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Klobasniky - You Gotta Do What You Gotta Do

Memorial Day weekend. My sister's new beach house in Galveston. Our whole family sleeping in one place and it's not Christmas. There's the beach to enjoy, HD televisions to watch, there are 7 children to tend between the ages of 8 months and 11 years. There are meals to cook, trips to make to the store for flip-flops and fishing lures, diapers to change, sunscreen to put on, visiting to do, packing and unpacking to do. Somehow my sister and I decide before the trip that we're going to have time to make klobasniky from scratch and bring all the ingredients (my mom even threw her KitchenAid in the car!?)

This says many things about us... we're overambitious, industrious, hopeful, love sausage, enjoy being in the kitchen together, wish we were the kind of women who made klobasniky from scratch, and really do want to stay in touch with our Czech heritage, especially through food. But did it happen? Well... yes and no.

It was clear as the morning unfolded that dragging the KitchenAid up from the car and spending the morning watching dough rise was not on anyone's agenda but my own. One nephew wanted to get involved but he's 5 and was just in it for the fun of playing with dough. When it came down to actually making it happen, I think my mother and sister just sort of shook their heads, like "Oh, Dawn, were you serious?" My sister (Martha Stewart, eternally ready for any occasion or happening) offered a conciliatory food gesture....


So, if by "scratch" one means my nephew and I had to put various edible components together into things that looked approximately like klobasniky and then heat them up, then yes, we made klobasniky from scratch. But, if by scratch one means that we couldn't use the canned pizza dough my sister offered from the back of the fridge, then no we didn't make klobasniky from scratch.

But several things were accomplished (one of them NOT being making the kind of hot, pillowy, porky, pockets of savory Czech-Texan goodness that I'd envisioned.) They were...
  • my nephew cooked in the kitchen with me (calls me Teta - Czech for aunt - which is a tradition I started with my first nephew and it stuck.)
  • the family maintained a tenuous hold on Czech food traditions by eating things that looked pretty much like and were called kolbasniky, even if I didn't make them from scratch.
  • I was reminded that my grandmother's and great-grandmother's lives were so very different than my own, which reinforced my appreciation of their skills, patience, time-management, and tirelessness.
Maybe I'll make klobasniky from scratch next weekend (or the weekend after that or the month after that.)

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  1. Mr CJune 27, 2010 at 2:11 AM

    Hi, Dawn! Barry and I are at his apt in Malmö enjoying the interesting and inspiring articles on your blog. Now we would just love to come over to your place and eat one of those delicious-looking Czech snacks. We're looking forward to reading more about Czech food heritage on your blog soon. Love, Laura

    Hey Dawn! I like your Blog! Say hi to Dougal and Rome from me! Love, Barry

    ReplyDelete

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