BIBLIOGRIND
The Life of a Wordsmith — Read … Live … Write
Archive for December, 2008
December 20, 2008 at 8:14 pm · Filed under The Prague Blog
The Czech tradition of family-favorite bakery sweets is often taken to the nth degree. One student of mine told how her grandmother recently broke down in tears because she was only able to make 12 dozen cookies (five varieties) instead of her usual 18 dozen. While there is no competition between families, as I’ve been told, and few “cookie swapping” parties, the favorites among people are as wide as cookie imaginations.
The favorites include Wasp Nests (honey inside a cookie nest), Vanilla Rolls, Chocolate Cups, and an Austrian cookie sandwich that has a hole in it to show the sweet colorful jam inside. And then there is the Drunken Plum, which a student has been making for many years. He stuffed dried plums with almonds, then soaks them in rum for a week, after which he dips them in melted chocolate.
Since I don’t have an oven that’s useful for proper baking, the drunken plum sounded like a grand Christmas treat. This sweet includes some of my favorite tastes: chocolate, almonds, plum, and liquor. For a bit of variety, while I scanned the dried fruits section of the store (Czechs like dried fruit and nuts: there are bags of peanuts and pistachios the size of laundry bags!), I happened upon apricots, one of my other favorite fruits. So I grabbed a bag of those and have a couple dozen stuffed of each, soaking in the fridge, waiting for some melted chocolate next week.
Quick story from one student about a drunken plum episode: Michal went on Christmas vacation with some friends one year, and while belaying three friends as they made a short climb up a mountainside, he dipped into a can of said plums, once, twice, three times, and in ten minutes he realized the can was empty. He also found he was unable to climb the mountainside.
December 14, 2008 at 4:49 pm · Filed under The Prague Blog
Virginia Woolf used one. Hemingway wrote standing up. I just saw a video clip showing Philip Roth standing while writing. And the most recent well-known person to work while standing was Don Rumsfeld (who famously edited a memo re torturing prisoners, scribbling marginalia such as, “I stand all day long. How is that torture?”).
Sitting all day long typing and not even knowing where the time goes, I often feel my legs falling asleep or, prolly worse, pain spots in certain areas. I’m sure this isn’t good for circulation, or perhaps even my posture, because sometimes I find myself hunched over the table looking at notes. Now I’m going to try standing while writing. Gives me the chance to pace while I think, too.
After today, about 5 hours worth, I can feel the ache in my knees, hips, and lower back. So perhaps I’m just getting older. But I’ll keep with this. At least it burns calories. How do I know this? I’m fucking starving right now, and there’s a wine glass with my name on it calling me from the kitchen.
I know the photo looks like I’m using a bureau, and to raise the writing height to my comfort level, I’ve pulled out a drawer and upended it. Gauche beyond belief, no? Yeah, well, at www.standupdesks.com, I priced the “Virginia Woolf” and it’s $1450. I think I’ll do just as well with this makeshift jobbie until something better comes along.
Of course, I can always sit down when my back begins to give way.
December 13, 2008 at 2:36 pm · Filed under The Prague Blog
Last night at the Polomino bar, St James threw its Christmas party. The school hired out the entire club for about 55 of us, with open bar (as long as you wanted beer & wine) and buffet table. It had been snowing all day, so the night was a good time to celebrate the coming holiday weeks. Roman (picured right) started off the night with a traditional toast of svarak cervene (warm red spiced wine), and very kind words for the school staff, who in fact work tremendously hard to keep we teachers working, informed, and generally happy with our work. 
Then the party began. I met a few people I’ve only chatted with at school, for some interesting conversations about work & travel. Terry, an Irishman who’s taught in various countries for the last 20 years or so, talk about his ability to acquire languages. He speaks five languages, including a strange dialect of Arabic he picked up while living in North Africa for a few months. Anna is a Czech language teacher who teaches emigrants from around the world. She’s also a big reader, and of Czech authors, so we had a spirited conversation about Skvorecky, Klima, and Holub (but no Kafka).
The buffet was chockablock full of traditional Czech foods: chicken scnitzel, pickled peppers, dark bread, fresh veggie salad, potato pancakes, and chicken wings. Well, the wings aren’t very traditional, but they do have a sort of goulash spice gravy that makes them finger-licking good.
Naturally, I had to leave about 11:15 so I could get the last bus up from Dejvicka, or else my carriage would turn back into a pumpkin. Lucky for me, too, because another hour or so at the party and I’d have more of a hangover than I’ve got now.
Merry Christmas everyone!
