Discount biscuit shop apparently going out of business. Annoyingly, they've apparently stopped the bakery deliveries a few days ahead, so instead of the flour/water fresh pita accorded any decent refugee, I had to make do with a packet of Turkish tea biscuits at about the same weight (though drier), but based on the feelings afterwards, composed of distinctly inferior flour.
Flour is the most underrated ingredient in the cheap food sector -- the difference between a pizza with good flour and one with cheap flour is much wider than similar variations in any other ingredient, but the consumers (and therefore proprietors) rarely think of that.
The best flour on the pilgrimage was probably the Transylvania German hypermarket store brand. Although the Albanian was surprisingly good for the price. That was, of course, in the rare apartments with an oven that had been cleaned in the last few years. Mostly, I was limited to stovetop feasting.
Which sufficed. At Pirin, a saute pan filled with rice, the local cheap feta-like cheese, and vegetables was quite pleasant.
Missing as well the morning runs in Sarajevo and Belgrade. Though not when the trash dump was on fire in the adjoining entity in the former, and the digs in the latter were a bit rough last time around. (Though they frequently come to mind, much more so than the normal digs of a few month before.)
But the morning run to the yellow fortress (never did make the hill on one effort), or the run back across Brankov's most with the patriarchal cathedral on the left, about half the distance to the Danube.
Perhaps I should write about these places again, but from the point of view of memory's desire. The fellow in Siberia remembering nights in the cheap seats at the Mariinski.