to search alone not succeed to find it). Also do not rely much on the colour of the mushroom (it may vary firstly because of the very type, secondly because of the place where it grows, and thirdly because of the dry or humid weather); set on more secure signs like: cup (volva), ring (annulus), gills (what kind, way of fixing to the stalk), cap (is there something on it, how it feels on touching), size, consistency of the flesh, milk (if there is), taste sometimes for flavour or smell, too, and other elements. Further, as each mushroom starts from small ball or button and just when it grows reaches its normal dimensions, don't pick undeveloped exemplars, they may be easily mistaken (like the babies).      About the fly agaric and other poisonous mushrooms. The most poisonous is the green fly agaric, because it shows its effect with great delay, then there are some white ones, also the classical red one, but there is also one "panther" (amanita panterina); the green and the white have cups below, the other haven't such, but all agarics have white flesh, which looks good and hard (and maybe tasty). There is also the satanic mushroom (boletus), false champignon (it has to smell of carbol), and 2-3 others more dangerous (as well as some which, even if they are poisonous, are not twins of edible, so that people don't gather them), and there are also such that in Bulgaria are given as poisonous only to be on the save side (downy milk cap and small puffball). The white champignons are of several types, and they have the fly agarics as twins, so that for the beginning avoid picking them.      Mushrooms must not be given to small children not only because they may be poisonous, they may not be such, but are hardly digestible food; besides, I have heard about poisoning not with poisonous, but with poisoned mushrooms, i.e. that have grown on places where some poison (for example, against wolfs near to a cowshed, where often grow champignons) have been thrown. And about the tasting is clear that from a small amount you can at the worst throw it up, where by eating one's full comes the trouble. Also to add somewhere that each wild mushrooms, even the little one, must be cut before use at least in twos by the middle, but better in four parts crosswise, in order to see whether there lives "somebody", and if so then to try to cut out the bad places.      And now let us list as shortly as possible some types, beginning with those with which a beginner can make a start.      Scotch bonnet (marasmius oreades): small mushroom, many people know and gather it, has specific piquant taste (the Russians call it "garlicin" in direct translation, because for them it smells of garlic, but one should not give much credit to their tastes when they don't make difference between bitter and hot as chili — your "hot" also is not exactly said but is much near), it has not poisonous twin, but has edible twin, something that is not the typical bonnet (has thicker gills and the cap stays more open), though it may be mistaken with one kind of winter armillaria (which is also edible); well it may be mistaken also with something poisonous but one must look how the gills connect to the stalk. It grows in early spring, but in the autumn, too, is easy to be dried, and is good for cooking.      Portobello (agaricus silvaticus): the only champignon which can't be confused with whatever; on taste is not exactly like the white one, or that one that grows on meadows, but is, still, champignon and is good for cooking, frying, and baking; good choice for novices.      Parasol Mushroom (macrolepiota procera): big, very beautiful, and very tasty mushroom; best of all is for frying covered in bread crusts, but more closed exemplars may as well be used for cooking; it is easy to be dried, too (whole, or in pieces).      Saffron milk cap (lactarius deliciosus): the most tasty from all the milk-cap mushrooms, it is good for frying, baking in the oven, marinating and salting (only with salt, without water, but you may add little vinegar, also parsley and cut slices of garlic, and in 3-4 days it is ready for consumption); it is said that it has a twin, but this is if one looks at it only from above, otherwise one will hardly confuse red milk (and turning of the colour to green when broken or eaten through by worms) with white milk.      Butter mushroom (in Russian) or slippery Jack or sticky bun (suillus /boletus luteus): they are several types and are ideal for marinating (the classical Russian appetizer), but the skins must be peeled out, also is recommended to gather mainly small exemplars (up to a coffee cup); it is good for adding to some dishes or for frying but has no special taste; from it can be made minced mass (by lack of boletus mushrooms), too. There is one similar type (Jersey cow, or suillus bovinus) which has wider pores under the cap and is not tasty.      Birch bolete (leccinum scabrum): two (or more) types (including the red-capped scaber stalk), they have no poisonous twins and are good for cooking, frying, mincing, and drying.      Shaggy ink cap or shaggy mane (coprinus comatus): unlike other ink caps (corpinuses) this mushroom is very delicious, but has to be gathered when is still white under the cap (or the black parts to be cut out) and cooked immediately; it has no twins.      White milk cap (lactarius piperatus): also has no poisonous twins (though there are many other milk caps, say, the weeping milk cap, lactarius volemus — if I am not in error with the English names — which is not to eat with bread, has a taste of bread); it is boiled and a pair of times the water is thrown away, but I put mush salt (at least one full table spoon on one kilo mushrooms) and don't change the water, or it is baked in the oven with salt and little water; later it is good for marinating (with vinegar, garlic, parsley, etc.) like appetizer for vodka, or else for ... breading (with "tipsy" breading, which is made when one beaten egg is mixed with flour to thick pulp and then are added just some table spoons of beer), what now is appetizer for beer or wine.      Wood blewit (clitocybe nuda): the typical such mushroom is blue-violet the whole and there is no way to confuse it with whatever else; it is good for marinating and cooking, but is better to throw away the first water. There exists one autumn variety with almost white cap and violet only the stem and even this just below to the earth, the first water also is better to pour out.      Golden chanterelle (cantharellus cibarius): has no official twin, but must be looked from below, it is very tasty, smells of apricot; good for everything.      Shingled hedgehog mushroom (hydnum /sarcodon imbricatum): grows high in the mountains and becomes very big, the top of the cap is covered with brown shells and from below it has needles, can't be mistaken with anything, can be gathered with sacks, seems a bit rough but when fried (on chunks) becomes very good; can also be dried and ground to flour.      