Snails in the Shell, Graffiti on the Wall

 

For Saturday lunches, we like to turn out fast but tasty spreads of flavor. Summer finds us bringing home food from the Lebanese deli close by, or maybe the Greek store, or the Italian grocery...cold cuts, bread, olives, cheese and something different like octopus salad or falafal and baba ghanouj.

Teeth chatteringly cold Saturdays in the winter call for something different. I headed out this morning in 15F/-9C degree weather to do our Saturday morning shopping. Living downtown, far from the megamarkets, that usually means stopping at three or four little stores along the way. I stopped at five or six just to keep my eyelashes thawed. The last was a French cheese and vegetable store, where I picked up enough cheese to satisfy the many tastes of the family and then - on a whim - twelve butter and snail filled shells.

Nestled in aluminum foil to keep from tipping their butter out, they baked for ten minutes in an oven set to 450. We each had four and dripped the juices all over toasted bread to finish up. "I love snails," Caroline said. James said "no comment at this time." Which came out, "uhmmm, cheese". Will asked me to make more tomorrow.

We've got a can of snails we brought home from France last summer. We've got butter and parsley. That seems pretty much all you need to make your own. So I will. And maybe this time I'll remember to take pictures of the shells before we scoop out all the goodness!

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{The graffiti lady in the top photo seems very city-like to me, so I thought I'd add her to a post about city living. The tag above her head reads "AIR".}

Pond skating in Prague

 

A few years ago I vowed to start enjoying the winter and learn a winter sport. I bought a pair of skates and took up ice skating. Caroline joined me the next year, and this year Will decided he'd watched long enough and he bought skates too.

We used to stick to indoor rinks, but January's unusually snowy weather turned Prague into a wintery wonderland and tempted us into trying something new. Last Saturday we met up with friends to skate on a fish pond in the Liboc neighborhood of Prague. Even the baby enjoyed getting into the act, as you can see from his picture!

A Lada Winter? Come, Spring

It’s easy to agree that it has been a long long winter here in Prague. A few weeks ago we flew off to more southern parts, hoping that by the time we came home again the snow would be gone for good and spring in its place. Instead, we barely missed the biggest snowstorm of the winter and flew home on a plane packed with people who had missed their flights the day before and were ready to remove themselves from the hard comforts of JFK even if they had to arm wrestle for a seat. There was a collective sigh of relief when Smetana burst out of the loud speakers as we landed in Prague and I thought that, perhaps finally, someone on the plane might start smiling. Then I looked out the window at the snow drifts and decided our fellow passengers might have a point.

In commiserating over the winter last week, at least three of our Czech friends (and Radio Prague) pointed out to me Jaromir Nohavica’s new song now available on his website. "Ladovska Zima", or "Lada Winter", invokes the beauty of an old fashioned winter as illustrated by Josef Lada (children on sleds, quaint and beautiful views) and then teases and fusses along with us, will it ever be over, enough is enough already with this white mess (bílé svinstvo). You can download the song from the nohavica website, here. It sounds even sweeter now that the sun has melted most of the "svinstvo" away.

Oh, and if you noticed the template change - Blogger is messing with their system apparently and the result is playing havoc with my old template. I'm going to hold onto this one for a bit before I try to switch back, or update to something new, it is time for spring cleaning after all!.

Josef Lada image courtesy of Radio Prague.

Silver is also beautiful

Yesterday morning we watched Kateřina Neumannová battle through the Olympics cross country pursuit 7.5 +7.5 kilometer, known in Czech as the skiatlonu. It was a super race to watch, particularly as we saw all 15 kilometers, uncut by shots back and forth to other events or long ad breaks (so usual in U.S. Olympics coverage). When you watch all forty minutes of a cross country race, you can better fathom how grueling that sort of match must be, and we cheered for each woman when she crossed the finish line and threw herself onto the snow. Like the rest of the Czech Republic, we were a little sad because Neumannova, despite pulling ahead in the last two kilometers, didn’t get her gold, but as she said in an interview yesterday: "I stříbro je krásné." Silver is also beautiful.

Caroline watched with us, pointing out Neumannova’s racing number 3 whenever she showed up in a shot. When the service people started passing out bottles of water, C tried to pass over her sippy cup to the skiers too. The race over, we finally were able to peel her away by promising we would find some snow to race through ourselves.

Dressed, finally (the epitaph to every morning with Caroline) we headed out the door and over to our local park, Riegrovy Sady. Will hitched our new sled over one shoulder, and Caroline happily swung along between us.

