Svacina Project

Easter has always been a holiday for which my immediate and even extended family gets together. My parents and six of their ten grandchildren are pictured at left on Easter Sunday last week. We have traditions around the day, from putting out baskets, of course, dyeing eggs, the Easter egg hunt for the kids, to some dishes my parents make every year, but nothing I've thought of as Czech. Our Easter celebration over the years has seemed a mix of Catholic and American activities and foods.   I've been divorced for years and spent many Easter weekends at my parent's house, where we would dye eggs together and the Easter Bunny would visit overnight. This year was the same with my youngest son asking to eat the candy out of his basket before I'd poured the cream in my coffee. But for the last few years, I've managed to bake  mazanec  (Czech Easter bread), which my Czech grandmother did not make. She did make  vanocka  (Czech Christmas bread) though, and t...

This is my maternal grandmother's kitchen in Hallettsville. She passed away over four years ago, but she's still here. Her favorite basic recipes are still taped to the inside of a cabinet door. Comforting smells still drift through when her children and grandchildren occasionally cook in the house that otherwise sits empty. When my mother and I use the kitchen, we say things like "Does Datu have any oil here?" or "She keeps dishtowels in that bottom drawer." My mother and an aunt may shop for supplies for the visitors to the house, but my grandmother "keeps, has, needs" the supplies. In a way, she is the house and the house is her. When I arrived at the house Friday to meet my parents for a weekend of visiting, I grabbed a Shiner and went to sit on the back porch and look out at the yard. A St. Francis statue sits atop a birdbath in the center of a little rose garden a few steps from the porch. The bath attracts cardinals, or my grandmo...

The travelling exhibition Texas Czechs: Rooted in Tradition has finally landed in the State’s capitol city and co-curator, Lori Najvar, and I tried to throw an opening reception with fabulous Czech and Texas Czech food. The reception on January 16th at the State Capitol Visitors Center (CVC) was attended by close to 200 people, who might have enjoyed the food as much as the exhibition. Pavla Van Bibber's gorgeous sweets, klobasniky, and open faces sandwiches.  Texas Czech food tends to be heavy and meat-based, so Lori and I brainstormed about how to transform traditional Texas Czech dishes into finger food for a party… no utensils, not too much sausage, small bites. With a mix of sweet and savory, Czech and Texas Czech, and enlisting the considerable skills of chef Pavla Van Bibber, we put together a menu that worked.  Faithful volunteer, Kay, loading up trays.  This is what we served. Feel free to borrow the list for your own Tex-Czech party: A deconstruc...

Mark Hopkins teaches Czech I, Czech II and a Czech literature course at UT Austin and hosts the weekly conversation group with the tongue-in-cheek name, Czechs Mix. Once a semester, he treats his students to a homemade Czech dish and, in exchange, they role play being either wait staff or customers at a restaurant to practice speaking the language. (I must try this with my sons.) Lori Najvar and I got to photograph the class for our Texas Czechs exhibit when he served guláš with bread dumplings to his Czech I students. (Photo of Mark's guláš below.) Mark Hopkins (far left) and his Czech I and II students at UT Austin. And - yummy! - we got to sample Mark's guláš and also Czech Garnet Cookies made by his student, Mary Cernoch (second from right, front row in the photo above.) Mary is a Texas-Czech from La Grange who grew up hearing the Czech language, but not speaking it. She inherited some food traditions, though - the cookie recipe came from he...

Frantisek and Johanna (Jezek) Migl with their children, including my great grandmother, Theresa, far right in the middle row. At a meeting of the  Austin Czech Historical Association  two years ago, a woman speaking from theTexas Czech Heritage and Cultural Center (TCHCC) in La Grange mentioned the different historic homes that had been donated and moved to the center's grounds, including the Migl house. Migl is the maiden name of my maternal grandfather's mother, Theresa (Migl) Kallus. When the speaker said the names of the couple who built the house near Praha - Johanna and Frantisek Migl - I got excited. Sure enough, I came home and pulled out my genealogy stuff and they were my great great grandparents. They came to Texas in 1874 with their four youngest children, including my grandfather's mother, Theresa, who was two years old at the time. Johanna and Frantisek built the house now at the TCHCC in 1890, the year Theresa married my great grandfather, Alois...

I spent the morning hand cutting 560 paper leaves for this coming Saturday's "Big Czechs/Little Czechs" Family Day at the Czech Heritage Museum in Temple. This is the opening event for the exhibit I co-curated, Texas Czechs: Rooted in Tradition . After a very successful 3 months at the Institute of Texas Cultures (ITC) in San Antonio, we moved the exhibit to Temple just in time for Czech Heritage Month in Texas (October). It will be on display there through January 9, 2016. Sharon Mena dresses a girl in kroj pieces at the ITC for fun and photographs. "Big Czechs/Little Czechs" (1-4pm on the 10th) will be an afternoon of activities, mostly for preschool and elementary age, to help kids either connect with their own Czech heritage or learn about Texas Czech cultural traditions in a fun way. Bring your children and grandchildren - dress up in kroj with master seamstress Maggie Grmela, make PlayDoh kolaches,  play an accordion,   make a family tree (what ...

September 6, 1965 in Hallettsville, Texas “Taught by family members in South Central Texas, husband and wife Steve and Betty Orsak have canned, pickled, and preserved foods together since the early 1970s. Their Czech heritage influences their choice of recipes and produce.”  These words about my parents came from the program of the 2008 Smithsonian Folklife Festival in Washington D.C. where, with 10 other participants that summer, they represented Texas cooking to the world. It is an apt description since their 50-year marriage, their Czech heritage, and their creativity and generosity with food form the bedrock of love in our family. They celebrated their Golden Wedding Anniversary last week. When my parents married in 1965, society’s expectation was that my father would be the breadwinner and my mother would be the bread baker (and the maker of everything else.) But growing, cooking, shopping for, planning around, preserving, and sharing food offered, over 50 years, oppo...