Tawny grisette (amanita fulva /amanitopia vaginata): if the cap is orange can't be mistaken, but otherwise (in other varieties of colour) looks like the fly agarics; very delicate and delicious mushroom for soups and cooking.      Giant puffball or path-ball (calvatia gigantea): it is not necessary to be giant (they grow in medium-high mountains), the usual small puffballs are also good for eating, the important thing is not to be yellow or especially black; they are very nice for breading.      Oyster mushroom (pleurotus ostreatus): the best known winter mushroom, I have not heard that somebody confuses it with something; grows on tree trunks and live trees; it is good for cooking (mostly with rice).      Russulas: they are many types and colours, have no poisonous twins (unless you look only at the colour), but are not something special, some types are a bit bitter; may be added to other mushrooms for frying.      Pheasant's back mushroom (polyporus squamosus): grows on stumps in the spring, looks a bit scaring, but is good for frying and has no twins.      There are other mushrooms that has no twins (like: one "bun" in Bulgarian or polyporus confluens, morel or morchella, witch's hat or wax caps or hygrocybe conica and puniceus, and other ink-caps, etc.), but they are of not very high quality and for that reason we shell not deal with them here.      And now let us list some mushrooms that can be confused, but, on the other hand, are tasty.      May mushroom (in Bulgarian, tricholoma Georgii): has no poisonous twins but also no special features, except that smells of flour and grows only around May month; its best use is for porridge, but also for cooking.      White champignons (agaricus family): they are of several kinds and have not volva-cup (where the white fly agaric has); there is one that grows in forests and meadows and below the cap becomes brown, and when it is brown one can not mistake it with fly agarics (but when is little it can be), besides, it has nice flavour of raw almonds (the other champighons also have it, but it is not so typical); there is also one on meadows, which becomes below the cap pink and later again brown (when can't be mistaken), but when rosy there is a poisonous twin known (at least in Bulgaria) as deceiving champignon, which has to be blood-red and smell of carbolic (but I think I have not met it); and there is a lemon-champignon, which has yellow spots where has been slightly pressed; all champignons, but especially the first one, can be eaten also raw and can be added to salads of tomatoes at cetera.      Edible boletus known as penny bun, porcino or cep (Boletus edulis): this is the real boletus mushroom which is as big as a stone (and this has to mean its Latin name, or at least so is in German where it is Steinpilz), and which has no poisonous twin and is good for everything, but most often is dried (because it can be, but must be caught by the sun in the first or second day; if this is questionable then dry it in the oven or put it in the freezer); because this is very precious mushroom and not to be easy thrown out at least I cut out all bad pieces, of some of them take away the pores if they have become old, and after boiling mince it, which mass can be used separately (with additions like: potatoes, cheese, egg, spices, etc.), but is ideal for adding to minced meat; there is also a queen bolete or boletus aereus, which is in the brown colour range and is also good; there are other boletes, two of which become blue, where the most dark is the devil's bolete or boletus satanas which is poisonous (but maybe not very), and the other one (boletus cyanescens) is edible (at least for mincing, just is a bit bitter).      White or meadow parasol (lepiota excoriata): delicate and tasty mushroom, very good for cooking, as well as for breading, but may be confused with white fly agaric.      Caesar's mushroom (amanita caesarea): the queen of the mushrooms, with tight and thick flesh, which is good for everything (primarily for cooking), but is much like the red fly agaric (amanita muscaria), only that the cap below is yellow (but when it is small as egg can easily be mistaken).      Honey fungus (armillaria mellea): grows on stumps in bunches, is gathered with whole bags, has poisonous twin but it is greenish below and bitter on taste; it is good for frying and marinating.      Coral funguses (clavarias): they are several types and have poisonous twins, from which differ only in nuances of the colour; it good for salads.      Blusher mushroom (amanita rubescens): very dangerous mushroom (just for mothers in law), which easy can be mistaken with the poisonous panther mushroom (amanita panterina) and differs from it only that its flesh becomes red (blushes) when the skin is peeled, so that better don't gather it.      Well, maybe this is enough for a beginning. 2. Making of wines from wild fruits      Here also is nothing contributed by me personally, I only use well known (for thousands of years) things. In contrast with the wines out of wine grapes, however, where the berries are squeezed, here they are soaked (because usually they can't be squeezed, or are gathered with big efforts and this would have been excessive luxury, and/or they are very strong in flavour and aromatic); in this case the process of fermentation goes in two stages: open or turbulent fermentation, and closed or quiet one; after making of the wine may be made also vinegar. The classical proportion (because there are many variations) of the ingredients, and this that I (in general) apply, is the following: 1 kilo fruit, 1 kilo sugar, 3 liters water, out of which after the processing are obtained 4 liters wine. What I change is to increase a bit the part of the fruit, if it is more accessible and ordinary (say, apples, pears), and also to overlap several harvests (not only for economy of the fruit — because I gather it alone —, but also for its better processing — for example, the wild rose hip is difficult to make to give its juices) adding also some fresh fruit (so that maintain the same volume of wine in the next harvest); usually is said that only a second harvest is made adding the half of the sugar and the water, and after this the wine mark is thrown away, where I make normally by 3-4 harvests (or vintages but in one year), and after this also vinegar.      