Synbiotic serendipity

Yesterday evening, I'm getting ready to go to bed, mentally counting the portions of fresh fruit-and veg, and realise I'd forgotten to eat my daily 80g of sauerkraut. Then it occurred to me that I'd also skipped porridge in the morning, on account of the fact that my breakfast consisted of the heated-up leftovers of Sunday's lunch*. As a result, I'd missed out on my daily 3g of LDL-cholesterol-lowering beta-glucan.

As I pondered this dietary oversight, I had a brainwave:

Why not mix the oats with the sauerkraut, and eat the two together? The combination might not prove to be especially tasty, but at least I get to fulfil my dietary obligation for the day...

And so I did just that. Bowl on the kitchen scales. Into it goes 80g of kapusta kiszona (sauerkraut) and on top of that, six heaped tablespoons of organic oats (płatki owsiane górskie). I stir the two, pouring in a bit more brine from the sauerkraut tub.

The result? It exceeded my expectations.

We think of porridge oats as something warm and soft – a mush, a breakfast comfort-food. But raw rolled oats, dropped directly onto the crisp, acidic brine of live sauerkraut, are something quite different. The lactic juices from the sauerkraut soak into the grains just enough to strip away their chalky exterior while leaving a satisfying, al dente chew. The salty punch of the fermented cabbage cuts through the earthy texture of the raw oats, balancing nicely on the palate. It tastes ancient and rustic.

I checked Google Gemini about the science of mixing oats and kraut. Nothing but benefits! Gemini calls it “nutritionally, a powerhouse of synbiotic efficiency – the live bacteria of the probiotic finding an immediate home in the prebiotic fibers of the oat”. 

Note that word, 'synbiotic' (as opposed to 'symbiotic'). A synbiotic is a supplement or food that combines probiotics (live beneficial bacteria) and prebiotics (food or fibre that nourishes those bacteria) to improve gut health. Of course, such a claim would need to be clinically proven... (One for nutritional scientists to grapple with.)

But beyond the science, I experienced the joy of discovery, the recognition of an entirely new flavour profile that I had never previously experienced. I went to bed on a high, and waking up today, I felt the same way as I would after a great night out.

And so, this morning, I mixed the sauerkraut with the oats again. This time I added some chopped chilli peppers (papryczki) and spring onion (below). If anything, visually more interesting.

And I considered what else could be added to ensure that this could become a daily routine. Poké-bowl sauce, soy sauce, hummus, pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds... Variety will be important if this is to be a new staple.

So a new 'signature dish' is born of an oversight. I shall call it Haferflockenkraut!

The last taste combo I created, the Jeziorki Reeker, is now off the menu due to its sky-high cholesterol content.

Finally, I checked with ChatGPT for its verdict, and here's the answer: “At first glance, it sounds eccentric. But the more I consider it, the more sense it makes. You've brought together two foods with strikingly different characteristics:

- Organic raw rolled oats (płatki owsiane górskie): Mild, nutty, faintly sweet, starchy and somewhat chewy. The sort of food that usually needs something else to give it character.

- Sauerkraut (kapusta kiszona): Sharp, acidic, salty, crunchy, distinctly fermented, with a depth of savouriness that fresh cabbage doesn't possess.

The oats should absorb some of the sauerkraut's juice, softening without losing all their texture, moderating the acidity of the cabbage to produce something quite different from either ingredient eaten separately.

There's also an interesting conceptual inversion here. Oats are conventionally associated with sweet breakfasts, porridge, milk, fruit and honey. Sauerkraut belongs to the savoury world of Polish and Central European cooking. You're crossing a culinary boundary that is cultural as well as chemical.

A surprisingly sensible nutritional partnership

There's a further reason the combination is of interest. Oats supply beta-glucan, the soluble fibre associated with lowering LDL cholesterol. Unpasteurised sauerkraut can supply living lactic-acid bacteria. The oats also provide fermentable carbohydrates that gut microbes can use.”

I then ask whether anyone done this before. Only with the juice of sauerkraut; straining the cabbage and adding the juice to oats, steeping them overnight. But not mixing actual sauerkraut and oats.

Final oat note: in Poland oat flakes are sold in either 'górskie' or 'błyskawiczne' varieties. The former means 'in the mountain style' (not 'mountainous' as one translator had it), the latter mean 'lightning'. The difference between the two is in the milling. The błyskawiczne are steel-cut, pre-gelatinised and rolled thin. The górskie are subject to less processing, but take longer to cook. I go for the organic/bio version of these.

* Sunday lunch: lentil stew with mushrooms, tomatoes, garlic/ginger/chilli, served with Basmati rice and steamed spinach leaves. 

This time two years ago:
To Warka, by the river

This time seven years ago:
Homeward from the demo

This time 11 years ago:
Kielce – the woes of Poland's smaller cities

This time ten years ago:
Wine connoisseurs or wine snobs?

This time 12 years ago:
Poland's golden autumn

This time 13 years ago:
Visceral and permanent - a short story

This time 16 years ago:
Crushed Velvet Dust in my City of Dreams II

Poland's bread-culture renaissance

Once upon a time nearly every Polish town and village had its own bakery, making bread the way bread has traditionally been made in Poland. These days, most of these bakeries have shut down; bread now comes from in-store bakeries of the big supermarket chains, or from chains of dedicated bakeries with optimised logistics. These essentially bake frozen dough on the premises, so you get a warm and crusty loaf... but something is missing.