On the way, Will mentioned he’d never gone sledding on anything but a cookie tin in his university years, up north. He was nervous. “How exactly do you steer this thing, and what about stopping?“ Since anything is easier to sled on than a tin square, I thought he’d have no trouble, once he got started, but we both wondered if there would be any snow left, since the streets were running with water and slush from the warm weather (1C/33F).

The park snow stood, mostly unmelted and covered with runner tracks. We found a hill, and Will and the sled went on their first run. Will had a great time, the sled did well too. Then, Caroline’s turn. We tried each hill in the park, until we decided the long double drop facing west, towards the castle, was our favorite.

Caroline loved everything about sledding - she hallooed and whooped on each run down, sitting snug in our laps; on trips back up the hill, she held on firm and encouraged us with giddyups. She seemed older somehow, chatting easily about the crunch of the snow, gloves versus pockets, the best way to carry the sled over cement (with her still on it). Before she went to sleep last night, she imagined her reading chair into a sled and bade me take the chair out, through curves and steep slopes until we landed back in her room and it was time to climb into bed.

Filed under: winter toddler tales

Snowy Saturday

Snow has fallen all day, and the sidewalks and streets are covered. Tomorrow, if we’re all recovered from a cold that snuck into our flat, we’re going to take Caroline out for a ride on her sled. It has been waiting for her since just after the last big snowfall, when I bought it as insurance against too many weeks of city slush (sleds, like umbrellas, seem to keep precipitation at bay).

In the meantime, we have stacked books up like LPs on an old turntable, waiting their turn to be read. Caroline likes to stick to one author at a time, so we read first through Seuss, then Boynton and the Corduroy books before we get to the singletons. When it all gets too sedentary, Caroline shows off her tumbling act on our big bed - one somersault after another and then takes a few loops around the flat until she is back in the kitchen and a song catches her in mid step and she has to stop to dance to its beat before she begins her loops again, or stops for another book.

Filed under: winter toddler_tales Seuss music

Ice skating in Prague

Try a winter sport. One of my New Year resolutions, near the top of the list to try to check off quickly. But by last weekend, all I could claim was hiking in the cold and complaining about it. I started to get a little worried when I saw the strawberry baskets cluttering the counters in our green grocer, and our junk mail shifted from flyers for skis to catalogs of sleeveless shirts. What if Prague's mini ice age ended and spring arrived early! I'd have missed another winter, my resolution would remain unchecked.

Time for action.

Cross country takes a weekend, downhill a new set of knees, so we decided to try ice skating first. There’s a rink at the base of Vinohrady, very close to Vrsovicke namesti, and we’d watched people skate there before, enjoying the view as we savored a bottle of wine in the little wine bar at the foot of Grobova Chateau and watched skaters glide across the lit rink.

I remembered that view on Friday, and it didn’t take long to find out the rink was called the USK Hotel Hasa winter stadium and that it was open nearly every day for free skating, though at occasional and odd times.

I called, they told us to come between 10 and 12 on Saturday, and we went. What I didn’t find out, unfortunately, is that they do not rent skates. We don’t have our own (this was my fourth ice try) but the guardian at the door let us go inside the rink for free and we met up with one of our friends there, who lent me her skates for a quick swoop around the ice.

Or actually a few tottering steps, knees locked, until I realized I wouldn’t fall down, then judicious slides to the children’s corner. I hung out with the four year olds for a while, getting my ice legs, then slid out onto the main rink. Twice around, I decided to stop - I was still enjoying myself, hadn’t fallen down yet, and I really wanted to come back soon with happy memories (and then there were my ankles).

Tickets are 50 kc each, you pay as you walk in the door to the hotel/stadium. The schedule changes often to fit in lessons and team practices, so call before you go. I’ve posted this week’s schedule below so you can see how it generally works. Besides remembering your skates, you also might bring your own hot coffee or cocoa and join the rest of the crowd on the bleachers with their thermoses and snacks, taking a break before heading back to the ice for another turn. If I can find some skates this week, perhaps we'll see you there!

USK Hotel Hasa
+420 271747128

This week’s schedule:
M: 9-10:50
T: 9-10:50
R: 8:30-10:20
F: 9-10:50
S: 10-12:00, 16-18:00
N: 10-12:00, 13:45-15:45

Filed under: Prague winter sports

It’s cold - just how cold I’ll tell you

Borrowing an idea from Anne over at Tuckova - taking an unchangeable fact that makes you miserable (cleaning house, the arctic weather) and turning it over and around into as many different storylets as you can think of while experiencing that miserable fact, so that you wind up almost relishing the experience because you want to figure out what you would say about it - today I thought of all the ways I could describe how cold it is outside.