The turbulent fermentation proceeds in an open container, usually in a bucket or deep basin, where the volume by me varies from 5 to 10 liters wine (a but more with the marc); there is no need to use bigger tanks or barrels, because they must be heaved and turned over and in this way is easier, besides, I use plastic bottles from mineral water for the above volumes for the quiet fermentation, where is one peculiarity. It is that during this phase must be allowed to release out the produced gas, but not to leave air in the wine (for not to become on vinegar), so that the cap is bored with a drill (earlier big glass bottles and rubber stoppers were used, but the plastic is much more convenient) and small tube is insert so that to enter tightly (there is no need to glue it if the tube is elastic — and if it isn't then it is not good), and this tube is submersed in a container with water (small jar from baby food, with one hole for the tube and one for an outlet); best of all are the tubes used by blood transfusion because they are transparent and very resilient). The classical technology is for the turbulent fermentation to continue 10 days or so (from one week to two, it depends on the outside temperature, but also on the berries — for example, the hip must be kept at least 20 days), where during this time the mixture must be stirred (when you remember about this, or go by it) several times daily (and there has to be some special paddle), and in addition to this from time to time to be tasted (you stick a finger and lick it) for to establish the moment when this phase must be completed, where initially the mixture is very sugary, then the sweetness decreases (the sugar transforms itself in alcohol), and at the end begins to become sour and you stop before it becomes very sour.      Later the mixture is filtered good via cheesecloth (even in two layers) and is poured in suitable bottle (according to the expected volume of wine), because is not good to leave much air in the container, and it stays so at least a month, though in many cases the process is finished in about two weeks. It is not meaningless, though, after a week (when you pour in the next harvest) to transfer carefully the wine in some other such bottle (or in a bigger one, merging it with the next harvest), because (however strictly you filter) it always gives sediments on the bottom and they facilitate its further fermentation to vinegar; by this transfusion you gather the sediments on the bottom and use them for adding in some dishes. I personally keep the wine in this way even more than an year (if it remains by me), because there is no danger for the bottles in which I pour it to burst, and it also continues to work and raise the degree of alcohol.      About the question: out of what can be made wine — well, literally out of everything! Wines are made out of: blackcurrant, raspberry, brambles, blueberries, sloe (blackthorn or prunus spinosa), sour cherries, wild rose hips, apples (grated), and what else not; I personally have made from strawberries, oranges, kiwis, berries of elder, dzhanki-wild-plumbs, pears, sour cherries, mulberries, usual semi-wild grapes (using this technology), applying also various mixes from things that ripen simultaneously (like: sour cherries and mulberries —the black ones are better —, brambles and berries of elder, then apples, pears and hips, and other variants); surely good wines (if you can find cheap fruits) could be made also out of: pineapple, pomegranate, melon, and others; it is possible, too, something like mead (not authentic, where is put mainly real honey and hop) from different artificial types of honey, say, from acacia, dandelion, pine honey (I have put sometimes a bit syrup or honey to the last harvest and this gives very nice touch). And don't forget that after the wine is made also vinegar, adding to the squeezed marc only water (as much as to cover the fruit remains), and keep this for another 1.5 -2 months (again stirring them and open); such vinegar is ideal for salads, for addition to each dish as alternative of the tomatoes, but I have begun to use it (especially this from brambles) also for adding to my ... tea (and if the tea is more ordinary, as I usually use, then this vinegar significantly betters its taste).      Generally said, this is an interesting pastime for elderly people, and this natural wines (without any preservatives — but the point here is that in Slavonic this word usually means ... a condom) are something entirely different from what you can buy, even from would-be homemade (where the water is more then the wine). These are, how is said in Bulgarian, "ruyni" wines, what in my view must be rather "royni" (where royak is a swarm), i.e. when you take a swallow of it and shake it in your mouth then the wine begins to fizz, as if you have a swarm of bees in the mouth. These are natural, ingenuous acids, which has nothing in common with this, that can be found in shops, and differ also from the true homemade wines, because it is clear that the wild fruits are more aromatic and have more vitamins than the usual grape (but nobody hinders you to make in this way wine also out of grapes, what I, as said, tried — only that it will be cheaper for you). Such wines you may drink as wine, light or heavy, sweet or sour, according to how you want it and how it becomes, but may strengthen it with some vodka, if they are with powerful taste (from raspberry, strawberry, elder, blueberries, etc.), or can dilute them highly with water (also carbonated) and make yourself healthy (not so much sweet, but aromatic) soft drinks (even just to disinfect the water from the tap this is again meaningful).      So, but let me give some actual recipes, according to my last and best combinations. The proportions are for obtaining of 5 l wine (in the first harvests), so that for the turbulent fermentation is enough one 10 l bucket, and for the quiet, respectively, one 5 l plastic bottle.      # Wine from sour cherries and mulberries. This is light wine, which I make also to a kind of wormwood wine adding (but very little) something for bitterness (either one kind of wild cherries, as big as grains of pimento, bitter-sugary and when ripe becoming nearly black, or a sprig of hypericum or milfoil). The cherries prevail (in proportion of 2:1), and the mulberries (which are a bit diuretic, but have much vitamin C) is better to be from the black ones. I do the following.      1st harvest: 1.4 kg berries (0.95 kg sour cherries, 0.45 black mulberry), 1.25 kg sugar, 3.7 l water, 1 sprig of milfoil; around 15-20 June; stays open about 10 days.      2nd harvest: + 0.8 kg berries (0.55 kg sour cherries, 0.25 black mulberry), 1.25 kg sugar, 3.7 l water, the milfoil is thrown away, but are added 100 berries of wild cherries; stays open 7 days.      3rd harvest: + 1.0 kg berries (0.65 kg sour cherries, 0.35 black mulberry), 1.25 kg sugar, 3.7 l water, 50 more of the wild cherries; stays open 6 days.      Vinegar: + 1.5 l water, stays for 1.5 months.      # Wine from brambles and elder.       