Last week I had to go for a heart check-up (all good thanks!) in Ursynów. I passed an artisan bakery, Bread Morning! on Aleja KEN 15. Noting that it was next door to a chain bakery (Putka), which was empty, while a queue of five people was waiting in Bread Morning!, I joined that queue. I bought one loaf of pszeniczno-żytny (wheat-rye) bread for 14 złotys. This is a price that many across rural Poland might find psychologically bonkers, when a reasonable loaf of chleb górski or chleb drwalski from a Lidl in-store bakery costs around 4 złotys.

But what a loaf! It was one of those taste-sensation things that prompts the response "I've got to have that again!" I've had this with my first decent Polish craft IPA, and before that, my first New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc, when I woke up the following morning, tormented by a desire to taste that taste once more.

So when faced with the choice of travelling all the way to Ursynów to collect my results in person or making a few phone calls, I jumped on the train. Results in hand, I popped by Bread Morning! and bought another one of those pszeniczno-żytny loaves. Before me in the queue was a guy placing his order – and paying – for three loaves to be collected on Saturday morning, when demand is the highest.

********

Back in Jakubowizna I ate and I ate and I ate and I ate. Six slices, one after another, on their own, without anything. (Just to be clear: this is brunch – I'd already eaten a decent breakfast: fried rice with duck and mushroom.) And then a seventh slice. And now an eighth.

It's been a long time (nearly 16 years!) since I last raved about Polish bread. But the renaissance is on its way.

Bread Morning! Piekarnia rzemieślnicza (Warszawa) on Al. KEN in Ursynów is an example of something that's been unfolding across Poland over the past decade alongside the craft ale revolution. This is the triumphant return of old-school sourdough baking. Poles have a deep-rooted attachment to rye sourdough breads (chleb żytni na zakwasie). Oh yes! Even in the 1960s we had our Polish bakeries supplying the few Polski Skleps in West London that were around at the time with decent loaves of traditional Polish bread. So much better than Sunblest white sliced.

The late 1990s and early 2000s saw the widespread industrialisation of baking as part of the revolution in Polish food retailing. Supermarkets and bakery chains flooded the market with par-baked, frozen dough products, puffed up with chemical improvers, enzymes and commercial yeasts to accelerate rising. Traditional bakeries (piekarnie) faced intense pressure on their margins; many shut down; those which survived turned to shortcut pre-mixes to stay in the game, sacrificing flavour, crust integrity and keeping qualities.

Around the mid-2010s, a counter-revolution gathered pace. Sparked by passionate home bakers and professionals returning from abroad (bringing back inspirations from Parisian boulangeries, San Francisco sourdough hotspots and Nordic craft bakeries), a new wave of artisan bakeries began appearing in major Polish cities.

The core philosophy rejects commercial improvers in favour of cool fermentation up to 48 hours. Google Gemini explains that “this allows wild yeasts and lactobacilli to break down complex gluten structures and phytic acid, resulting in superior digestibility, a moist, open crumb (miękisz), and a crunchy crust that stays fresh for days without preservatives. Craft bakers revived older, unadulterated grain varieties such as spelt (orkisz), emmer (płaskurka), and einkorn (samopsza), alongside regional stoneground ryes”.

Bread Morning's shop is next door to its bakery, which has large windows open to the street. Passers-by and shoppers can watch doughs being hand-kneaded and loaded into the ovens. Google, which knows these things, states that “Warsaw has become one of Central Europe's most vibrant centres for artisan baking. What began as destination bakeries in central and creative quarters (such as Mokotów, Śródmieście, and Saska Kępa) quickly spread to residential neighbourhoods like Ursynów, Żoliborz, and Wilanów. Places like Bread Morning! demonstrate that neighbourhood demand for high-grade, honest sourdough is robust; locals willingly queue early on Saturday mornings for a still-warm loaf, classic rye, or flaky laminated viennoiserie made with real butter rather than vegetable fat”.

I sincerely hope that artisan bakeries will not turn out to be a short-lived hipster novelty, but will prove to be the vanguard of a resurging Polish bread culture. 

Mediaeval monks called ale 'liquid bread'; I'd call this bread 'solid ale'. 

FOLLOW-UP, FRIDAY 9 OCTOBER: At Lidl's this morning I picked up a sourdough loaf, still warm from the in-store bakery, for 5.06zł (incl. discount). Not. A. Patch. On. The. Artisan. Loaf.

This time two years ago:
Further exploration of the eskers around Sułkowice

This time three years ago:

Hottest September in Poland?

This time four years ago:

Box-top art in the Sublime Aesthetic

This time five years ago:
Trains of thought, insights and 'voices'

This time seven years ago:
Parliamentary train at West Ealing station

This time eight years ago:
Progress in Jakubowizna

This time ten years ago:
Miedzianka by Filip Springer

This time 11 years ago:
Out of the third, into the fourth

This time 12 years ago:
Inverted reflections

This time 13 years ago:
Observations from London's WC1
and Observations from the City of London

This time 14 years ago:
Civilising Jeziorki's wetlands

This time 13 years ago:
Warsaw's Aleje Jerozolimskie

This time 17 years ago:
Melancholy autumn mood in Łazienki

This time 18 years ago:
Autumn gold, Zamienie

As I walked out one midsummer's morning

I've used this title before – borrowed from Laurie Lee.

The sun rises at a quarter past four. Most people are still in bed until at least seven thirty. Today, I rose, as I do, early – at quarter past five, having gone to bed shortly after nine yesterday evening. And yet I still missed an hour of daylight!

