Svacina Project

Recently, a Texas-Czech friend emailed to me the photograph below. The subject of the email was just "Nooooooo." It's a picture of one of the cases at a Central Texas bakery displaying cream cheese kolaches, each with a Hershey's mini chocolate bar literally stuck in the middle to sort of soften and ooze while baking.  My friend's comment together with the photo illustrate two types of kolach eaters... traditionalists and those who are willing to try kolach dough wrapped around any food that, on its own, could be deemed yummy. I generally fall into the first camp. Not because I don't think a kolach filled with " delicious marinated chicken, cheddar cheese, tomatoes and fresh spices "   might not taste good. (That is Kolache Factory's "Kolache of the Month" in March... Ranchero Chicken.) Rather, I think that the institution of Texas-Czech kolaches has enough to battle (time consuming to make, associated with special occasion foods, kno...

In case you're wondering, pickling turnips is not a Czech thing (as far as I know.) But my Dad did it last Sunday morning and it offered a chance to talk to my parents about their winter canning pantry and what they remember from their childhood. Selections from my parents' canning pantry - pickled okra, beets and bread and butter pickles. The reason for pickling the turnips was necessity which is the reason for canning in general. My mother's brother A.J. (Alois Joseph) and his wife Alice have a marvelous garden outside of Hallettsville. On their way to Houston last Friday, they left a cooler full of vegetables on my parents' doorstep in Katy. Their little garden spot is a mass producer and, rather than feed the excess to the cattle which my Uncle A.J. had been resorting to, they shared with my parents. Uncle A.J. and Aunt Alice (Kocian) Kallus, Hallettsville  In the cooler were broccoli, turnips, beets, and carrots. Right away my parents pickled the beets ...

Last week, my teenage son mentioned the book I'm "supposedly" (his word) writing... ouch. It's true that I haven't done a blog post in over three weeks. The blog is practice and fodder for the book. I get up before 6am and go to bed around 11pm and in between I work a full-time job, take care of 2 kids 90% of the time and do a LOT of housework. That doesn't leave a lot of time for, oh, let's say, anything else. Sometimes I feel like the only way I'll get the book written is to win the lottery so I can hit the road unencumbered by a day job, children (left with a babysitter), or guilt about not doing the dishes (left to a maid.) On to the current post... I've been thinking about cabbage lately since the weather has been chilly on and off (for Texas)... sauerkraut, zelniky (what old-school Texas Czechs call cabbage kolaches, not sauerkraut crackers), red cabbage with apples, sauerkraut soup, coleslaw, cabbage with noodles, sauerkraut cake, holubk...

Homemade 1-2-3-4 Cake to use for crumbs in apple strudel. Though I've heard much joking over the years about "mixed marriages" - Germans and Czechs marrying each other - I haven't heard much about their traditional foods crossing or cross-polinating. Last summer, my 13-year-old son, 2 friends from Austin and I met my parents in Round Top to see the musical " The Heart of the Tin Trunk ." The show had a sub-theme about Czechs and Germans having to get along once they moved onto the Texas frontier, no matter how much they hated each other in the old countries. There were two songs in the Broadway-style show that addressed the issue. One featured Czech and German female characters in a kitchen making strudel together, the point being that though the Germans called it strudel and the Czechs called it jablkovy zavin , it was the same pastry with the same ingredients... sugar, butter, cinnamon, apples, and dough. (If we love the same foods, surely we're...

My maternal grandmother died Friday. She was a rock, a guiding hand, an angel, and an inspiration. Below are the text and photos from the program we created for the funeral service. And since this is a blog about food, below that is something about how our family nourished ourselves through several days of intense sadness, hard work to honor Datu, and as much visiting with and loving each other as we could muster. ANASTASIA (Morkovsky) KALLUS - Our Datu - October 28, 1915 – January 20, 2012 “All that I am or hope to be, I owe to my angel mother. “ - Abraham Lincoln - Anita, about 1922. Anastasia “Anita” Kallus, was born on Oct. 28, 1915 to Alois J. and Marie (Raska) Morkovsky in Lavaca County, Texas.  She was the youngest of 10 children. Her first language was Czech and she spoke it with friends and relatives throughout her life.  Anita graduated from Hallettsville High School in 1933 and began working as a seamstress. Sewing and nee...

Christmas Eve is three days away and, like most years of my life, I will be at my parent's house for our annual holiday get-together. The article below about our gathering was written for the Plate and Vine newsletter of the Wine and Food Foundation of Texas and was included in the Fall 2004 issue. Nothing has changed since I wrote it, which really pleased me when I reread the article recently in preparation for writing a few blog posts about Christmas food traditions.  I'd love to have comments from those of you who might still include dishes in your holiday celebration that can be traced back to the motherland.   Family Traditions: A Texas Czech Holiday My family's Christmas Eve meal tells the story of our Texas Czech heritage. Though the dishes come straight from my mother's grandparents, the meal is influenced by my parents' creative and inquisitive approach to cooking and the finicky tastes of children and in-laws. We call this meal Stedra, a mispro...

I made noodles for the first time. I don't know why I was intimidated by them. They ended up being the easiest thing to make and were so satisfying to eat. (So easy a two-year old and 12-year-old could do it... see photo below.) Many, many times I have had recounted to me the story of a person's mother or grandmother making noodles and the fond memories of seeing the rolled out sheets of dough hanging over the backs of chairs or drying flat on top of a bed. In their book Krasna Amerika: A Study of the Texas Czechs  1851-1939 , Clint Machann and James Mendl wrote "Soup ( polevka ) was an important part of the noon meal ( obed ). Rolled-out, paper-thin egg noodle dough, spread on a table or draped over chairs, was a common sight in a Czech home. After drying, the sheet of dough was rolled out and cut into thin strips, to be used in various kinds of noodle soup." (pages 140-141) I don't remember my grandmother making noodles, but my mother remembers her Aunt Bes...