1st harvest: 1.3 kg berries (0.90 kg brambles, 0.40 berries of elder), 1.25 kg sugar, 3.8 l water; around 5-10 August; stays open 7 days.       2nd harvest: + 0.8 kg berries (0.55 kg brambles, 0.25 elder), 1.25 kg sugar, 3.8 l water; stays open 6 days.       3rd harvest: + 0.95 kg berries (0.65 kg brambles, 0.30 elder), 1.25 kg sugar, 3.8 l water; stays open 6 days.       4th harvest: + 0.4 kg berries (0.25 kg brambles, 0.15 elder), 0.7 kg sugar, 2.2 l water; stays open 6 days.       Vinegar: + 1.5 l water, stays 1.5-2 months, becomes strong.        # Wine from wild hips, apples, and citrus fruits.      1st harvest: 1.4 kg berries (0.60 kg hips, 0.50 apples grated, 0.30 oranges also grated), 1.25 kg sugar, 3.8 l water; around 20 October, stays open 15 days.      2nd harvest: + 0.8 kg berries (0.30 kg hips, 0.30 apples, 0.20 oranges), 1.25 kg sugar, 3.8 l water, stays 13 days.      3rd harvest: + 0.95 kg berries (0.20 kg hips, 0.20 apples, 0.20 oranges, 0.35 kiwis), 1.25 kg sugar, 3.7 l water, stays 10 days.      4th harvest: + 1.1 kg berries (0.20 kg hips, 0.90 kiwis), 1.25 kg sugar, 3.7 l water, stays 8 days.      5th harvest: + 0.35 kg kiwis, 0.50 kg acacia honey, 0.50 kg sugar, 2.2 l water, stays 7 days.      Vinegar: + 1.5 l water, stays 1.5 months, middle-strong, the orange can be added to various dishes.      And last additions: I wait usually quite a lot and begin to drink from the last harvest (or yield), in order to leave the best (and most enduring) at the end. As also this, that it is good to have several plastic bottles (of 1.5 l, 2, and 3 l), for to be in position to pour from one bottle to another when remains less wine, because it isn't good when in the bottles is much air; or you may recalculate for 6 l. bottles (or for bigger ones, but then also the bucket has to be bigger; it will be better to make it in two buckets). 3. Fabricating of liqueurs or vodka      For making of liqueurs (cordials or vodkas) special skill are basically not needed, but I include this topic here for to go in packet with the wines. To make the liqueur you must first put something aromatic to stay in pure spiritus (at least for 3 months), in which manner you get concentrated essence (which endures for years), with which to flavour the vodka produces from the spiritus; alternatively may be boiled some fruit, leaves, or blossom, and use the obtained decoction for diluting of the spirit (but watered so much it will hardly last long time). It is normal to make portions of 1/2 to 1 liter vodka and to drink it up. If you add also sugar (say, you put sour cherries without stones only in sugar; or add it later) then you will get a liqueur (for the Bulgarians the liqueur is always sweet, otherwise it is a kind of vodka); in similar way is made rum (I haven't made but think that this is done with caramelized sugar), and possibly also whiskey. There is also the variant of putting of something aromatic (some herb, or lemon peel, or ... hot pepper) directly in the vodka, in which way it stays there longer (I personally put stalks of anise, which otherwise are good for nothing, in the vodka that I buy in the shops, and after a pair of months this gives wonderful anise vodka, really natural, not like what is sold). (For information, in Bulgaria /Russia we say nastoyka for this liqueur because something stays — also stoya /stoit — in alcohol, or nalivka because we nalivaem-pour it in our throats, or in a cup; then if it is good for ... licking the French call it liqueur, where this act is lecken in German. The whiskey in its turn comes from the whisk-stirrer for driving away flies, or whipping eggs, in general, something with what we make a swift hit, from here is the whisker of the cat, i.e. this is the phrase "to pour something fast"; the Bulgarian rakiya is Arabic raki which has come from their arak meaning sweat, i.e. this is the product obtained drop by drop during the distillation; and the vodka is simply voda-water.)      If you use medicinal spirit of 95% (spiritus aethylicus, and it is better to search big bottles of 1 l = 0.8 kg), and if you make by 0.5 l vodka (as I do), then to obtain the standard 38º in the end must be mixed exactly 200 ml spirit with 300 ml water (the water, naturally, is more). If you use essence then it is counted to the spirit (but this is usually of no importance because normally is spent only about half to one table spoon of it); if you make decoction, though, then this gives the water (I personally boil in portions also the fruit out of which make the essence because it is still very strong). The methodology is the following: the water boils in a deep container (there must be twice much space in it than the volume made), where you put in little, maybe 0.5 g, citric acid (20-30 grains), sometimes also a tee spoon of sugar, then it is taken away from the flame and fast and carefully the spirit is poured in (which then in the instant bubbles up and falls down), where are put (preferably) also 10-15 drops glycerin (all additions are for softening of the taste, otherwise the vodka feels very coarse to the throat, but the spirit is clean enough, this isn't imitation).      As to the type (and taste) of the drink you may make cordials from what you like. I have made essences from: sour cherries, (grated) orange peels, lemon peels (again grated), wild (bitter) cherries, berries of rowan (in Bulgarian is said to be a bit poisonous, but it is healing berry, the Russians eat it and make also vodka out of it), raspberry, wild strawberry, pods of cypress (for imitation of the gin), small green walnuts (cut in pieces), stems of anise; then via boiled decoction make also from: stems or leaves of wild mint (and this is not mint at all, I'll tell you, we name it dzhodzhen and it is good when cooking beans), strawberries, the mentioned acacia vodka, and it can be made also, I suppose, from skin of pineapple, or real mint, or grains of pomegranate, or (?) from barks of melon, or from whatever is your whim in the moment (including with nothing, i.e. just vodka). Having in mind that now more and more alcohol drinks (at least in Bulgaria) are made out of spirit (the natural fermentation turns to be very expensive, adding the price also to the excise duties, i.e. vice versa), this isn't much different from the various things that one can buy in the shops, except for two moments: the one is that you aromatize your drink how you want, and the other is that it becomes for you three times (with tendency to become even more) cheaper than the vodka (not that this is something improper and you do not pay excise duties in this way, no, they are included in the price of spirit, which for the producers definitely costs 10 times less, but you do not pay to the firm that uses or makes its own spirit, and hardly with better quality). With what we have finished also this topic.      