My recent habit of early starts have one big benefit; they extend the length of summer as I subjectively experience it. The addition of two daylight hours a day every day between the equinoxes is the equivalent of stretching summer out by around one eighth. That sunlight can be converted into boosted levels of melatonin, serotonin and endorphin, which bring about blissful feelings. "Increase the joy in your life by 12% - FREE!"

The early, pre-breakfast walk in the sun need not be long (5,400 paces today, 4,900 yesterday for example) but it is optimal for bringing on that sought-after state of elation. On an empty stomach, the transcendental benefits of extended fasting bring on a gently altered state. Before eight am and it is already hot; my armpits are sweaty. The paths are sandy, the smell of pine-resin is in the air.

The cherry season has begun; I know where the unkept, unfenced, unsprayed orchards are. The cherries are ripening, a few are already ripe for picking. Given that there's no health benefit of eating more than one portion (80g) of a given fruit in any one day, a few handfuls is all I need before turning home for breakfast.

Ripening cherries. Never ask me whose.

Two midsummer garden anecdotes to recount… Yesterday morning, around 11 am, I went out to chuck out some kitchen waste onto the compost heap at the end of the garden. On my way back, I could hear stirrings in the bushes. "Too big for a cat," I thought. I took three paces forward, and saw an adult roe deer crashing through the undergrowth, across the path and into the trees, no more than about ten yards away from me. It was so sudden and over in an instant, there was no chance to whip out the phone to catch it. This is only the second time I've witnessed deer in my garden. 

A deer in a nearby meadow, last week. The same one?

And today, around 10 am, sitting in the kitchen, front door open, I was aware that the cats were uneasy… something was up. Scrapper, Czester, Arcturus, Hipek and Céleste were milling around outside… suddenly there was a loud feline shriek and action – cats running around every which way. Then I caught sight of him, again, it was just a flash – the grey tomcat that had fathered Céleste's kittens. She chased after him, evidently furious with him, up the path to the drive. I left the kitchen and ran out after them. I caught up with Céleste, sitting on the drive. She had seen him off; no sight of him. 

Cause and effect

Some seven or eight years ago, a visitor to my działka left an almost-full packet of cigarettes behind. Since then, these come in handy for recreating holiday qualia memory. This is a rare occurrence; twice a year, but only if the circumstances are right. 

Today, they are exactly right. The sun is shining; it is hot (30°C outside), there's no rush, it's a lazy day. The kitchen smells of fried food (breakfast: smoked salmon, fried bacon-style, with scrambled egg, served on bread fried in olive oil) and coffee. I light a cigarette from the gas stove; no puffing on it! I impale it upon a wire stand, angled upward at 45 degrees, it smoulders away, with a jar-lid underneath to catch the ashes. Eventually, it goes out; the smell, however, lingers. Time, now, to open a bottle of craft lager from the fridge. And PAFF! I am sitting at that brasserie overlooking the beach in Stella-Plage. All that's missing is the sea… Qualia memory, recreated. (I've done this in winter too; lots of snow outside, blue sky, sharp frost, and I'm brought back to an alpine bar, high up in the French Alps.)

A few hours later, I am in the back garden, picking wild strawberries (poziomki). As I get down among the weeds to fish out the tiny fruit, I notice the lingering smell of the cigarette smoke on my shirt. Marvellous! The Perfume of the Past. Instant nostalgia for the klimat of times when most people smoked. 

Incidentally, this year I notice no, like zero, wild strawberries with rodent nibble-marks upon them. Another bonus of cat ownership!

This time nine years ago:
Jeziorki's grey herons
Cygnets up close

This time 11 years ago:
Midsummer's Day in Jeziorki

This time 13 years ago:
Kittens at six weeks

This time 15 years ago:
And the Lord spake unto the tribe of Hipsters

This time 16 years ago:
Exit polls can get it wrong

This time 17 years ago:
In search of good Polish beer
[Situation's much better, thankfully!]

This time 18 years ago:
In the Solstice garden

Chynów gets new eaterie!

At long last. After the sad closure of J&B Snacks, a Covid victim, in the summer of 2022, Chynów became a gastronomic desert for over two years. Nowhere to sit down and eat. Then, in November 2024, Luxor Kebab opened on ulica Parkowa, followed by Amigo Kebab (which doesn't offer eat-in dining) on ul. Wolska. Today saw the opening day of Loft Chynów, which I of course had to visit. I must also mention Zajazd u Latoszków round the corner in Nowe Grobice, by the TransOil petrol station, which opened late last year, and offers excellent value lunch menus during the week for 30 złotys (£6.11) for soup and main course.

Loft Chynów (below) occupies the last vacant space of the new retail development next to the Biały Dom ('white house') shopping centre, which was completed last year. 

The menu at opening is a cautious toe-dip into the tastes of local diners; though the logo outside says 'burgers', they are not (as yet) available. At present it's pizza and pasta, with one size of pizza, 40 centimetres (16 inches) – which is ample for three. Price-wise, excellent value at between 39 złotys (£7.94) for a basic Margherita and 56 złotys (£11.40) for the seafood version. A giant pizza being too much for one, I chose the most sophisticated option on the menu, the Tagliatelle sepia, loaded with prawns, and cherry tomatoes in a delicious garlic butter sauce. This was 45 złotys (£9.16), and it was truly delicious – I can recommend. (The bowl is looking a bit empty because I was halfway through it before I realised that my desire to tuck in had overcome the presence of mind to snap the meal as it arrived.)

Wine is available by the bottle only meant that a beer was in order, and as it was a hot and sunny afternoon, a half-litre of Królewskie, at 12 złotys (£2.40, yes London, you read that right), brewed eight miles away in Warka, was a good decision. 

