~I like the taste of the distilled water I prepare at home. Drink at least 1 litre regularly, try to stick to the classical 2 litres.

~My mum's friend gave her a couple of kilos of dried plums that they'd got somewhere for cheap, and she ate a lot of them at a go. She doesn't think about SO2 etc, and here's the result: she's quite sick, with all the symptoms of intoxication. You'll never get this if you have apples or other really raw fruit.

~As I said I don't feel ready for fruitarianism, so after 3 weeks without the leafy greens I'm enjoying them again. And not only the greens, sprouts too. Bought young sunflower shoots - and liked them a lot! Thick and crunchy.

~Synchronicity:

I've been thinking of ways to wash my hair naturally for a while. Today received a newsletter I'm subscribed to, and there was an interview with a 50y.o. woman who's been living a relatively natural lifestyle for the last 10 years. She gave some tips on several issues, including washing one's hair. Then I read LiveJournal, and one of my virtual friends asked advice on washing his hair.

So, I tried washing my hair with bicarbonate of soda (2 spoonfuls per 500 ml of lukewarm or hot or very hot water) and rinsing it with lemon juice (half a lemon, squeeze, strain, 500 ml of lukewarm water), and I like the result!

~My second birthday with my raw foodism ideas. I'm more tolerant than a year ago. Last year it was friends at my place with only raw food (salads etc.), this time it was in a café, I invited them to fresh juice (it was a must :D ) and to whatever they would choose. The only exception was alcohol.

~Parcel from Uzbekistan received (dried apricots, almonds in shells)

~I'm more sensitive to noises and music. In my everyday metro journeys a pair of good headphones Sennheiser is an absolutely necessary thing due to the fact that I really need noise insulation... It's all too loud for me. Even at the cinema! o_O Among all the pieces of music I've got my preferences currently lie in music for the piano and/or symphony orchestra.

~There's a new yoga place not far from where I live! Want to pass by and learn the prices and timetable.

A post with pics

La-la-la, my mum has just returned from Morocco and brought me 3 types of dates and several oranges. In such countries oranges are usually not treated when they are for the domestic market, and you can see that they are different from what is sold in supermarkets in countries-importers. They are not that clean and the orange-peel colour is not homogeneous. The taste is superb.

Tomatoes:
One of the Azeri tomatoes I bought at the weekend market contained no seeds! I couldn't eat it. The rest were ok and tasted good.

I read a comment (#11) by somebody whose tastes coincide with mine :)

My fridge can look like this sometimes:

Black sesame "milk":
Yesterday I prepared it for the first time and I loved it! Surely I'll buy some raw white sesame seeds and try them this way as well. Sesame is a wonderful source of Ca as Ca from it assimilates best. For me sesame milk is a way to drink more water without making myself do it.

Open air market/Dried fruits

Every Friday to Sunday there is a week-end open air market in each part of Moscow. In my area we have one half-way to my mom's workplace and every Friday we buy groceries from one and the same stall with produce from the Oryol region. It is hard to find a farm in Russia that would know how to preserve well agricultural produce the whole winter (November-March) due to low technological level of their storage facilities. And I guess we are lucky to have found some contacts. Their prices are higher than the average prices on that local market, but we noticed we are not the only regular customers of theirs. Thus, good quality (and minimal giving light weight as opposed to the majority) does form loyalty =).
I know that by now apples from this part of the planet don't contain much nutritional value in general, but still it's something juicy and nice. Unfortunately, I noticed that I can eat only Russian, Ukrainian and Moldavian apples, not treated or treated much less than their "colleagues" from Poland (which used to be quite fine before Poland entered the EU), France, Holland, China (uff) or Latin America.
I got hooked on sunflower seeds. Since last week I've been really enjoying some 100 grams of big & tasty sunflower seeds from Uzbekistan a time, some 2-3 times a day. I am really happy we have such good economic relations at the level of vegetables, fruits, dried fruits, seeds and similar with the ex-Soviet republics of Central Asia. They are so poor that they don't treat their produce =) and thanks God the sanitation & epidemiological rules and standards for import to the Russian Federation are adequate, not exorbitant as in the EU.

