Day 39 ROMANIA Hai La Saivan Bucovina

At the last PUNCT Gastronomical restaurant La Nuta Si Ionica, the host told us that stinging nettles (urzici) was a delicacy that was good for arthritis and high in iron, found only in spring in a 1 month window, that happened to be now. Our Romanian friend back home confirmed the good effects of urzici.
While we were hiking on the property, we found some urzici so I picked one and showed it to the cook. Using Google Translate, and charades, she handed me a basket and said that she'd cook it with garlic when I had picked some. It was a prickly difficult process as only the first 4-6 leaves were picked from each plant.
The end result was worth it when it was served at dinner, urzici cooked in a creamy garlic sauce.
I had ciorba with meatballs for lunch because I could not resist soups even though we were both too full from breakfast. Ruby gave it a miss.
The cook produced a bowl full of cookies she'd made, with coffee and tea served at an alfresco seating area for afternoon tea.
Despite knowing we were expecting a big dinner, the cookies were irresistibly good.
It's a good thing we weren't staying longer or we would leave quite round like the meatballs.
We must have adapted to the slow paced farm life. Breakfast, a short hike, nettles picking, chatting via Google Translate to the farmer (hugs included), and afternoon tea filled most of the day. It was a very languid, quiet and restful day, which included a luxurious soak in an old fashion deep claw foot bath.Read more