A Feast of Foraging Fun!

For a country that looks like a chicken, Slovenia definitely punches above its weight!  It is a genuinely beautiful place that also manages to be effortlessly charming.  Everyone just seems happy there.  Most of the 5m population live in rural areas (rather than the urban centers) so maybe that contributes to the general sense of well-being and contentment that its people exude.  My tour began “proper” on Sunday evening when I met the rest of my group – only 5 of us in total, so it should have been nice to have been such a small, intimate group.  However, as I mentioned in my last post, one of the group was insufferably loud (enough that you go “wow” within the first 5 minutes of meeting her).  I’m not kidding but after two days, my ears were actually ringing at night!   Anyway, I got plenty of opportunity to practice my Neutral Resting Face and took every opportunity I could to put actual physical distance between her larynx and my ear canals, so I spent a good chunk of our foraging time hanging back and wandering off.  It was a bit of a shame, but I had to do what I needed to survive.

Anyhoo, despite that, it’s been a fantastic week. If you read through the itinerary, you’ll know that the main purpose was forest-to-table foraging in the alpine region of Slovenia – and the star of the show for this part of the tour was a lovely lady called Katja, who’s actually a bit of a superstar in the foraging world (she was featured on a Netflix episode of Restaurants on the Edge). She is a good friend of Noah’s and they have been partnering on this Atlas Obscura tour for a few years – although Noah quite literally knows everyone in Slovenia and everyone in turn seems to love him (he’s like the Ryan Reynolds of Slovenia). He’s an American ex-pat who moved out to Europe about 20yrs ago, is married with 2 kids to a Slovenian lady and who calls Slovenia the World’s Best Country, having written numerous books and articles on Slovenia. As I mentioned before, he is very calm and unflappable – and I did not see him roll his eyes even once in response to our Loud Resident Expert – proving to me, once and for all, that I do not have the mental grit and fortitude for a post-retirement career as a tour guide.

For our first day of foraging we were going to exploring an alpine region called Velika Plenina – a short drive from Kamlik up into the mountains. Unfortunately, the weather had turned overnight and it was absolutely pouring with rain and the mountain tops were completely obscured with thick fog. So instead of our hike up the mountain, we had to content ourselves with a hike and forage through the lower lying forest instead, where we could get a bit more shelter from the inclement weather. We still ended up getting completely drenched anyway – but it was all part of the fun!

As we hiked through the forest, Katya would regularly stop and point out various plants and tell us about them, particularly whether they were edible or not. We picked some to use in recipes later and also nibbled on a few as we went – including my new favorite, spruce tips! Delicious! There were too many plants to list, but a few of the more common ones that we encountered throughout the week were ramsom (in the allium family, so tastes a bit like oniony garlic), wild potato plant, goldenrod leaves, wild thyme and mugwort. As it was chucking it down with rain, there were also a ton of big fat brown frilly snails lumbering around as well as lots of tiny black shiny newts darting about underfoot. Apparently there are also a LOT of brown bears who live in the forests of Slovenia – we didn’t see any of them, but I’m sure there were probably a few bears lurking in the shadows who saw us….

We stopped for a coffee and to dry out at this very.. um.. unique hunting lodge – this is the one that houses both a room dedicated to the last benevolent dictator to rule Slovenia (a chap called Tito) as well as a stuffed marmot wearing a hat. According to Noah, it hadn’t seen a vacuum cleaner since the 80s – and I totally believe him. But the coffee was hot and strong (they drink a lot of Turkish coffee here – a left-over from when the Ottoman Empire was in town) and it gave me the chance to wring the rain out of my jacket’s sleeves. (for some reason, I hadn’t brought a really good outdoor raincoat, so was having to make do with an athletic jacket topped with a very fetching bright blue plastic poncho that had been a gift to us all from Noah – he’d clearly checked the weather forecast)