It is so cold that...
1. The sound of bees buzzing in a Winnie the Pooh video made me nearly weep with nostalgia for the summer, green grass, even pollen. We watched the scene three times until Caroline very politely said, “Next?“
2. A Southern accent seems out of place. Each of C’s principal animals have their own voices. Bigby the bear speaks with an island accent, Charles the lamb stutters, Silver the cat meows through her requests for more milk, and so forth. But today Bigby lost his voice. I tried, but a South Carolina accent just didn’t sound right coming from the North Pole where he is currently camped. So he has the flu and is whispering his bearish thoughts.
3. The inside of my nose froze as I walked home from the foreign police this morning. When I got onto the tram for the last leg of the journey, the sudden thaw steamed my glasses up for the rest of the trip. Luckily I didn't need to see because I was a bit preoccupied by the tips of my ears - frozen, not frozen? Still bending so there's hope.
4. When your dog poop radar fails your footing, the result skitters instead of smushes.

Now it’s your turn.

Filed under: Prague winter weather

How to survive a northern winter and even like it

In South Carolina, where I am from, we like winter because it is the best time of year to be outside. No bugs, you can camp out and not worry (too much) about snakes and alligators, and the poison ivy is a little easier to spot then too. Before Prague my first white Christmas was the winter of 1989, three months after Hurrican Hugo demolished much of the coast. We thought it was divine justice after having to put up with the hurricane, until the water turned off. It took only 8 inches of snow (a record) to freeze the city’s pipes and close the roads for a week because snow plows don’t exist in the coastal part of South Carolina.

I was just about as prepared when I moved here, and it took me several winters in Prague to be able to venture outside without fear of frostbite or the need to duck into every third cafe for a cup of coffee or a glass of wine (to warm up you know). Since then I have learned a few tips that I thought I’d pass along to any of you southerners who might be considering a visit to more northerly climes.

1. It really is true - gloves, a hat and a scarf will do wonders. Today I bundled up in my parka, gloves on and a scarf around my neck and trekked to the chicken store and back. By the time I got home I was warmer than I'd been all morning sitting in front of the computer.
   
   
2. Scarves only work if you actually wrap them around your neck. None of this catalog casual loose knot and dangle business please. A Boston friend of ours taught me how to tie one on for warmth - double up your scarf and pull the ends through the loop. And remember to tuck the scarf under your coat if it is really frigid out.
   
   
3. Stompin‘ boots (with thick soles) are much warmer than those thin-soled beauties from Italy. I've decided this explains a few things. Like the shoes European punk rockers wear - maybe it isn’t the kick the man in the shins thing, it's the weather!
   
   
4. Long underwear - that fancy synthetic stuff you see in L.L. Bean catalogs? Buy it. wear it. Cotton gets sweaty and bulky and on guys it can get stinky too - that is just not cool dudes.
   
   
5. Make a point of seeing the sun in the morning, because it isn’t going to be there the rest of the day. The only winter I got seriously sun starved was the year my office was in the ground floor of a medieval building with 1 meter thick walls, ceilings I could touch with my finger tips and a window designed for a cross bow. Today the sun set at 4:05 today. You see what we’re working with here.

Things I have not yet accepted but am gradually coming to grips with:

1. Metal earrings hold the cold very very well;
   
   
2. Wearing a hat. Yes yes, I remember my first point too...but I have a massive head that looks funny under anything but its own hair or a towel wrapped turban style. On very cold days I will occasionally venture out in the one hat I’ve found that fits - something so Siberian my business partner greets me in Russian when I walk in the door;
   
   
3. Don’t throw snow balls with bare hands. A former snow neophyte, I still have this romantic idea about taking off my gloves and digging my hands in the snow before sending it soaring;
   
   
4. Don’t cut through a park when it says all paths are closed due to excessive snow. I cut through every year even though I know better because a. it is a park, not a road b. birds show up beautifully in the snow and c. every day I run a contest with myself to see how many bird types I can spot in one morning‘s walk (see b) and I'm a little bit serious about beating my top score.
   
   At some point in the hike you will find me either very very slowly edging down the crunchiest parts of the path or if the way is completely slick, sitting down and ignominiously sliding down the hill. I have finally learned to not even try to climb the park hill on the way home, the birds are asleep by then anyway;
   
   
5. Winter sports. At the beginning of every winter, I tell myself that it would be a waste of time and money to learn how to ski/snow shoe/ice skate because after all I can only play a few months of the year. Six months later, when the last ski run has finally closed in May, I realize again the folly of my ways.

