Kurma

The travelling Festival of India relocates to the beautiful Port City of Mrzezyno today. It's renowned for being one of the most picturesque sea bathing places of Poland's Western Pomerania Region, situated not far from our last venue Kolobrzeg, by the estuary of the Rega river.

Clean, sandy beaches, gentle dunes covered with the local plants and a wide band of pine forest create a unique microclimate, which, apparently, is highly beneficial in the treatment of allergies and diseases of the respiratory system.

I have two more days of cookery classes on this Baltic leg of my tour, then one day off to enjoy the festival. After that I pack and head back to Warsaw, the 'big smoke'. Beyond that lies the massive continent of Africa...

My 'day off' was spent cooking a feast for 250! But I thoroughly enjoyed the experience. In the morning I went for a litle walk around the mainly rural distict of our base camp, which is situated about 20 kilometres inland from the coast between Kolbrzeg and Mrze¿yno.

I noted the dozens of fully-laden cherry trees, and the very handsome red currant vines (below).

After the feast I wandered to the local markets and examined the summer fruit - truly impressive! All the berries vary from around two to three Australian dollars a kilo. Here's a selection. The red currants are at the peak of their season at the moment.

The apricots here are the largest, sweetest and most fragrant I have ever encountered. The cherries seem to be of three main varieties - the red, dark purple, and orange.

Here's the ubiquitous raspberries and strawberries, plus what appear to be very first class mulberries.

My childhood days in England were full of sweet berry memories. I fondly recall my mother's home-grown stewed gooseberries with cream. These handsome specimens come in two varieties here.

I don't actually ever remember seeing this darker variety of gooseberry. I just know they'll make a great gooseberry tart!