After our hike and coffee stop, we hopped back in the van and took a funicular up the mountain for our lunch stop. Alas, there were no views of the surrounding peaks (though we did get to see them FINALLY later on in the week) but the main attraction was the food as this restaurant specialized in “typical local and Shepherd food”. Now those of you who know me well know I love me a good meat tube – and I was not disappointed. Klobasa abounded (their version of sausage) and was very tasty – as was the traditional Ricet (barley soup), Jota (sauerkraut), buckwheat spoonbread and sour milk. It was all very hearty and rib-sticking – just the ticket for when you’ve been hard at work herding sheep or picking potato leaves. In addition to the meat tubes, there was another opportunity for some immature humor as I tried the local non-alcoholic version of Coke – called Cockta (tee-hee). It was delicious and certainly slipped down nicely. There was also a local character dressed up in traditional shepherd fashionwear – think a cross between Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings and you are more than halfway there. In fact, the longer I stayed in Slovenia, the more I’m convinced that I’m actually in a Game of Thrones/Hyrule hybrid metaverse. I mean the symbol of their capital city is a dragon, for goodness’s sake!

We headed back to Kamlik via a fascinating historical attraction – a “black kitchen” where smoke was deliberately not ventilated out of the hearth, so that various meats and fish could be cured – over the decades leading to a build up of sticky black tar and gunk coating the stones. We were there to cook a flatbread with Katja and using the various ingredients we’d foraged earlier that morning as well as to taste some schnapps and beers that she’d brewed. The flatbread was OK (I wasn’t 100% convinced by the rose petal topping) – but none of us were really all that hungry anyway – it was more for the fun of cooking it in the black oven.

This was the first of several schnapps tasting opportunities – the next day, we visited another fun lady called Tanya (also known as The Blonde Witch) where there were 15 different infusions and mixtures to taste – all made from herbs and plants collected from within a 1km radius, so that was pretty cool. She took us out to the alpine meadows surrounding her property and we walked to a very picturesque lake, taking note of various interesting flora and fauna as we went.

After our ramble through the fields, it was time for lunch – this time, pre—prepared by Noah’s mother-in-law for our enjoyment (she was supposed to have been joining us – but was suffering from kidney stones (but had still managed to make us lunch?! Them women folk are hardy out here!!). After lunch, Tanya took us through a very entertaining tasting of her 15 types of schnapps plus some jams and herbal teas.

I didn’t drink any of them but did have a sniff of each one – and bought some as fun gifts as each is supposed to have a particular medicinal benefit. Some of it still feels a bit hokey to me (especially some of the more serious claims of curing cancer etc) – but after spending the last week in the company of people who are deeply connected to nature and its benefits, its hard not to get sucked in just a little bit.

After the marathon schnapps tasting with Tanya, we finished Tuesday with a walking tour of Kamnik visiting the castle walls and strolling down the historic main street that looks like a chocolate box picture. It had been pedestrianized a few years back – but unfortunately it basically killed off all the shops and life along the street, so it was a bit like a ghost town. We stopped in an outdoor beer garden for a mini-beer tasting and, apparently, an impromptu Pokemon-Go battle between Loud Lady and Quiet Fast Talker Lady. Which would have been fine left at that, but….you guessed it – Noah HAD to ask about the game (not sure if he was being polite or was genuinely curious) so we then all “enjoyed” a very detailed explanation of the finer points of Pokemon and gym battles and all that jazz. I mean, I used to play Pokemon (on the bus on my way to work) but that was seven years ago! (I only play Zelda now, dahlink)

Our final stop for the day was at a café to try another local specialty called cevapcici where you wrap grilled meats (traditionally sausage) in torn-up chunks of flatbread and eat them with raw onion and red pepper sauce as a garnish. En route, we discovered (and I availed myself of) a vending machine that dispensed all variety of meat products including sausages, salamis and other various cuts of meat. Customs be damned, I opted for the deer salami – so I’ll look forward to trying that when I get home! (the other choices were beef, pork – or horse). The cevapcici was absolutely delish – and very filling! After that, I walked back to the guesthouse while the others took the van back – partly to walk off the food, mainly to give my ears a break.

The highlight of the next day was a trip to the most Instagrammable spot in all of Slovenia – Lake Bled. You know the place – the cute church in the middle of an island in the middle of a lake? It was about a 90min drive from Kamnik and – for the first time since the start of the AO trip – the rain had cleared and it was a gorgeously sunny day. We were finally able to really see the mountain ranges that surrounded us on every side – and it was worth waiting for as they were spectacular. We caught one of the row boat taxis (think wide berth Venetian gondola) over to the little island where we spent the next couple of hours.

