Consuming sinful Parisian pastries on my latest trip drew my mind to healthier things - fresh vegetables, spring herbs, vitamins, the stuff of life. Today's recipe is for an ultra healthy relish of carrots, tomatoes, peppers and rhubarb marinated cold in the juice of one whole lemon and a few other flavors. This spicy, zesty and crunchy concoction is chock full of vitamins that will ward off any lurking cold.

During long and frosty winter, boiled potatoes and salted mushrooms with sour cream made a decent supper. During winter holiday season pickled and salted mushrooms could be found in many festive dishes. Emetic Russula In today's recipe I used  Short-stalked White Russula(sukhoy gruzhd') that I pre-soaked in cold water for a few hours,   and some Emetic Russula (syroezhka, the red one ) varieties of wild mushrooms, and the way they are prepared is called hot method  for salted mushrooms (there is also a method to salt raw mushrooms).

Am I not right?   Quick pickled cucumbers are one of my summer cravings. The smell of freshly pickled cucumbers reminds me of a Siberian village, with roosters diligently crowing at dawn, with cows mooing on their way to pasture, with kind babushkas and their endless hooked rugs.