Well, that is, honourable ladies and gentlemen (though I, writing this material, can not know exactly who of you deserves to be honoured and who does not, but I hope you will not be cross with me counting you all for honourable), if you have time and desire you may easily economize with the explained here methods and tricks at least 1/4 of your expenses, because: here 3-5 euros per month, there a bit more, and just look how they have become 30-50 euros monthly (and let us not forget that we, as the most poor country in European Community, have average salary in the moment of writing of the paper of just 130 euros). Calculated for an year this may come close to half of a thousand (for I personally live on the basis of "a dollar a day" for food, plus twice as much for communal expenses). But this is for an alone living person, and if you are part of an average 3-member family (not that there remained many such families, but then of a group of people living together in one apartment and dividing between them the expenses for living), so then you will economize trice more because will economize also for the others. But adding here also the sum for the medicines (for now one can't enter a pharmacy if he is not ready to spend there as much money as, say, for a liter vodka, or for a kilo dry salami), then the sum grows even more. And to say nothing about the cigarettes, because they have long ago become matter of luxury for the Bulgarian — by average consumption of a pack per day and with the prices in the moment of writing this makes 50 euros or about 40% of the average monthly salary [I don't know how look at this the parties and the Governments — allusion on the popular phrase from totalitarian times about the "Party and Government"]. So that the economy leads to more healthy life (I, for example, long ago have become, as some say, "vegetarian by compulsion"); though there are not problems to look at the things vice versa, that the healthy way of life leads to economies.      You see, one has, extremely speaking, two alternatives: either to live reasonably (read also healthy), or to spend his organism and later to give away money for healing (say, for fitness club, or psychoanalyst, or course for narcotic withdrawal). Or looked otherwise: either to ride a bicycle going to work (as do many people in many countries, but this is a matter of tradition), or to drive his car, but to fix a bicycle on the roof of the car (to ride it at lunch break). Or to smoke the cigarettes in a chain (and this still good if filled with tobacco, not with something else) and then go to fitness clubs (or on treatment), or, given as an example, to go up and down by 5 floors a pair of times daily, to jog in his corridor, and other variants. Or else also: to drink with each meal (without breakfast, naturally) 100 grams of some natural acid (not cola, surely), or to take pills for different stomach problems. Or to add: to eat what may find in the shops and supermarkets (i.e. products for the plebs, not for the wealthy ones), or to find a person who will cook for him (the French cooks are for a long time not in fashion, some Malay, Chinese, or Cuban will do a better job) and buy from the shops only basic products (flour, sugar, cooking oil, meat, milk), and even this better to get from special providers, not from the supermarkets (as more well-to-do people do; or grow their own vegetables in hothouse, for to know what have put in the soil; and similar things).      Well, it is true that a person on 20 - 30 years is apt to shiny things — either a car, or a girl, or an import beverage, nice cigarette, fancy restaurant, famous resort, etc. — but neither all of us are on this age, nor this is proper (the proper thing is what is healthy). On the West people (at least more clever ones) long ago have learned to avoid technologically produced foods and beverages (hamburgers, colas, ready meals, etc.), but we just now begin to appreciate them (notwithstanding the fact that they are of bad quality); similarly also with the mutant foods, which may sometimes turn cheaper but exactly then are of quite inferior quality. But the westerner feels that he must search the natural and nowadays in almost every modern thing (for eating or not) is added something natural, which must raise the cost of the product, making it in this way more desirable for the client (because there people have often much money and don't know how to spend them).      If for some of the Bulgarians this, occasionally, is also so, then well, good cheer to them, first to poison themselves in whatever way they can, and later to heal themselves with extracts of natural products (only not with real such things). But the major part of the Bulgarians are not prosperous, nether the young ones are, so that they may begin to look for the natural (to gather what "lies in the feet"). I am perfectly aware that one will not drive in his car to the near park only to gather there some dandelion, to give one example, but in this case to look for it on the market or the shop (because if it is not now sold on the market then this is because there is no demand for it — though I have already seen something of the kind from Greece —, where the nettle is demanded and it is sold). So that the point is for the people to begin to search the healthy stuffs, someone (say, a media guru) has to tell them this, deluding them with something, or, alternatively, someone (or something) has to force them to do this.      But then, if the situation is such, to what this boils down to? Well, it turns that the Bulgarians were again fortunate — with the coming of democracy the major part of the population is just forced to lead as healthy life as possible Not that our people do this, no, we have not so much brains, but having in mind that for 20 years we are ceaselessly in economical crisis, it is high time for us to begin to do this. [Where earlier, in totalitarian times, what was the situation: I, for example, kept my window always open, two fingers wide, but during the whole winter never closed it, because the central heating was so strong that my wallpaper was tearing, in the direct meaning, and in such conditions there passes no one winter when I have not caught the flu.] With other words, every cloud has a silver lining, and our democratic misery can be used somehow. Then use it, ladies and gentlemen!      March 2010      PS. Oct 2012.      