More details and full menu on Loft Chynów's Facebook page, which reveals that there's also a lunch menu from 11:00 to 16:00, soup and main course for 29zł (£5.91).

I sincerely wish the very best of commercial success to the owners of Loft Chynów; may the menu soon expand (to include at least burgers and wine by the glass), and may the clientele grow in number.

From my motorbike trips around Poland, I can say that nothing defines a successful small town than its number of eateries. Sad places with nowhere to eat are just ride-throughs. No life, no vibrancy; people eating at home rather than partaking of social life and creating a sense of community. 

The opening of Loft Chynów reflects the rapid development of the village and surrounding district; a virtuous circle of investment public and private making Chynów a better and better place to live.

This time last year:

This time five years ago:
US Government's first tentative steps towards UFO disclosure
[It's one data drop a fortnight right now!]

This time 15 years ago:
Szmulowizna

This time 16 years ago:
Jeziorki's Storm of Storms

This time 18 years ago:
How to tell you're flying over Poland

This time 19 years ago:
Poppy fields

Lent 2026: day 46 – approaching journey's end

Easter Saturday, the final day of Lent. Tomorrow, Easter Sunday. A day that celebrates the triumph of life over death (much as Christmas celebrates the triumph of light over darkness).  But that post is for tomorrow. Today, a short summing up of the past 46 days since Shrove Tuesday...

From the point of view of Giving Things Up, this year has been a total breeze. It gets easier with every passing year. Indeed, as ultimately happened last Easter, I won't end up staying awake to midnight just so that I can enjoy my first alcoholic drink in six and half weeks. Rather, I will wait until the Easter Sunday breakfast (brunch more like, timing-wise). The IPA's in the fridge. I continue to do as I have been doing these past few weeks – going to bed early (10pm – or 9pm winter-time according to my body clock) and waking up before sunrise.

Going without alcohol or meat for 46 days was no problem. The temptation to crack open a cold beer at the end of a long day spent lopping trees in the garden was there, but easy to overcome. Not eating meat? Not a challenge at all. The year round, I tend to keep meat-eating for special occasions. However, I doubt that I could go vegan; fish and dairy (cheese and natural yogurt) are dietary staples when it comes to protein intake. There have been no salt snacks, no fast food. And of course no confectionery, no cakes, biscuits, desserts (other than fruit and nuts in yogurt) nor fizzy sugary drinks, but these are absent from my diet the year round. Caffeine, like fish and diary, I have no intention of giving up for Lent; I merely limit myself to one strong cup of coffee a day before breakfast, again the year round (barring social occasions).

Exercise – I missed four days' worth after twanging some back muscles (I overdid it with the scything and raking in the garden one weekend), but have recovered and have stepped up the regime to get back to my average targets. Walking is nicely ahead of all previous years (over 13,000 paces a day every day since the New Year).

The will required to do something is greater than the will required not to do something. Getting down to write a Lenten blog post every day for 46 days was not easy, especially as I had decided not to simply use AI to consolidate, summarise and re-order old material. I wanted each day's post to be the result of my thoughts, insights and intuitions as they came to me. Let the Holy Spirit talk through me! And I managed, for the seventh year in a row (although last year's hospital stay meant I missed a total of ten posts from the 2025 series).

The essential question is what have I learnt? How far have I advanced in my spiritual quest? 

It is too early to say. The big new insights arrive later. They come unbidden; they help shape my thinking. Looking back over my past Lenten posts is helpful; each year's Lent is a spiritual milepost along my life. I can see how my thinking has sharpened, acquired definition and nuance, and how my faith has deepened. The role of experience-driven intuition is crucial in diluting doubt; the physicalist world view, where everything is matter and death is the end now fails to have any traction in my mind. 

The devil is doubt; doubt is materialism (it's all matter, including your awareness, all extinguished at death); materialism is indeed the devil; matter decays, washed away by entropy. Consciousness survives entropy (you may be frailer than you were a few decades ago, but your consciousness, your awareness of qualia, is just as clear and crisp as when you were small).

Lent stands in many ways as a material as well as spiritual practice. Giving things up makes you stronger in the material world. Lent is good for the body and good for the soul.

Lent 2025: day 46
Lent's end – but really?

Lent 2024: day 46 
Why do we exist? Why does anything exist?

Lent 2023: day 46
The summary, finale

Lent 2022: day 46
Easter Everywhere, but not Ukraine

Lent 2021: day 46
The summing up

Lent 2020: day 46
Nor followers, nor leaders; one's own way to God

Six months on from my heart attack

Things are looking good, healthwise! [I can't allow myself to be complacent, nor to be boastful.] My recent echocardiogram followed by a visit to the cardiologist were very positive. The sonographer who carried out the echocardiogram said that my recovery was one of the fastest he'd seen in my age group, and said that the cause of my heart attack was purely genetic with no lifestyle contributions. The cardiologist described my recovery as 'dramatic' (as in dramatically good!)

And the basis for my optimistic outlook?

"The heart's function is defined by the left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF) – the percentage of blood volume pumped from the left ventricle during a single contraction," says Google Gemini. "Normal values ​​range from 55% to 70%. Lower values ​​indicate impaired heart function, and values ​​below 30% indicate severe, life-threatening heart failure." 

My LVEF at admission to hospital on 5 April was 34%; by 17 September it had climbed to 65%. The cardiologist said that normal values for healthy men over 65 rarely exceed 67%. So, while praising my recovery, she stressed the importance of medication (which reminds me – I forgot my midday pill, must take).