December 11, 2008 at 8:50 pm · Filed under The Prague Blog
Europe is now indulging in its Christmas Markets (that is, of course, Europeans who are CHRISTIAN). In southern Germany these outdoor eat-drink-buy orgies are called “Christkindel markts”; in the UK Oliver Cromwell banned Christmas markets in the 1650s; Italy calls their markets “Mercatino di Natale”; Luxemborg is a melange of languages and so has several celebration-variations, including carol singers doing such diddies as “An der grousser Hellger Nuecht” sung in Luxembourgish, “Stille Nacht” in German, “White Christmas” in English and “Feliz Navidad” in Spanish. ChristmasMarkets.com lists the most Xmas Markets in the UK (144); 84 in France; 28 in Austria; Germany has 86; the USA has 16 (a shame, given its rabid Christian underbelly; or perhaps this is the reason for so few?); Esonia has zero markets, which means they’re probably going straight to hell; and the Czech Republic has just one market.
Of course, as I’m living in Prague, I can attest that there are indeed far more than just one Jesus-Bursts-From-the-Womb market. In fact every neighborhood has its own market, small or elaborate. In Smichov, a gnarly smoker-cum-grill has numerous sausages & spit-roasted pork (with kraut, naturally) to feed the visitors. In Namesti Miru (only 140 years ago was its own town outside Prague), the huge square outside Saint Ludmila Church has more than 25 stalls that sell everything from beeswax candles (traditional Czech product) to winter textiles and jewelry and trinkets, to Svarak vino (hot wine!) and mead and slivovice.
In Prague’s Old Town Square (dating from 1612), there stands a 40-ft tree, numerous stalls far different from any found elswhere in the city, and many more traditional Czech food-stuffs, including roasted chestnuts (Pecene kastany), vanocka (Christmas cake), and the very very traditional trdelnik (roasted pastry roll), of which I can give strong evidence of this sweet treat complementing wonderfully the hot mulled wine.
BTW … Since the story of Jesus is a VIRGIN birth story, I guess my bursts-from-the-womb imagery doesn’t quite fit with accepted cannonical teachings. Chalk up a few more centuries in Purgatory, I guess.
December 9, 2008 at 7:29 pm · Filed under The Prague Blog
In my ever-enthusiastic sampling of “new things to eat with red wine,” I think dark chocolate may be quintessentially the perfect match to a full-bodied wine with light tannis, served just chilled. Here’s my vision for tasting your way to an ideal dessert:
Take a tab of dark chocolate and nibble a corner. Nibble a few bits off that corner and let the pieces begin to melt on your tongue. Feel the deep cocoa flavor seep deeply into your tongue. A good dark chocolate, slightly bitter but no more than 75% cocoa, is best here; but whatever your preferences are, I’m sure they will do. The idea is to combine the flavors of wine and chocolate.
Now take a drink of wine. Let it flow through your mouth, mix with the chocolate, but don’t swallow right away. You want to allow the two flavors — and their aromas — to mix in your mouth and through your sinuses. BE CAREFUL to not snort the chocolate-wine mix into your sinuses; you may begin to drown, which will certainly ruin the experience.
Understand that half of human taste sensation comes from smell, aroma, and so you simply need to keep the two food elements in your mouth for 5 seconds or so to allow the natural aromas to flood your olfactory receptors.
Okay, okay! I know I’m being a bit technical here, but every how-to — especially with food — requires a bit of concentration to really understand what you’re trying to achive. The combination you’ll discover is a true mix of wine and chocolate. The taste reflects the fermented grape’s back-of-the-mouth strength with the sweet-bitter chocolate’s middle-tongue sugar spank. The combination creates a new sensation, a sort of fermented cocoa, if you will: a rich chocolate “cordial” that is less alcoholic than it is liquid desert.
December 7, 2008 at 11:11 am · Filed under The Prague Blog
At Petra’s last night, in her little apt kitchen/dining room, were tucked 15 people, celebrating Mikulas Day. December 6th is one of the Czech-Slovak “naming” days. (Marek (equivalent to Mark) comes on March 22nd, I believe.) Mikulas (St Niklaus) is famous for leaving presents in children’s boots; there are no stockings hung over the fireplace in this Upper Bohemian culture. But of course, cookies and wine play a part.
Petra is a great hostess, very active and making sure her guests are eating and drinking. The table held a variety of potluck dishes: couscous w/nuts & fruit; baked chicken; fruit & veg salad; cheeses (camembert, brie, and blue); potato salad; pistachio & almond nuts; and a delicious sweet potato concoction we’d Americans would find on any holiday table (I think an Am brought this dish, in fact); and finally my best simple dish, fresh mozz & basil & tomato on sliced bagette.
A few Brits there were drinking Scotch, of which I did not go near. Red wine is plenty when you need to catch trams & metros & buses at the stroke of midnight lest your carriage turn back into a pumpkin and you walk up the hill to Suchdol. But there was one Czech fellow who was quite drunk, though a happy kind of drunk that was entertaining, especially for the ladies. Sorry, I can’t remember all the names of these people, and feel glad that I can remember most of the teachers’ names, seeing I see them but once or twice a week.
