Of Honey & Meat

It’s a beautiful day. There’s not a cloud to be seen; the birds are singing up a storm; and it’s warm enough for me to be outside without a jacket. It’s the kind of day I’d love to be out doing something. Unfortunately, I’m battling two issues: I’m sick and I have work to do.  On my way home from one of my schools, I took a stroll through the Gori bazaar. The plan is to bake a chicken for dinner, and I wanted some onions to stuff in the cavity.  It’s substantially cheaper to buy produce at the market, and since it was on my way home, I figured I’d duck in and see what I could find.

On my way to where I thought the onions were, I wandered around a bit to see if there was anything else I might need. I stumbled onto two good finds: local honey and local carrots. The honey lady was situated right at the edge of what I call the ‘meat hall.’ It’s a large, barn-like expanse of space filled with all sorts of men and their raw meat wares sitting at tables. I walked around the meat hall, but I didn’t buy anything. I don’t think I’m up to the task of buying an unwrapped slab of dead cow off of a rickety wooden table from a guy dropping his cigarette ashes all over the place. I need my meat to be more sanitized.

Anyways, I went back to the lady with the honey and bought a jar of what she had. I was a little surprised at first at the cost, 11 lari (about $6.75), but then I realized that I was getting a huge Mason jar full of sweet, local goodness and that $6.75 was a steal (for comparison, I used to pay 7 Euro/$9.25 for the same amount from my favorite beekeeper in Prizren who had the absolute best honey in the area). Purchase in hand, I roamed around the rest of the bazaar a little bit (trying to find my way back out, actually) and, in addition to the onions I’d gone to buy in the first place, I bought locally grown carrots, dill, lettuce, and radishes.

After I got home, I immediately washed the carrots and ate a few. The woman I bought them from had said they were better for eating than for cooking (at least I think that’s what she was saying….I could be completely wrong).  She was right about them being good for eating: sweet, crisp, easy to bite into. I was planning on steaming a few to have with the chicken and topping them with a dilled butter sauce, but I may just eat them as-is.

But back to the honey. I knew I wanted to do something with it, but I wasn’t quite sure what. I started sifting through my cupboard to see what might inspire me and when I saw my lone granola bar, I knew. So I poked around online until I had enough information to cobble together a recipe and voila! Granola bars are in the oven.