All loaves of bread in Hungary have this paper that is glued or somehow stuck to the crust that never comes off easily. This tasty little loaf was US$.75. "Pentekig" means that is fresh until Friday, two days later.

When the peaches and plums are 168 forint to the kilo (US 35 cents a pound) I’m buying. I also bought sour cherries, but they, like these, were overripe so I quickly sorted the best ones and froze them.

Now that I can cook in a temporary place of my own, I take advantage of the typical Hungarian specialities on offer in the fresh market behind the Mammut shopping mall. I bought duck and goose legs though I’d never cooked either before. It was a challenge (i.e., I almost burned the whole apartment block down), but there’s not much meat on such poultry, plus it’s very fatty.

I have been in consultations with my pro chef friend, Lynn. She is starting a business and this is the beginning of her website. I think I am going to buy some mangalica pork, a startlingly distinctive, uniquely Hungarian pig, something close to a wild boar (Here is a webpage from Japan(!) about it.) It’s supposed to have much leaner meat. I’ll cook that in some fashion and then make a sauce from the pitted sour cherries with wine. Lynn says wine but I don’t have any so rubbing alcohol should do.

Hungary is a great pork country. One theory about this is that during the Ottoman occupation, the muslims wanted no part of the Hungarians’ pigs so they were allowed to keep them unmolested and their love for them flourished.
I’m a wee bit miffed at my friends that I had to discover mangalica on my own. It’s going to be fantastic, I’m sure, if I don’t burn down all of Buda first. I might get a little of the smoked stuff, a little sausage, and a cut of some sort to try with the sour cherry sauce. Did I mention I weigh 300kg?

I made a salad—I really did; no one has hijacked my blog—of leaf lettuce, carrots, ewe cheese, diced pork chunks, balsamic vinegar and olive oil. As we say food professionals say, it was delish.

Fried brown rice with carrots, garlic, onions, ginger, horse sausage and smoked pork. I am in a cooking frenzy!