At the beginning of the night, I ran into Anne and another teacher at the Flora tram stop, waiting for the #5 to Zizkov. They were waiting for Karen and Sonia, who were due to arrive any minute. Standing outside at tram & bus stops is what we teachers are used to, so the 35-degree temps were nothing; we know how to dress Prague weather. When the others came, we got on the #5 and had the entire car to ourselves. Karen wanted to yell and scream like a little kid, write things on the windows like “St James Forever!” but we calmed her.
Two stops later we were at Lipanska. Suddenly I had a severe bout of dejá vu. This was the same tram stop that I used liberally 14 years ago while staying in Prague on that summer writing seminar. Petra’s apartment, in fact, was just down the street, taking the same short stairway from the main street into the residential area here. I’ll have to go back to Zizkov and wander around, find that small satellite college building we used, and the dorms where I stayed; and especially that little restaurant run by a German family, who made fabulous potato pancakes and roasted pork.
I brought my camera, but it somehow stayed in my coat pocket. Later, I was not going to climb over people to get at my coat for the camera. Karen promised to send me pics. Perhaps she’ll remember, and then I’ll put a few up. But for now you’ll just have to imagine what happened through my skillful narrative technique.
1. A few of us American’s huddled in a corner and discussed the failure of the economic situation in USA, and prospects for regrowth. Some of the Czech’s took careful notice of how we lambasted the “idiot from Texas” doing nothing. BTW, did you here that Bush was given info and warning about the bank crisis more than a year ago?
2. Alisdair came late, and the ladies plied him with food, but since there were no more clean plates, and everyone had finished eating anyway, A just ate from the serving bowls. He is gentlemanly and seems well-bred because after scarfing the food, he washed each bowl in turn.
3. Karen and Anne asked me if I used real life situations in my fiction. I responded with a story: Truman Capote’s friends were surprised and angry that he had satarized them in his fiction, creating characters hardly veiled from their true selves. He responded, “Just what did you think I was doing writing in my notebook in the corner of the party?” This got a laugh, but also a follow-up question: “Where’s your notebook?” I tapped my head. The good stuff stays up there, and the art comes from making up the rest. That’s why we call it fiction.
4. I left around 10:50 … that pumpkin chariot thing … and who do I run into at the tram stop but Anne and that other teacher (still can’t remember her name). They had left 20 mins earlier, yet were still waiting at the stop. Ugh! Meanwhile, three Czech boys had been chatting with them. Five minutes later the #5 shows up and we three get on. Once inside, the other teacher (who is about 55?) says, “It’s amazing who young men look at me, starting at my shoes, up to the knees the waist, higher and higher, ‘Mmm, this is nice!’ they think; then they get to my face and say ‘Oh, shit!’ ” Anne sniggered and seconded her comment.
December 1, 2008 at 1:10 pm · Filed under The Prague Blog
So I found Letenské Sady. From where I stood the other day, all I needed to do was cross the busy street and walk vertically. But on Sunday I took the tram at Hradcanska and got off halfway down the hill, on the western edge of Letenské. This park is a nice place for a walk: it’s flat (mostly), filled with trees and benches, has open spaces for play, and has three restaurants with outdoor seating. Letenské’s centerpiece is lookout “square” high above the Vltava River, giving just about the best view of Prague. From here you can look up the river and over several bridges, see the castle, and all the church spires of Old Town.
This spot used to be dominated by a statue of Joseph Stalin, but after 1989′s Velvet Revolution, that was taken down. (I’m not sure if the people tore it down and broke it into pieces, or the new government took it away for the slag heap.) In Uncle Joe’s place stands a two-storey metronome, its red arm swinging back and forth over the city. This represents about the oddest art piece I’ve seen in Europe. Who the hell wants to be reminded of the passage of time?
This overlook square is a bit run down, but a perfect spot for skateboard fuckers because of all the smooth stone. They flock here on the weekends to practice their tricks and break their wrists. I also spotted several punk boys showing their otherness with mohawks and leather gear.
Sunday was a semi-warm day, nearly 40 degrees, and no wind. Perfect for walking. I took the path east, away from skate-land, and soon found one of the park’s watering holes. In winter, the drink to have Svarak vinó, a hot spiced wine with sugary flavors. Yummie! As I got a cup, the sun came out and everything seemed to warm up. Lots of people walk their dogs in the park, and then there are the pram cavalcades.Far to the east you can take another steep path to get down to the river. This is the spot of the 1958 World Expo, which was an important expo because it was the first following WWII, and the first to include commie countries under direct influence of the USSR. There’s one pavilion remaining, an ultra modern glass building that must have looked pretty futuristic back then. For larger pics of the park and overlooking Prague, jump to my Flickr page.
Na shledanou!