I intend to complete this brochure from time to time with new things drawn from my personal experience, but will make this at the end, in order to edit easier the different copies. To the common first part there should be added nothing important, but still, to the strategies of survival, the counterflow principle (І.2.2.), may be added one concrete advice when is most suitable to shop at some stores (this can't be thoroughly universal, each shop has its own and changing strategy), namely: best of all in Tuesday, eventually in Wednesday, and in the evening, one and a half hour before closing time. Why it is not good in the end of the week, from Thursday evening and up to Sunday including, is clear, but in the beginning I did not understand why also on Mondays the market (and the cooperative one, too) is more expensive, but having raised the question it become clear for me that this is because during the holidays the people have eaten and drunk everything and in Monday they go to buy at least bread and milk, and with this also other things; i.e. many people shop in the holidays, but many others are lazy enough to go even then, in the biggest crowd, to shop, so that almost all, for one or another reason, empty their refrigerators in the weekend. And in the evenings before closing time is good in big supermarket chains (though some other may do this in the morning of the next day — you have to check how the things are for a given shop) because for some goods the period of storage expires, and the shop may decide that it is better to sell them cheaper a pair of days before the term, because in the last day hardly somebody will buy them (will take something alternative but fresher); this applies to vegetables, bread, meat, in general, to perishable products (not to cooking oil or sugar, for example). But on Tuesdays (possibly also Wednesdays) the merchants may choose to make some additional attractive discount, for to have more or less regular influx of buyers and money.      This, however, is not always obligatory (because the market has no global patterns) and may happen that a pair of adjacent times they don't do this, because when one goes to the shop he has intention to buy, and does it. Other shops, in their turn, have the habit to make discounts according to the days of the month, and for Bulgaria this usually is the period from 21st to about 28th — because the salaries are paid at the end of the month (29 - 31, but also later), the pensions are from 7th to 19th, advance payments are in the middle of the month, and then only this week remains less loaded. But if there are some official holidays then all prices not only remain high but jump up even higher. In addition to this the prices by us are, as a rule, as I surely have mentioned, higher in more unfavourable periods, like: winter, hot summer, dry weather, rains, etc (in which times one must open his closed jars), and they are the cheapest in the spring and autumn (but not for things which people use to can in such moments, of course). Anyway, with similar "tricks" of shopping I personally have begun to buy about 30% cheaper (on the average for a year), and quite valid goods, not beginning to decay rubbish.      To ІІ.1.1., surviving in urban conditions, economy from central heating, I wish to emphasize that the flowers in the home are very important, because this autumn, when it became a bit colder, I decided to gather what might get cold from the terrace and put in the room where I slept in the moment only three small pots with pelargoniums (two different plants with entirely different smells, and in Bulgaria they are called, respectively, indrishe, which is put in some jams, and mushkato, which doesn't smell very nice, but they are given from one family), and a stalk of basil. As I have closed the window for two days the air was very heavy and dusty, but two hours after putting the flowers inside it was already quite nice, so that now my "airing" consists of ... opening the curtain of the window, because in the evening I close it for the light not to awake me very early (i.e. before 9 in the morning), and in this way, when there is a sun, both, the air is cleared by the flowers, and the temperature in the room is preserved. Well, it is clear that these are flowers with some fragrance, but I don't feel it, it is below the threshold of my feelings, but the air is cleansed.      To ІІ.2., surviving in urban conditions, making of supplies for winters, may be added also this moment that it is not devoid of meaning to close some jars by the raw system, without sterilizing, but with more salt and vinegar, some aspirin (about a tablet per kilo vegetables), and with a finger of cooking oil above, and in this way a big variety of things may stay not one month, but a whole season (say, my favorite dzhanki-plumbs pulp stays during the whole summer and open, even without oil, and there is nothing bad with it; there may only happen that the mixture may harden at the top and, if is kept in a bottle with narrow throat, you have to poke first with some tiny wand for to bore it, but when it begins to flow it's perfect).      To ІІ.3.6, jams and honeys, I would have liked to add that the honey out of dandelion, when I put also some leaves of indrishe (and here surely is very important not to put some other of pelargonium plants), which boil together with the dandelion, becomes very tasty, and, besides and also obvious, is very healthy, no matter that the one from acacia is much more aromatic, but I make myself different honeys, for assortment.      May be added point ІІ.3.9., making of tea at home, what I tried for several years with jasmine, because it is often met in the parks. At first my experiments were not successful, but now I began to like it, because have acquired some ideas from the Internet, where it treats the so called Russian ivan-tea. Now, the ivan-tea surely is better, but around my habitat I have not seen it, although I suppose that know it, and it was nectariferous plant, so that it must not be something harmful. The idea about drying of the teas is — generally speaking — to allow the leaves to ferment, i.e. to oxidize while they are drying, and if they ferment more then they produce more caffeine and become darker and stronger. But if you cut them in fine pieces then they stick one to the other and begin to get mould (I have tried this, have added also a bit of vinegar) if you don't dry them fast, but if you are very quick in the drying then they will have no caffeine at all and will become like the herbal teas (only will have not their aroma), and that is why the Chinese have occupied themselves (for whole days)to roll them — either in parallel with their filament, or perpendicularly, or once so once otherwise —, and to ... burn them in big pans, and to keep them in shade, and then in sun, and similar tricks (for each sort there are its tricks).      The simplest recipe for making at home of jasmine tea is the following: the leaves are plucked in the morning (before noon, and after a recent rain) only the top 4-5 leaves (maybe a bit more, if the branch itself is juicy and soft, it depends), before they are in full bloom, i.e. in the beginning of May (a pair of small buds or a fine stem are nothing bad), there is filled one big plastic bag, then at home it is poured in a basin or tub above newspaper in the open for 1-2 hours (to allow to whatever bugs you have "picked" with the leaves to run away), then the leaves are left in shade till the evening, after what are pressed and bruised not very hard and put in plastic bags at thin layer and rolled like ... carpet, wrapped up in a towel or tied, and stay so till the morning; on the other day before noon you take them out of the envelopes and ... grind them with meat grinder, what gives some small pellets, greenish, which are dried in the sun, or in the oven at about 80oC, but it has to be slightly ajar and to work in impulse mode, i.e. to heat 1-2 minutes and then rest for 10-20, so that to be enough time for some fermentation to take place.      