Svacina Project

Yes, it's ANOTHER reunion post. I feel like I've done too many of these, but I go (generally) to four reunions a year (Morkovksy, Kallus, Orsak and Hahn/Zielonka.) They're so full of family and food and other things this blog is supposed to be about that it's hard not to write about them. The Kallus reunion was last Saturday at the church hall in St. Mary's, outside of Hallettsville on FM 340 in Lavaca County. Kallus is my mother's maiden name. The bad news - only 75 people attended this year, down from 100 in 2011 . The good news - the poeple, music and food. They were 75 wonderful people, clearly committed to maintaining family ties. There were lots of traditional dishes on the long food tables and a keg of Shiner. Three relatives brought instruments this year -- two guitars and an accordion -- and the music was sweet. It was lovely to hear Al Mladenka playing Czech waltzes on the accordion as we ate lunch. And in the afternoon, people sang along to ...

I was recently babysitting my nieces and asked what they like to eat for breakfast. The older one, Eleni, said "Well, we're Greek, so we like to eat toast, cheese and olives." This statement made me both happy and sad. I was happy that she identified strongly with her father's cultural heritage, but she's almost as Czech as she is Greek, so I was sad that she didn't identify with her mother's cultural heritage, too. Or not for breakfast foods anyway. But of course she'd say she's Greek.... she's a first generation Texan on her father's side, she goes to a Greek school, has very Greek first and last names, learns Greek, her father speaks Greek and has favorite Greek and Cypriot foods, she goes to Greek festivals, has a grandfather that lives in Cyprus, and has visited Cyprus several times in her 7 years. 90 years ago when Eleni's maternal great-grandmother was 7, she did some of the exact same things and was a first generation Texan her...

See the baby held between the couple in the foreground. Sweet! On Labor Day weekend this month, I spent Sunday at the 130th Annual Sacred Heart Parish Fall Picnic in Hallettsville at the Knights of Columbus Hall. I know this hall very, very well. It's almost walkable from my grandmother's house on Alt. Highway 90.  My extended family has the Morkovsky reunion there annually; my grandparents' 40th wedding anniversary party was held there; I attended Fiddler's Frolics there most of my junior high and high school years; my Uncle Bobby was a drummer for bands that played dances there; and I've been to the picnic many times, though not in a while.  There was so much activity going on when we walked into the hall and so many people there, I couldn't believe the church actually holds the exact same event twice in the year... once in the spring and once in the fall. The number of poeple was even more amazing when you consider that Shiner (a little more than 1...

On July 30th, a wonderful lady and loving mother/ grandmother/ great-grandmother/ friend passed away... Victoria “Vickie” Klimitchek, 86, of Hallettsville. Mrs. Klimitchek was the mother of my Aunt Pat and the adopted grandmother of my first cousins on my mother's side. I remember her as talkative in that accent of native Tex-Czech speakers, very outgoing, and one of the most positive poeple I've met. She was also a goldmine of information about how early life was for a dying generation of Texas Czechs. Their invaluable knowledge is being lost daily in this state.  She was born on Dec. 5, 1925 to Joe and Mary (Michna) Vanek in Hallettsville. Vickie grew up on a farm and worked in the fields while attending Sacred Heart School. In her obituary, Vickie's family wrote, "It was very difficult to balance that life style with getting an education. She would tell us stories about how far she had to walk to school and how physically demanding farm life could be."  She ...

Another opportunity to pick and preserve fruit came up last week when I was in Hallettsville, staying at my grandmother's house. Behind her back yard, in an interim space where the barn is before you get to the pasture, there's a dead tree covered in white mustang grape vines. Thank goodness the variety is disease and drought resistant considering the Texas weather lately. The vines had completely covered the "host" tree, which had been struck by lightning. There was plenty of fruit though. My mother and brother, Stephen, had picked enough for one batch of jelly the weekend before. And there was still more to be had.  My son and I picked enough grapes for four more batches, half for me and half for my parents. Being a typical entrepreneurial 13-year-old, my son got my father to pay him for the grapes we gave my parents. I, however, paid my son in jelly. It was hot, sweaty, itchy work that made us contort into awkward poses to get "just one more...

In my copy of a KJZT cookbook called "Sharing Our Best: Centennial Book of Recipes", a gift from my grandmother, she inscribed it with "To Dawn, my little Czech princess!" I love that she stressed the connection between my ethnic heritage and many of the recipes in the book. As many of you readers know, the KJZT is a fraternal organization begun in the late 19th century by Czechs who'd immigrated to Texas. So many of the recipes in "Sharing Our Best" reflect Czech and Texas-Czech foods. And like most community cookbooks, some of the recipes are just tried and true family favorites, or derivations of popular recipes from magazines or the ubiquitous New Better Homes and Gardens cookbook from the 60s with the red and white checked cover. I am part of the team that's working on the first community cookbook by the Texas Czech Genealogical Society ( TCGS ), so have been thinking about these types of cookbooks as I see submissions to the ...