addendum to juices

monday, i bought these (new for me) juice cartons from the rimi next to the townhall building

the pina colada was really good

then there's something else they drink here, which might belong in the "unusual" category

butter -- or cream -- or oil

not by itself,...but with fresh carrot juice -- carrot juice supposedly needs something oily to help ingest the carrots' vitamins -- something like that -- in trakai (the little castle town, a half-hour from vilnius), the waiter brought out a little pitcher of olive oil, with my order of fresh carrot juice -- maria tells me that in grocery stores, next to the fresh carrot juice, there are small packets of oil available -- i haven't seen them

back to drinks

when i started writing about drinks i've met in lithuania, i did it, chronologically -- from the very first drink i met, and so on,...as i met them

i was going to continue, in that vein -- then i decided to...put a little more effort into it -- so i wrote down all the drinks i've met, and put them in groups -- came up with four categories -- juices, teas, alcoholic drinks, and unusual drinks

i'll start with the juices -- and there are a lot of 'em

they must love their juices, here

most restaurants have two categories of juices on the menu -- just plain "juices,"...which i guess means they're from bottles the restaurant bought, and freshly squeezed juices -- they call 'em sultys naturalis (i think that's how it's spelled) -- ones they squeeze, in-house -- the most popular fresh-juice combinations are orange-and-grapefruit and carrot-and-apple -- most restaurants have both

this one's not in lithuania, but...it's a juice -- fresh-squeezed apple juice -- moscow airport, in march

the grocery stores...are where the real action is -- juices galore -- and they're delicious -- even the "drinks" (not 100% fruit juice) are really good

in maxima, one of the four grocery-store chains, i was shocked to see a carton of prickly-pear juice – that was the morning i left here, in march -- now, surely, lithuania cannot be a great producer of cactus fruit -- i love prickly-pears, but i've never seen prickly-pear juice; that doesn't mean it doesn't exist elsewhere -- just that i haven't come across it

on the left is a bottle of fresh beet juice -- popular here -- that's a big bottle, though -- it comes in very small bottles -- not supposed to consume it, in large quantities -- stomach can't handle it or something

funny thing about that picture -- i took it, back in cleveland, the morning i arrived, some 30 hours after i bought the juices from maxima -- my friend maria would not be happy about that -- calls those fresh juices, after they've been sitting outside for a few hours, "wine" -- and they do start to get a little vinegary,...after a while -- a decent while

do you see the price on the beet juice -- 1.16 -- a euro and 16 cents -- that's about a buck-and-a-quarter -- the prices are great -- i get a bottle of carrot juice, almost every time i'm in a rimi, another of the chains -- 1.49 -- i got a bad one, last week -- maria sent me an e-mail address for them -- they were "right on it" -- credited her rimi shopping card


there are a lot of great berry juices

next to the carton of berry juice, that's a bag of loquats -- i couldn't believe it -- they were excellent -- bought some, both times i saw them -- i think, at rimi -- i haven't learned,...when and where

pomegranate seems to be popular here -- sometimes i find the fruit, at a decent price -- gobble 'em up -- and,...thanks to lithuania, now i know why they're called pomegranates -- they're called granata, here -- voila -- the candy bar on the lower-right corner,...i've fallen in love with that -- pergale makes a lot of chocolates

this granata wasn't cheap -- this was in march -- granatai must be a generic form of the word, or the plural -- the pomelo looks like it was cheap -- it wasn't sweet, though

an unusually tart green-apple juice -- yum -- maria says it's not 100% fruit juice

surprising color, for apple juice -- at the discount german chain lidl, which has just entered the market

those plastic bags are funny -- yogurt drink, that you squeeze,...out of the bag -- very good

i thought this was a children's drink -- on a shelf with a lot of other colorful bottles with cartoon characters and animals -- i liked the bottle -- yummy -- lot of banana juice, here

tea, alcohol, and the strange,...coming up