We first had a little cooking class where we learned how to make potica – a traditional rolled bread, stuffed with walnuts and rum-soaked raisins – though, to be fair, it was more of an assembly class as all the hard bits (making the dough and filling) had already been done for us. All we had to do was smear the dough with the filling, roll it up and jam it into the fluted baking dish. Fortunately my intensive King Arthur School of Baking training held me in good stead, so I managed not to embarrass myself. After our class, we then had about an hour during which we toured the small church and museum while we waited for our poticas to bake.

Inside the church there was a bell rope which its said that, if you tug it and get the bell to ring, you should then make a wish. I couldn’t really think of anything to wish for (maybe other than the discipline to eat slightly less cheese) but I figured its always good to have a bell-wish banked, just in case. You could also go up to the top of the bell tower for some great views and also to see the cool old-timey clock and listen to the boinnnnggggg as it chimed every quarter hour. We concluded our brief visit to the island with some Cockta (hee hee) and some tarragon-flavored ice cream (delish!), before heading back down the stone steps to catch our boat back to the main land. Bled is absolutely beautiful – but I am also very happy to being seeing more of this charming country than just this one tourist destination.

The other thing to do in Bled (other than visit the island) is to indulge in yet another dessert that was invented here – the entertainingly named Kremschnit! It’s a giant block of cream and custard and pastry which also serves as an edible Rorschach test in terms of how you go about eating it. The top layer is a crunchy pastry layer that, if you attempt to just cut straight through it, will cause the rest of the pudding to squidge out the sides at great speed. Of course, our Loud Friend just talked hers into submission whereas I managed to artfully chop the top into smaller squares through some high-level knife skills, which made shoveling the underlayers into my face an easy task.

Our next stop after leaving Bled was to the Happiest Farm on Earth and to meet another super chill woman called Mateja. She runs an organic farmstead and for the next hour showed us round her gardens, meeting the chickens (including a rooster called Horny) and bees and admiring her lush veggie beds and fruit vines. We collected a bunch of fresh eggs, picked some peas straight off the stalks and collected numerous additional herbs and leaves with which she would then make us all lunch. We were given various tasks in the outdoor kitchen to help out with – and within a half hour or so, we were served a delicious herby soup with sausage and fresh bread and then a sort of pancakey-thing with strawberry compote for dessert.

Our final stop for the day was in a village called Zasip, a place known for its dried tepka variety Snow pears, or perga. In years gone by, during times of famine, residents found out that drying and grinding up the local abundance of pears was a decent alternative to flour, so its been used that way in this region of Slovenia ever since. Yet another cool example of a hyper-localized treat that you only get to know about from spending quality time off the beaten tourist track. We were hosted by another super charming grandmother called Bojana in their farmhouse, which has been part of their family for generations. It was built in the 18^th century and also had one of those blackened kitchens which we passed through en route to the atmospheric cellar. There we sampled several dishes made with perga including a kale cabbage snow pear bake thing (tastier than it sounds) as well as some pear flour cake. The other main attraction of the evening was – yes, you guessed it – more schnapps, this time made with pear as the base. Our group tasted about 20 different varieties, flavored with countless different ingredients from sage to lemon, spruce tips, and apples. We each got a bottle to take home with us – I selected one (based on feedback from my new friend Ginger) that was flavored with wild thyme. Let’s see if ManpanionTM likes it when I get back!!