My food preferences now

Basic stuff (from the regions nearby or neighbouring countries):
apples from the Lipetsk region (to the south from Moscow)
our own pumpkins (grown in the Moscow region)
white cabbage
carrots
hazelnuts from the Lipetsk region
dill from the Moscow or Kaluga region
sun-dried persimmon from Georgia (incl. Abkhazia)
sun-dried apricot (both with the freestone, урюк, and without, курага)
mung bean (green gram, маш) in germination
wheat seeds in germination
sunflower seeds

Products from faraway regions (need to minimize):
sun-dried dates from the Mediterranean region
citrus from Morocco
pineapple from Costa-Rica
mango from Peru
pears from Argentina

There are some products I would love to consume but they are not seasonal meaning too many fertilizers are used (cucumbers from greenhouses in nearby regions or Central Asia, tomatoes from Central Asia and paprika I don't know where it is from). But sometimes I do eat these.

Istanbul

Current location: Istanbul, Turkey
It's such a considerable change in veg quality! Fruits travel a long way to Holland, pass all kinds of treatments to be allowed to the internal market; locally veg and fruits are grown with too many chemicals to taste good. I was used to this neutral taste, and now it feels so good to eat more natural raw food!

I am eating tons of Turkish tangerines. They are simply great, and there was no treatment mentioned on the boxes. It's the season of pomegranates as well, and in small kiosks or cafes they offer freshly made pomegranate juice, a completely new experience for me.

Radish and lettuce, nice cucumbers and wonderful tomatoes - finally! After quite some time in the overcivilized EU! Please, Turkey, don't aim at entering the EU with their horrible agricultural standards!

Not raw. A lot. Recently, in Holland, sushi, seaweed salad (with some colour enhancer), in Turkey, black olives, baklava, Turkish bread, boiled potatoes with spices, several types of jam. The worst was that in the plane I ate some cheese included in the food they serve at 11000m, and I am sure it wasn't vegetarian. I feel guilty, it was the first time I ate something non-vegetarian fully understanding it.

Airport. In the shopping area for passengers at Schiphol there is a kiosk where they make smoothies, including with special nuances like addition of green tea and echinacea in powder. But vegetarian sushi were present only in the supermarket before the passport control.

Galata bridge. While passing by a fish restaurant Balik:
Come and see our menu - Thank you, I don't eat fish - Just come, I will show you vegetarian [dishes]. - OK.
Oh, what he showed... every single dish was with this or that kind of fish. In the end they offered me a glass of still water. And one of the waiters came up to me to talk about vegetarianism and how will I act when I get married and have children - how will I cook meat and fish for them... "Fish is very healthy, doctors say." But "I respect your choice" - this is phrase so pleasant to hear.

Spice market. So many spices, nuts, dried fruits, herbs... Amazing. I tasted and bought, among other things, raisins which were dried on the vine, sun-dried apricots and figs. They taste great.

Open market day

Last Saturday I found a market stall with dried fruit including apricots. There were both standard and quite dark ones, as the naturally sun-dried apricots should be, and I bought a bit then. Today I had a chance to ask not the girls who sell this but have no idea what they actually sell (they start talking about sugar added when there is no sugar for sure), but a man who seemed to know. My question was if there was sulphur dioxide or similar used to preserve the dried dark apricots. Unfortunately, the answer was positive. He said there were preserving agents added to all their product line (which was considerable).
At a bio stall I saw some organic dates and asked the same question. I was surprised that people who own a bioshop don't know such details important for their, quite particular, customers.
I searched for information on dried fruit and found this. A lot of facts on food and medicines additives with a focus on kids and asthma and allergy, but it is really impressing. And here is a bit on salicylates.