Svacina Project

I have been thinking about  pampelišky  (dandelions). A few popped up in the grassy areas around the apartments where I live and they always remind me of the Czech Republic. Three reasons…. first, the word  pampelišky  is one of my favorite Czech words to say. Second, they remind me of a day in 1996 when I visited a friend living in Brno and we drove to a nearby lake. He went swimming, but the water was too cold for me, so I sat on the bank in the softest, greenest grass I’d ever seen and felt, which was dotted with sun-yellow dandelions. I have a visual memory of this beautiful afternoon… one of the mental “happy places” I go to, should I need to. Third, my great-great-great uncle Josef Kalus wrote a book of poetry published in 1925 called P ampelišky , cover pictured at right.   The power of Facebook and a kind stranger yielded this translation from Czech of the 4-line melancholy poem on the flyleaf of the book… Dandelion, you are an image of human ...

Sometimes a person just needs 24 kolaches. I have dough recipes that make as many as 6 dozen, but sometimes I just need 24… staff appreciation day at my son’s elementary school, or a monthly staff meeting at work, or (today) a contribution to the dessert table at Slavnost (May Fest) at the Texas Czech Heritage and Cultural Center (TCHCC) in La Grange. I am a member of the Travis-Williamson Counties chapter of the Czech Heritage Society, but hardly ever go to meetings. The chapter was in charge of the dessert table at the event today, so I decided to finally volunteer with them and also contribute something to the $1/dessert table. I failed to ask what they needed, so brought a pan of kolaches, which the event actually buys from Weikel’s in La Grange. Other chapter members and TCHCC supporters – all experienced bakers and dessert makers – brought poppyseed and other cakes, apple strudel, pecan and cherry pies, cookies, peach cobbler, brownies and other delicious things. I wa...

In rural Czech Texas, visiting with family and friends on Sunday after church used to be an important weekly activity (probably still is for some families) – a way to stay connected, share news and concerns, and further the cooperative spirit that’s helped Texas Czech culture last so long. I love this description of Sunday dinner by Robert Skrabanek in his book “We’re Czechs” (Texas A&M Press, 1988.) “Sometimes we went to a friend’s house, along with three or four other families, to eat Sunday dinner and to spend most of the rest of the afternoon. If it was our turn to be hosts, we left [church] as soon as we could so Mama and the girls could get dinner ready as soon as possible. Once dinner was ready, the men always ate at the first table. After they were through, the women ate at the second table, and we kids ate at the third table. While our parents were eating, we passed the time playing games, and by the time it was our turn to eat, we were hungry enough to eat the table....

Monica Pope's Texas Czech dinner at the Foodways Texas symposium in Austin. When it rains, it pours. I was fortunate enough to participate in three different events in the last three weekends regarding work to highlight and preserve Texas Czech culture. I’m tired, but I’ve been inspired, encouraged, and challenged. Any one of these events deserves its own blog post, but I have a backlog of things I’d like to write about, so I’ll cover all three together in this post. Rather than acting like a reporter documenting the events, I’d like to offer some of the questions I’ve been formulating after listening to and connecting with really interesting and passionate folks the last three weeks doing their own cultural preservation work. My first Texas Foklore Society Annual Meeting... the Society's 100th! So honored. At the  Texas Folklore Society 100 th Annual Meeting the first weekend in April, I presented a paper I called “Texas Czech Foodways: More Than Kolaches.” ...

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...