And just like that, we arrived at the final official day of the trip. We came full circle and ended our time as it began with a foraging trip with Katya in the lush forests behind Jable Castle – her home stomping grounds. Like before, we collected a variety of herbs and plants (which included me getting stung by a stinging nettle for the first time in 40 years – hello Slovenian equivalent to the dock leaf!). The fun – and unique – part of today is that we were then to take our gatherings to a renowned local chef in Ljubljana who would then improvise us a delicious lunch using what we had brought him. The chef – a chap called JB – is known as the grandfather of fine dining in Slovenia and so it was a real treat to get to go into the kitchen of a Michelin star quality restaurant and watch him at work, creating yummy food in real time! It was a fairly light lunch as we were going to be returning there later that evening for a full-on fancy-pants tasting menu for dinner – but it was still absolutely delicious! We first had a ceviche (mopped up with some very crusty excellent bread), then thinly sliced beef carpaccio, followed by some creamy herby risotto with tagliatelle to finish off (top tip – use frozen butter to finish off your risotto and it will make it much creamier). This behind-the-scenes exclusive experience was only possible due to the relationship Noah (our guide) had developed with JB over the years and was the common theme throughout our whole week –getting an authentic, local immersion into the country and its culture based on meeting real people sharing their lives and livelihoods with us. This was not your standard TripAdvisor fare. It was a huge privilege and certainly one I was deeply grateful to Noah for providing.

After lunch, we then spent the next few hours at large in Ljubliana – our meanderings briefly interrupted by a highly energetic thunderstorm! We stopped at a local coffee shop for post-lunch caffeine where I decided to give the beetroot latte a shot. Not. Good. For some reason, I assumed it would be an iced drink but no. It was made with warm (not hot) milk so it the best thing going for it was the pretty red color and artistic leaf drawn in the foam. I mean, I guess the taste was really quite true to its description as it really was like licking a warm milky beetroot. Not sure why I thought that was a culinary memory I needed to add to my repertoire, but there you go. Not all choices going to be good ones.

We had two more activities before dinner – one was a coffee tasting at a small coffee shop in the local art museum, the second one was a visit to the rooftops of the B&B Hotel to meet with a local urban beekeeper and to play with his bees. The coffee tasting was fun enough (the barista was actually a refugee from Ukraine who’d arrived about a year ago) but I have to confess I don’t really care much for the cold-brewed, higher end coffees. They simply taste too watery and sour for my liking – gimme a Starbucks Dark Roast instead and I’m much happier. But it was an interesting experience nonetheless to hear Lev the barista describe each one – it really can get as involved as wine tasting with all the various notes and flavors. I couldn’t taste any of them to be honest and – in my more cynical moments – I do wonder if the whole wine-tasting/coffee tasting thing isn’t some huge elaborate scam and Big Coffee and Big Wine are all just making it up, seeing how far they can push this marketing nonsense. (Side note – I feel the same way about attending Grateful Dead concerts – most tedious 3hrs of my life a couple years back in Wrigley Field. The most exciting thing about that concert was the huge thunderstorm that caused a rain delay of 2hrs in the middle. I thought going to see John Mayer would be fun – but the whole concert was one long overindulgent musical wankfest with no discernable difference between each interminable song. Despite this obvious reality, everyone in the audience completely loses their minds over The Dead. I think it’s the same forces at play – it’s being going on for so long, its now too late to call bullshit and instead everyone buys into the myth that they are brilliant musical geniuses. Although I think most people are also out of their literal minds on whatever shrooms or herbal they’ve consumed pre-game.)

Wow. I guess I really needed to get that out of my system. Sorry about that.

Anyhoo, after coffee, it was time for honey and fortunately the rain and lightning had passed by sufficiently that it was safe to go to the rooftop and meet with another lovely chap called Gorazd. He used to be a well-known film critic in Slovenia (another common theme – everyone here seems to be multi-hyphenate – another example, our driver for the week – Tomaz – is a retired commercial airline pilot who also holds several patents for a new hydrofoil design!) but in the last few years, had taught himself bee-keeping and now does the same for others, helping teach a whole new generation of urban beekeepers the apiary ins-and-outs! He had five hives on the roof of the hotel and took the lid off one of them to show us the honey-filled frames. He described a bit about bee society, including how the bees responsible for going to scout out where the Good Stuff is then have an actual Bee Meeting each morning where they do a waggle dance for the rest of the worker bees, telling them the direction, distance and quality of the target pasture! Bees can fly up to 5km and – because Ljubliana and the surrounding countryside is so green – there is no shortage of food for them. In fact, given the time of year we were there, everything was in bloom and I was struck by just how good the whole city smelled. Gloriously fragrant in the best possible way. New York, are you taking notes?