This I have tried personally, only that have not pressed the leaves specially, because of what, maybe, the tea does not become much strong, has nearly black colour but with greenish hue, i.e. this is a kind of green tea, but have put the leaves through meat grinder. It is relatively weak, but has pleasing aroma, and is of that kind of teas which as more you drink as more you want to drink of them, and I have drank it the last two years in the two most summer months. To this, maybe because it is weaker, I may add that I have poured water over it already from the evening and left it on place where the first sunshine rays may shine over it in the morning (if I sleep longer), and in this way it leaves what can (boiling it later for just a pair of minutes, but this is not compulsory). Surely with ivan-tea will be better (it was gathered in July - August), which may become also stronger. Anyway, try it, this is an interesting occupation and what one makes himself alone he likes better.      As to the point ІІ.4., how not to go to physicians, I may confirm one more time that the jogging, really, is a big deal, and at least for everyone in age over fifty it is imperative, and my system with running just once a week in the corridor is elementary for applying by each one of you.      To ІІІ.2., special skills, wines, I may add that usual semi-wild grapes, really, can be put after brambles, tearing only the berries and washing them, and becomes quite acceptable sour wine, what costs you practically nothing, when to one kilo fruit is added one kilo sugar and three liters water and this gives four liters wine; only from wine grapes in this way is not so aromatic. And let me stress once more that the produced in this way vinegar, especially that from brambles or raspberries, has nothing to do with the vinegars that you buy and is really good for adding to tea, where this that can be bought can't be used at all (I tried it once — it gives a slop).      To ІІІ.3., making of liquors, I wish to insert that as if the best ones are made from rowan berries, stems of anise (which otherwise are good for nothing, but lying for half an year in spirit give very nice essence), raspberries, wild strawberries, sour cherries (where to these out of berries is added a bit sugar), but the others are also good.      And as to the medicines, honestly, for the last several years I doubt whether I can count up to 5 tablets aspirin together in a whole year (more aspirin I use for conserving), and no other medicaments. You judge for yourselves where this is a healthy way of life, or is not.      PS. Oct 2013.      Well, I have not decided to add each year something to this material, but this time it so happened. The additions are mainly to the special skills (because of which, I suppose, some readers by Internet choose this brochure).      About the ivan-tea: at last I have found in my park one spot with it and gathered some. As far as the point with the teas is like with ... the sex, in this to prolong the pleasure, and here the fermentation, at least to a couple of days, not to be dried at once, then my technology (snatched from the Internet) is the following. The leaves are gathered in the morning, best of all around June, are left for a bit to ventilate in the open and to allow to all bugs to run away, after what are put in plastic bags in relatively thin layer and rolled as a roll, but the leaves are previously beaten with a mallet or rolling pin, for to force the leaves to begin to ferment. They are kept in this way till the next day, but then the fermentation proceeds pretty fast and there is a danger that they may begin to rot, so that it is good to be taken away a pair of times, to be mixed, crumpled, eventually beaten, and rolled again in the bags, where they stay generally for about 30 hours, or, in some limits, from 24 to 36 hours (if they stay for two whole days this is too much for them, and if you don't stir them then they begin to rot in some places, but in others the fermentation has not yet begun). Then they are ground in meat grinder, where it is better to put them first just for 1-2 minutes in the oven at 100 degrees or so, and are ground still hot. If there is a good sun they are dried under it, but one may help them a bit in the oven at 60-80 degrees; this process can continue for a pair of days, during which time the tea darkens further. The very ivan-tea, having begun to ferment, smells sweetish, something, maybe, like beer yeast (for what reason, I suppose, it has been discovered initially, left mowed on a meadow). It is more genuine tea, more yellow-reddish, but it, still, is a substitute, don't think to give up buying real tea at all, be it even Georgian. But it is as if more refreshing, has another composition and it is good if one drinks for a pair of months in the year also from it; but is for cooler weather, where the jasmine tea I use in the summer, it is quite greenish. And something else, the tea has to mature for some time (during which it continues to ferment and becomes a bit stronger), so that wait at least a month before beginning to drink the newly made tea.      As regards the wines: it is not said that they must always be made from several fruits, and to make 3-4 harvests; the classical variant is to make two harvests, for example, so: 1.6 kg sour cherries, 1.6 kg sugar, 4.8 l water, with possibly a sprig of dried milfoil (but look not to overdo), keep this 10-12 days open, they give very much foam (especially if are not very ripen); for the second harvest to the same fruit you add 0.65 kg sugar (about 0.4 part of the fruit) and 2 l water, and keep them 7-8 days. Third harvest comes out either weak, or very sweet, and you better don't do it, what will give you very strong vinegar (which stays at least 1.5 months, and with about 1.2 l water). Similarly you make also from brambles (there are places where they grow in abundance, beside rivers, for example, only that they scratch much), putting: 1.75 kg brambles, 1.75 kg sugar, 5.25 l water, keep them 8-9 days, the fruit almost dissolves itself and for that reason for the second harvest is added only 0.6 kg sugar and 1.8 l water, keep them again the same time; the vinegar (with about 1. l water) becomes really fantastic in flavour.      