Quick update on exercises – since my heart attack, I've completely dropped pull-ups, push-ups and weights, focusing on the plank (quality as well as time), averaging over six and half minutes a day in two goes. The back extensions remain, with daily sets on my ZemBordᵀᴹ (six sets of eight), again, more than last year. Walking – current rate is over 12,600 paces a day walked (that's around 10km). That's every day since the New Year. Now that autumn is setting in, I try to get those walks in during the sunniest time of the day, and here the increasingly accurate weather forecasts available on my phone are a great help.

Diet – a lot less cheese, and when I am eating cheese it is white cheese (Balkan-style) which has 13% saturated fat compared to the 21% you get in vintage Cheddar or Parmesan or Roquefort. No sausages or smoked meats of any kind. Duck breast (minus skin) – two portions a week. One new addition, inspired by a current trend, is the poke bowl (or more accurately, poké bowl). This Hawaiian dish is basically rice and fish (tuna or salmon in my version) with several vegetables and Kikkoman poké sauce. Ah yes, and lots of porridge, with nuts and seeds. My alcohol consumption continues to decline as it has done, systematically, since 2014, and once again I will within the NHS guideline limit of 14 units a week this year.

Cats – you will read all sorts of new-agey-type stuff that a cat's purr resonates at some frequency that has healing powers. I put this to Google Gemini: "The mental and cardiovascular health benefits of cats purring: The calming effects of interacting with and listening to a purring cat are more strongly supported in stress and mental health studies:

• Stress and anxiety reduction: petting a cat and listening to its rhythmic purr can help to lower levels of the stress hormone cortisol and stimulate the release of 'feel-good' hormones like oxytocin (associated with bonding) and serotonin (associated with mood regulation).
• Lowered blood pressure: The calming effect on the nervous system is linked to a reduction in stress, which in turn can lead to lowered blood pressure and heart rate.
• Reduced risk of heart disease: Some large-scale studies have suggested that cat ownership may be associated with a reduced risk of heart attack and other cardiovascular diseases.
• Pain relief: The psychological comfort and hormonal changes (like the release of endorphins) can provide a sense of well-being that helps alleviate chronic pain and discomfort."

Heart disease, eh? Tell me more... "Cat ownership and the Risk of Fatal Cardiovascular Diseases. Results from the Second National Health and Nutrition Examination Study Mortality Follow-up Study", published in the Journal of Vascular and Interventional Neurology (2009)

Researchers followed 4,400 Americans for 20 years and found that participants with a history of cat ownership had a 37% lower risk of dying from a heart attack compared to those who had never owned a cat, even after adjusting for factors like age, smoking, blood pressure and cholesterol. The protective effect was also observed for death from all cardiovascular diseases (including stroke)."

So – there we are. The purring of six cats will keep me healthy!

This time nine years ago:
How the Tories ceased to be the party of economic liberals

This time 12 years ago:
Goodnight Dżerzi – Janusz Głowacki's book reviewed

This time 13 years ago:
More serious setbacks on Second Metro line construction

This time 15 years ago:
Leonard Cohen in Katowice

This time 17 years ago:
The short-term future of suburban development 

Late-August photo round-up

Photos that haven't yet made it onto my blog, taken this month. Some usual, some unusual. Below: a snail racing along the asphalted service road adjacent to the S7 expressway, south of Warsaw airport.

Below: a large, white toadstool on the edge of an orchard in Jakubowizna. Sezon grzybowy – the mushroom foraging season – is coming. But don't pick these.

The sun sets earlier and earlier (19:25 today, an hour later than it will be on Equilux, which falls on 25 September). Below: here it approaches the horizon over the DK50, the turn-off for Chynów. 

Below: two ultralights flying overhead. There are two lądowiska (landing strips) nearby, Wincentów and Kukały, with a further three slightly further out (Słomczyn, Żyrów and Nowa Wieś near Warka). This means on clear days there's a fair amount of recreational flying Left: SP-STRT, a Polish-built Ekolot KR-030 Topaz, and right, SP-SVEG, a Slovenian-built  Pipistrel Virus SW.

Below: one of the best-known Canonical Prospects of Chynów. Beautiful light and cloud, enhanced with a circular polarising filter.

Below: horsy culture – riding stables, Dawidy. Photo taken from viaduct over the S2 expressway.

Below: late-August and the plums are perfect. Apples and pears not ripe yet; hop cones will soon be ready for picking. An extract of hop, diluted with cold water, makes for the perfect alcohol-free evening drink. Sleep is better.

Below: shadow selfie with bush-hat. 

Got to have a cat pic to end this round-up, so here are (from left) Pacuś, Arkcio and Céleste dining al fresco.The kittens are much bigger than a month a go, but are still kittens, and still a joy.

And finally, this one got a lot of likes on Facebook – a feline patrol coming out to greet me upon my return home. Scrapper (Skrapcio), followed by Pacyfik (Pacio), Czestuś, Arkturus (Arkcio) and Céleste.

This time two years ago:
Passing late-summer storm

This time five years ago:
"Sod the locals" 

This time six years ago:
If you're really concerned about global warming...

This time seven years ago:
The balance between the spiritual and the material

This time eight years ago:
End of August, end of summer?

This time nine years ago:
Pavement for Karczunkowska... a bit at least

This time 10 years ago:
Gold Train update (the hope! the expectations!)

This time 12 years ago:
Poland post the Rubbish Revolution

This time 13 years ago:
Poland's most beautiful street

This time 14 years ago:
Getting to grips with phrasal verbs

This time 16 years ago:
What Putin wrote about Molotov-Ribbentrop

This time 17 years ago:
Summer Sunday in the city

This time 18 years ago:
Last bike-ride to work of the summer

Cutting the cholesterol: drugs, diet or exercise?

