Svacina Project

  This is a very quick post about fried chicken and a recipe offering. Summer is for fried chicken, in my opinion… Fourth of July, eating at a local park’s picnic table, and church picnics. I sadly can’t make it to this year’s Prazska Pout in Praha, Texas on August 15th (Praha picnic plate in photo above) and haven’t been able to attend any of the other many picnics that serve fried chicken, so I’ve been lamenting the loss of opportunity to eat one of my favorite summer dishes. I live in a very small apartment – the smell of whatever I cook becomes my abode’s air freshener for half a day, so I rarely fry foods. So, I suppose I’ve been craving fried chicken, and writing about it helps. So does reading Jay Francis’s blog (The Fried Chicken Blog) which I recommend to anyone interested in the subject. He has fantastic photos and videos about the Praha picnic specifically here , but check out the rest of the blog, too. Clearly Texas Czechs love fried chicken from its appearance on so

I am overwhelmingly grateful to have been sitting “at memory’s table” my entire life. By that I mean, though my parents had moved me and my siblings to several states and back to Texas by the time I was in 4th grade, the people in my life were stable and family connections were so strong that absorbing our shared history was unavoidable.  And food was inseparable from that. Orsak family reunion My parents are fascinated by both history and food. My maternal grandmother lived in her house (and her kitchen) for over 70 years. All branches of my grandparents’ families have had reunions—for decades and decades—with fantastic food. Though my parents were adventurous eaters, we definitely grew up with weeknight staple meals that all my siblings can name and remember. Tradition is extremely important for us, resulting in a Christmas eve meal that includes dishes served continuously for over a century. Historically people have lived a long time in my family, so my parents and I and