Another fun fact that Gorazd shared with us is that bees are incredibly sensitive to smells and can actually detect changes in the smell of your skin if you are angry (apparently they can smell the extra adrenaline in your blood stream).  This is why he said it was so important to approach bees in a very relaxed and Zenlike manner, with no sudden movements – and certainly watching him navigate his way around the hives – with no protective clothing at all – was very calming.  We asked him if the bees got to recognize him and know him (I guess by his smell mainly) and he said maybe – but that given worker bees only live for about 4-6 weeks, it was tough to see how that institutional knowledge could be continually passed down, given the turnover.

After we had finished playing with the bees and tasting various bee products (honey, pollen, honey schnapps), we finally made our way back to JB’s restaurant for the finale of our trip – the multi-course, pukka high-end tasting menu.  I had brought a change of clothes so I could ditch the hiking boots and sweaty t-shirt for something a little more civilized – and the food was absolutely outstanding.  We were joined by Lev the coffee guy as well as Ginger, a travel writer with the Lonely Planet who I’d rapidly bonded with over Eddie Izzard as well as shared WTF eye-rolls in response to our Loud Companion.  Loud Companion proceeded to get quite drunk and even louder and coarser over the course of the evening – note: F-bombs delivered at volume in a fancy restaurant in a very strong Tennessean accent are not particularly charming.  I thought about seeking refuge in the large coat cupboard (where my hiking boots were stored) at one point to get away from it all for a moment – but as I started to clamber inside, I realized that I could STILL HEAR HER.  I did feel quite bad for everyone else in the restaurant as there really was no escape even if you had only one functioning ear – but I gritted my teeth and zoned her out as best I could and focused on the food instead. 

After a couple of hours, dinner was finished – and the Atlas Obscura part of my trip came to an official close.  We all piled into the van one last time, drove back to Kamnik and bid our fond farewells to Noah, Ginger and Tomaz.  By this point, Loud Companion was basically professing her love for everyone and how intimate this trip had been (please stop using that word).  I know I should stop being such a judgy bitch – and eventually I’ll get over it – but she was just really, really hard work. 

Anyway, I had one more day left in Slovenia so I decided to luxe it up in style – Tomaz picked me up the next morning around 10am to drive me back into Ljubliana and to my last lodging of the trip, a gloriously bougie hotel called Zlata Ladjica with only 15 rooms, each with a unique story.  My room was called the Mischievous Bells room – here’s the link if you want to learn more about its history…https://zlataladjica.com/rooms/mischievous-bells/

I had booked myself a reflexology foot massage at 4pm, so to make best use of my time, I hired a local guide to take me round the city to fill in any gaps from my previous wanderings.  The original plan was to visit the castle – but the lines were so long, the guide and I agreed it wouldn’t be a great use of our 2hr tour to spend 40mins of it waiting to go up/down the funicular that ferries tourists up to the castle walls.  So instead we spent two hours simply wandering through the city – and it turned out I’d already pretty much seen most of it already (hello again Dragon Bridge and City Market) so it was a bit of a waste of money, to be honest.  But c’est la vie.  My spa appointment was wonderful – and I actually had the whole place to myself, so got to play in the sauna, steam room and zero gravity water bed in private before my treatment.   Afterwards, I took Noah’s advice and visited the local cake shop where I tried not one – but three – of his suggested favorites! (well, it is my birthday in 2 days, so it’s a treat, right??).  I did, though, feel too embarrassed by the sheer quantity of cake product to stay in the café and eat them in public, so I had them packed to go – and asked for three spoons so as to try and convince the guy that they weren’t all for me.  There was a robustly cold air conditioning vent integrated into the desk back in my room, so that served as the Perfect Pastry Storage Zone to keep them cool as I nibbled away at them.  You will be relieved to know I didn’t eat all three in their entirety – the chocolate one was way too rich so I only ate a sliver of that one; the plum one was OK – but the big fluffy strawberry one was the best so that one did disappear over the remainder of the evening. 

And then, all that was left was to set my alarm for 4.30am, ready for a 5am transfer to the airport and bid a very fond farewell to this absolutely delightful country.  Its definitely a place that will linger in the memory and I’m sure I will be back at some point, ManpanionTM in tow.  Do naslednic!