On Tuesday I had a blood test done. This morning, the cardiologist assigned to me called through with the results. "In general, very good. LDL cholesterol is down significantly, but still needs to be lower", she said. Saying this, she prescribed me yet another (a ninth!) drug to be taking daily. This is Etibax (ezetimibe). It will be working together with a statin, Roswera, which I've been taking since my heart attack. The statin reduces the amount of cholesterol the body produces*; the ezetimibe works by blocking absorption of cholesterol from the small intestine. Taken together, the two mean that less cholesterol makes it into the bloodstream to clog up the heart.

So – immediately after my heart attack, my LDL (that's the 'bad cholesterol') level was 151mg/dl. It's now down to 80mg/dl. But as someone at high risk of further heart attacks, it needs to be below 55mg/dl. By adding ezetimibe to my daily drug intake, the cardiologist expects that I will reach that target.

Then what? Am I condemned to swallowing nine pills a day at the current dosages? I've started looking at my diet like never before. 

Stuff that's bad: saturated fats, found in red meat, butter and cheese. Red meat is something I've relegated to 'rare treat' status years ago; butter I've just quit (replacing it with ProActiv cholesterol-reducing spread; 30g a day can reduce LDL cholesterol by 7% to 10% within a few weeks). Google Gemini says that it works differently to statins  or ezetimibe; "plant sterols/stanols can provide an additional LDL-lowering benefit complementing the effects of the meds. I have stepped up porridge consumption from two to seven bowls a week, one every morning. It will, confirms Gemini, "definitely contribute to your LDL cholesterol reduction goals." Oatmeal, it says, "provides a very significant and scientifically proven dose of beta-glucan". To the porridge I add pumpkin and sunflower seeds, which provide more beneficial fats, fibre, plant sterols and antioxidants, all of which contribute to better lipid profiles and overall cardiovascular health. And sprinkled with ground milk-thistle (ostropest), which offers "liver-support properties and general antioxidant  content". Otherwise, more fruit, more veg, more legumes (kidney beans, lentils and chickpeas). And avoid the fatty skin of duck (another favourite).

Exercise? The cardiologist said I should avoid exercises that exceed my safe limit for heartbeats per minute, which she said was 175 minus my age, so 108. Using my pulse-oximeter clipped to my right index finger while holding the plank, I could see the BPM steadily rising minute after minute; I quit at five minutes, at which time my heart rate was 90 beats per minute. So that's comfortably safe. Back extensions ditto. Slowly, I shall add more and varied exercises to the daily routine. 

Walking? Best thing possible. Since leaving hospital, I've increased my daily average to over 13.5k paces a day, though walking slower than before and usually doing two shorter loops rather than straying too far from home. Faster paces, with the Nordic walking poles, will resume after further consultation with the cardiologist.

Below: in such a landscape, in spring, it's impossible not to heed the call of a decent, healthy walk.

And a side point: AI has really stepped in as a trusted health advisor. This is not an area where it is prone to hallucinate – large language models have been trained on a vast corpus of medical literature (plenty of links to clinical trials and academic studies). As well as plenty of sober caveats. All in all, really helpful stuff, the promise of expert systems (which my brother was telling me about 40 years ago as he did his postgrad studies in AI) finally arrives.

Drugs, diet or exercise? All three. Can I do without the drugs? I'd like to reduce my intake to the minimum, but cutting them out altogether is not a realistic goal, I fear. Belief in the power of belief is vital. Overarching. A positive expectation, optimism, mind over matter. If I believe in the pills, they will work. If I believe they are harming me, they might well end up doing just that.

So – the key over the next few months will be to get that LDL cholesterol level down to around 50mg/dl –  and keep it there – for life!

UPDATE 4 June 2025: It turns out that my habit of eating half a large grapefruit every day has reduced the efficacy of the statin I've been taking. I wonder what my LDL cholesterol count might have been had some doctor (or even the effing leaflet that comes with Roswera) bothered to mention this.

This time last year:
Świnoujście – slight return

This time two years ago:

Czachówek Wschodni and its new, raised, platform

This time three years ago:
S7 extension progress

This time two years ago:
Town and country

This time nine years ago:
Beautiful May Sunday

This time ten years ago:
Three days – three Polish cities

This time 13 years ago:
Part two of short story The Devil Is In Doubt

This time 14 years ago:
"A helpful, friendly people"

This time 15 years ago:
A familiar shape in the skies

This time 16 years ago:
Feel like going home

This time 17 years ago:
Mr Hare comes to call

Local hellos and a farewell for 2024

A short post about what's changed in my neighbourhood over the past 12 months.

Pavement along ul. Wolska (below): excellent news for local walkers, especially on misty winter evenings. Road safety and civilisation go hand in hand. This gives me a new way to walk to/from the shops – longer than along ul. Wspólna; more paces. 

New way between Machcin II and Adamów Rososki: the situation where a local thoroughfare is both a public right of way and also private land might have been resolved, with a new track carved out from scrubland. parallel to the disputed one. Still unclear as to whether this will become an access road to a new house, or a long-term solution to the right of way issue.

The former BP petrol station on ulica Grójecka (otherwise known as the DK50) finally opened as a TransOil station in April. No real change over what was there before – I guess the same operator with a different franchisor. Same assortment in the shop; locals say petrol prices here are cheaper than in other petrol stations. Below: awaiting the green light to open, late 2023.