More than this, I have begun to apply no-waste technology, by which I somehow ... eat up all the fruit (that can be eaten) after the wine, and even after the vinegar. I mean that of the cherries, for example, I take away the stones (by hand, they are tender and is easy to take them out) after they have given the vinegar, put them in a jar and they stay so 2-3 months, in the summer, and without refrigerator (they contain in themselves remains of vinegar), and use them for adding in what I cook — sour berries, quite original. The brambles can't be treated in the same way, I am forced to throw them away (what is left from them, because they are only seeds and juice), but for the winter wine, from hips, apples, then oranges, I eat them taking them out of the vine. More precisely, in the first harvest I put as much as I have written before hips and grated apples, only take care the hips to be whole, they can be dried, from 4-5 years, such are also good, and when I put the wine on quiet fermentation I gather the hips by hand and the apples insert (exactly fermented) in one jar and eat them in a week time (eventually with addition of some sugar). The second harvest I make again so with apples, but with the same hips (they have to stay as much as possible, for to give their strength and vitamins), and later also eat them up. Third and fourth harvests I made with oranges, peeled and cut widthwise on rings which later dissolve themselves but may be "caught", so that when they go to the vinegar I take them away little by little and add to what I cook; only the hips are thrown away at the end. Adding together with these sour things also pulp of dzhankis-plumb, possibly also some vinegar or one tomato, I cook myself very tasty dishes.      What regards the concentrated alcohol, I just wonder now how I have drunk before something bought from the shops (what nowadays surely is a fake), where in my new way I drink each week something different (and differently coloured), using all possible stems, which can't be used for cooking, from what grows on my terrace, where to the dill and anise (not to touch the acacia and the fruits) added also: wild thyme, coriander, basil, dzhodzhen-mint, and what else comes to my mind, and mixed, in different proportions, for a change. And not to forget also this peculiarity, that when one drinks such medicinal spirit (correspondingly diluted by the explained method), which is not much soft in taste, then one does not drink in so big amounts, where the nice vodka just pours as if by itself in your throat, and is drunk more, surely, so that I both, drink "strengthened" decoctions of healing herbs, and lessen the alcohol a bit, and in addition do not get tired of one and the same things because alternate various items.      Ah, it may turn out that the calcium taken from the egg shells is even better than those contained in the milk, because I have glanced somewhere that the calcium from the milk was not in good for absorption by the organism form and contained much lymphatic fluids (leading to overweight etc.). Now, surely, one must not give much confidence to anybody and anything, because everybody advertises himself in some way, or works for those who pays him for his labour, but in any case this calcium is easy to take, one gets used to it and begins to like it, and does not hinder whatever other intake of milk or milk products, only that the organism does not want them, because receives what it needs in another way. And in order to see that I am not speaking here about something strange and abhorrent let me tell you, rather as a funny curiosity, one ancient medicine, maybe mainly against cough, named album graecum or "the white Greek thing", which consisted from ground ... dog droppings (which are whitish, due to the calcium that they contain), mixed with some honey (and maybe also some "know-how" of the firm). And people have taken them in those times, and what is to be said about some clean and baked shells of eggs (most often unfertilized). So that I can with clear conscience raise the slogan: "Take the shell of one egg and you will not for a liter of milk beg!".      And why not to tell you something also about the honey, which by me turns quite watery but in many aspects is better (more aromatic, or more healthy) than that made by the bees (which main advantage is that it is gathered from various flowers, i.e. it has some bouquet)? I mean, why the bee honey is thicker and durable? Well, it is obvious that this is because of the wax (with the hope that it is mainly from the bees, not artificial), but what is this a bee wax? Well, it turns out that this was chiefly ... condensed sweat, grime of a kind, of the bees! So, the deal was the following: when in the beehive becomes pretty hot, in the summer, when the sun shines mighty, some of the bees in their "critical age" began to feel very heated, to gasp for air, to flutter with wings, for to cool themselves a little (but the movement also heats them, so that this does not help much), and then some young bees, hearing this noise, rushed quickly toward and began to scratch the "crone" at the bottom part of her body, at the abdomen, with their paws, which ended on some nails, and in this way, little by little, they gathered under the nails this hardened sweat, which they rolled later to small balls and stored in some depots, where from to take when needed. And as far as the honey is kept in such waxy "containers", then it unavoidably acquires some more volatile components in itself. Yeah, but because I have nobody to scratch me by the "belly", my honey becomes more watery, right? But is delicious and healthy.      So, ladies and gentlemen, that is for the moment. Appendix The Wild Calls It's pretty nice in every dish To put some nettle — you know this. But being bright and very clever I ... dandelion add — you'd never. Wild onion pluck from time to time, Lime leaves collect — they cost no dime, And when the rhubarb wild shoots out I ponder not, put in the mouth. It happens primrose leaves are good For some dish, and if so — I put; And apples, quince, I also can Put in the pot when cooking hen. But the extreme temptation form For me green wild plumbs, as a norm, Because they substitute tomatoes, But sweeter are, what means, are better. I add to this that mushrooms pick — Some big, some small like eggs of chick —, I recognize some twenty types And eat with gusto when are nice. Then I make wines from sundry berries, For I am competent, use: cherries, If sour, brambles, wild plumbs, sloes, And raspberries, wild rose hips, more, Use pears wild, and apples, seldom blueberries, oranges, then elder, Blackcurrants, kiwis, strawberries, Pineapples, and you name it, please. So that I all of you advise To spit on palms and make your tries Collecting what has given God, Else live in th' state you just could not. Dec 2008, translated in Mar 2014