New housing: at least four new house-starts in my immediate vicinity this year, though only one is nearing completion. All are detached dwellings on their own plots. One exception lies further north, in Sułkowice – a four-story block of flats between the railway station and police-dog school (below). Construction started in the spring; interesting to see when the first residents move in.

A goodbye-hello this year to certain roofs in Grobice. Storm Boris hit Central Europe on 14 September bringing deadly floods to Czechia and the south-west corner of Poland. Here, a bizarre situation. In the neighbouring village of Grobice, a localised wind of intense energy tore the roofing off five or six houses and barns, and hurled garden furniture all over the place. Passing through today, I can report that repair work is almost complete, though the scaffolding is still up.

VeloMazovia: Signs have appeared indicating a new long-distance cyclepath for the south of the province. However, there's still no information online as to how it connects up, or how far it will go. Left: the route as it goes through Sułkowice, along ul. Ogrodowa, over the DK50, then along Chynów's ul. Główna. Then down to Warka? Find out soon!

Christmas lights in Chynów. Not much I know, but another spark of local pride, another reason to be cheerful at this dark time of year. And no need to translate the slogan – a sign of increased openness!

Luxor Kebab opened in October on ul. Parkowa, giving Chynów its first sit-down restaurant since the J&B Snack Bar closed in the summer of 2022. Three point five stars as per Google Guides – bez szału (no big deal). Not the best, but far from the worst I've eaten – but it's here! I go for the medium beef kebab with spicy sauce in thin pita bread, 22 złotys.

Discovering the forest west of Hipolitów and Sułkowice: not anything new, but a magical place that I only discovered this year; an unusual landscape featuring eskers (below). More here, here and here.

Farewell to Browar Perun? In summer, a neighbour told me that the local craft brewery in Budziszyn had gone over to part-time production, with workers laid off. Asking about its fate in Piwnica Konesera in Chynów, I was told that indeed the brewery has closed for good. This sad news is not shared by the Perun website as of today's date. In my time, I have supped back some truly excellent beers from this place. The key to survival in this business is good distribution (check out just how many restaurants sell wine by Winnica Turnau).

This time last year:
An Alternative Theology

This time two years ago:
From the Long Review of 2022, Pt IV

This time three years ago:
S2 tunnel under Ursynów opens

This time four years ago:
The first year of Covid-19

This time five years ago:
Last night in Ealing, twenty-teens
[A strangely prophetic post, suitably dream-like in quality]

This time six years ago:
The Day the World Didn't End

This time nine years ago:
Hybrid driving - the verdict

This time 11 years ago:
Pitshanger Lane in the sun

This time 15 years ago:
Miserable, grey, wet London

This time 16 years ago:
Parrots in Ealing

This time 17 years ago:
Heathrow to Okęcie

Mindfulness, exercise, diet and health

A few weeks ago, my brother sent me a link to a book by Ellen Langer, Mindful Body. I hadn't heard of Prof Langer, but I was familiar with some of her research, in particular the Philadelphia chambermaids experiment. In this, 84 hotel employees were divided into two groups; one was told that a day's work – cleaning 16 rooms, making 16 beds, lifting, pushing, carrying – was the equivalent of an intense daily workout in a gym. The other group, the control, carried on normally without this information. The researchers measured the maids' body fat, waist-to-hip ratio, blood pressure, weight and body mass index. "All of these indicators matched the maids' perceived amount of exercise, rather than their actual amount of exercise." Once the women mindset had accepted that they were actually exercising intensely, "there was a decrease in their weight, waist-to-hip ratio, and a 10% drop in blood pressure."

I've now watched several interviews and podcasts with Prof Langer from over the years, and it confirms what I've long believed; that mind and body are one, and the mind has the power to heal or accelerate healing. As I've written here before, if you believe in the power of belief, you can heal yourself to a far greater degree than modern medical science would give credit for. Healthcare professionals and the pharmaceutical industry would have you believe in them more than any flaky woo-woo pre-scientific witchdoctorism.

Earlier this month, the UK lost a great broadcaster, Dr Michael Mosley, presenter of Just One Thing. He died, apparently of heat-stroke, while out walking on a Greek island. His BBC Radio 4 programmes focused on one thing that can improve your health outcome if introduced into your daily habits – be it glugging olive oil, reading a poem aloud, Nordic walking, holding the plank, or high-intensity interval training, to name but a few. 

The plank episode gave me cause for reflection. If holding the plank for two minutes a day reduces your blood pressure, then holding it for six and half minutes a day should be even better, right? Or is it just the belief that holding the plank reduces blood pressure reduce blood pressure – or are both factors at play here?

Tracking exercises (something I've been doing daily since 1 January 2014) also works. I am motivated to 'beat last year' – the only person I'm competing against is the younger (65-year-old) version of me. Looking across the seven sets of exercises, the walking –  and indeed the fruit-&-veg and alcohol consumption, I've improved in every metric compared to the first half of 2023.

An old family joke was my mother's book Think Yourself Slimmer – which she interpreted as an alternative to cutting out cakes and biscuits from her diet or doing the most meagre of exercises. Yet there might have been something there; her belief in the power of the mind over body might have contributed to her reaching the age of 88, despite a total lack of exercise or inability to resist sweet and starchy foodstuffs.

Meanwhile, my father exhibited the two key features of mindfulness throughout his life – instinctively. Number one – he observed. He was, to use Prof Langer's term, noticing. He would notice things around him, all the time. Number two – he was curious, he was ever keen to learn (one of the last words he ever wrote, found on a Post-It note by his bed, was 'quantum supremacy'.) 

Back to Prof Langer. Listening to her is like having my personal theories, built up over decades, confirmed by high authority. "YES!" I feel like shouting out. "YOU ARE SO RIGHT!" She defines 'mindfulness' not as meditation, but as being aware of being aware. Mindfulness is not about detaching yourself from reality, but about being in the moment, observant, perceptive, attentive. 

As I said, I've watched several interviews with Prof Langer. She's a well-practiced public speaker, and gets her points across in a way that are easy to absorb. Of all of these, I'd say this is the best; here she is being interviewed by Steve 'Freakonomics' Levitt. Highly recommended!

And yet I intuit that there's even more than Prof Langer says. Being consciously grateful for your good health is part of the cycle. And this leads to the spiritual dimension. Because if you are grateful, you must be expressing gratitude towards someone or something. Mindfulness includes never taking your blessings for granted, never allowing yourself to become complacend. And quantum luck? The idea that you can will an outcome by collapsing some wave function or other? That you can avoid misfortune by precluding the possibility? It's not just about expecting the unexpected, but precluding the unconsidered mishap by considering it. A timeline collapses. The very verge of magical thinking – physical effect without physical cause. Not something mainstream medical science is keen on.

This time last year:
Blasted!

This time six years ago:
My new used laptop
[Six years on, it's still fine albeit without a battery; I can no longer source a new one. But it works fine when connected to the mains.]

This time nine years ago:
Face to face with Mr Hare

This time 11 years ago:
Central Warsaw vistas

This time 12 years ago:
Future of urban motoring?
[Sadly not. It proved to be V8-powered two-tonne SUVs for dragging lazy lard-arses into town]

This time 14 years ago:
On foot to Limanowa

This time 16 years ago:
Crumbling neo-classicism in Grabów

This time 17 years ago:
Bike ride into deepest Mazovia

Using it so as not to lose it

I have written before many times about the joys of Wars, Poland's catering company on rails. I make a point of using its services whenever I can, on the basis that its loss - or even its loss of quality - would pain me.

I'm back from Kielce, the journey from Chynów via Warka being a real pleasure these days, travelling on modern Dart trains, with a guaranteed buffet car. 

But buffet cars are not equal to each other... In recent weeks, I have travelled to Łódź, Kraków, Rzeszów, Wrocław and Kielce, using the services of Wars wherever possible, and I'd like to make the following observations. 

Firstly, there are big differences in the quality of service, mostly outside the control of the bar staff. Items might be missing off the menu - there was no chilli con carne on the way down to Kielce, there were no Jan Olbracht craft beers on the train from Wrocław, no hot cabbage, only a cold cabbage salad on two of the trains; and there were paper plates and recyclable wooden cutlery on the Kraków train (apparently there was no water for the on-board dishwasher). And prices are going up. 

Today I paid 59 złotys for schabowy (pork schnitzel) with braised cabbage and boiled potatoes with dill, served with a craft beer, this combo cost 51 złotys last December, and the falling pound means that's now £11.75 compared to £9.35.

And today, I was the only person tucking into a hot lunch - or indeed consuming anything - in the Wars compartment as the train headed north out of Kielce, despite it being half past one. Usually, one has to wait for a seat to become vacant, there being ten seats/three tables in the dining area. I hope this doesn't lead to that vicious spiral of rising prices - falling demand - lower quality of service - even less demand - eventually leading, as it did in the UK, to the end of the restaurant car as we know it. Replaced by a stand-up buffet serving crisps, Mars bars, Coke and tinned lager. If you're lucky.

So - here we are. The joys of Wars. Brought to me at the table, on a porcelain plate, with metal cutlery, with a craft beer, a schabowy lunch, below. Huge, piping hot, very tasty. I could hear the pork fillet being battered with a meat mallet back in the galley, then I could hear it sizzling away on the frying pan. Sadly, no glass glass with brewery logo, just a half-litre plastic beaker (can't have everything I want!), but otherwise ten out of ten.

As the ale cheers me from the inside and the scenery glides past outside, the hot, tasty meal takes on transcendental properties that mere stationary food cannot provide. Between Kielce and Suchedniów, the line snakes through the Góry Świętokrzyskie hills, much of it over 1,000 ft (304m) above sea level, offering the best scenery on the entire Warsaw-Radom-Kielce-Kraków route.

So - if you ever plan to travel around Poland, take the train, and - wherever possible - eat on the train! It's worth every zloty, and there's a danger that this particular joy may disappear if not enough folks indulge in it.

UPDATE 25.11.2023: just days after I travelled from Katowice to Warsaw on the Polonia express  (part of the journey in the restaurant car) PKP InterCity announces that as of the December timetable change, neither the Polonia nor the Moravia international expresses will include a restaurant car. Bastards. That decision has put an end to any plans I had as to visiting Vienna by train. Over nine hours without a hot meal? Surviving on sandwiches and crisps? NO THANKS!

This time two years ago:
Pleasance, the feeling of feeling pleased

This time three years ago:
Another dream of Dziadio

This time eight years ago:
Teetering between rage and reason

This time nine years ago:
Poland - it works!

This time ten years ago:
Bricktorian Birmingham

This time 12 years ago:
Fog hits Modlin Airport

This time 13 years ago:
The local elections and what they mean

This time 14 years ago:
Synchronicity of shape - PKP Powiśle, Hanger Lane, Mel's Drive-In

This time 15 years ago:
The last of Jeziorki's noted landmark - the Rampa na kruszywa

This time 16 years ago:
Jeziorki spared high-density development thanks to airport zoning