And now, I’d love to hear other people’s tips on how to best that ole Winter thing.

Filed under: Winter tips

All dressed up - having a ball in wintertime

It is officially cold. The high today is 0C (32F) and the five day forecast from CNN repeats like a skipping song, 32/28 32/28 all week long. Saturday, in the midst of the snow and freezing rain which is making November not the most pleasant month of our year, we went out to a dinner ball at one of the national art galleries. I was excited, because dressing up is fun. I love dancing, meeting people and pretending for a night to be an elegant creature who can swoop about in a dress. But my favorite moment in all the hoopla is not at the ball, but when Caroline first sees me all dressed up and ready to go out. “Niiice dress,“ she says in genuine appreciation, picking up the skirt and ducking beneath it. “Caroline’s!“ She’s not sticky, so I wrap the skirt around her and give her one last kiss before running out the door, trying not to step on my long hem with the high heels I wear once a year.

Those heels might be useful for dancing but they aren’t designed for snow, so Will has to balance an umbrella in one hand and my elbow in the other as we propel ourselves up the orange carpet laid over sidewalk and into the hall, glad that only door guys (short) and security men (tall) can see us as I totter slide up the slope. The ball’s Hollywood theme extended to green lasers slashing rectangles into the sky, and Will says it was their retina burns that bothered him more than my near slips, but we were both glad to get inside and find our friends amongst the teeming masses (over 700 people!) of humanity dressed in various shades of finery.

The dresses ranged from well-cut black cocktail to full ball gowns made of richly colored taffetta that swished side to side when a lady danced or even walked. One of my friends, who is tall and therefore designed for such things, wore a gorgeous ginger colored taffetta dress with full crinolines beneath. I met her halfway through the evening, waiting outside the bathrooms, and asked what she was up to. She said she was walking her dress, and I understood just what she meant.

The art of appreciating ball gowns must be left to girls, as the guys in my life seem supremely underwhelmed by them. Will complains that they package women funny, and that he just doesn’t understand what the little beads are about. When I get him to try to point out a dress he does like, he can’t and I wonder what has gone askew in our fashion world to make a fancy dress so attractive to women and so odd to men. I’ve wondered about this since I was in college, and went to my first semi-formal. I was so impressed by my dressed up self that I kept stealing glances in the mirror of the car we rode in, looking at my for-once-smooth hair and the green dress I’d borrowed for the occasion that I was sure made me look at least 23. My date was supremely unimpressed however, and it wasn’t until the semi-formal was over and we were back in our everyday clothes for a trip to IHOP that he mentioned that he’d noticed my hair and had I switched shampoos?

I couldn’t understand his attitude then, but later thought it had to do with approachability, or that a guy likes to stick with the person he first falls for, not her dressed up self, or maybe just the fact that I look much more natural in an oxford shirt and my ancient v-neck sweater than in a dress that reaches to the floor and creates an urge in me to peer into mirrors, spin in circles and slide across the floor just to see the material come alive.

Hm...maybe anyway, despite being a short person designed for blue jeans and oxford shirts, maybe for my next ball I’ll find a dress that I can take for a walk, just the two of us.

Filed under: holidays dress girlie stuff weather

St. Martin on a white horse - winter rides in

“The heavens are ripe with snow,“ our babysitter said this morning, stamping her feet and warming her hands above the heater. Every day this week she has predicted snowfall, ever since November 11th, the name day of Martin, who by Czech tradition reigns in the winter on his white horse of snow. Since our balcony thermometer said 5C again this morning, I waved aside her predictions, but helped bundle up Caroline tight before they ventured out for the day.

The Czechs are a secular sort of people, and they have given up most religious holidays. In place of saints days, they celebrate name days, raising a glass to all the Martins of the Czech Republic on this particular holiday. You wouldn’t know it, living in Prague, that St. Martin’s day, or Martinmas, has been Europe’s first day of winter since the middle ages and a major feast day too. St. Martin’s day was the time to try out the new wine, eat a fattened goose and slaughter your stock for winter. In some parts of Germany, children still celebrate - carrying lanterns in the shape of the moon, stars and sun from door to door, singing Martinslieder and reciting rhymes in exchange for small gifts of cookies or bread. The songs find us even in Prague, and Caroline and I sing one regularly each winter:

Laterne, Laterne, Sonne, Mond und Sterne.
Brenne auf, mein Licht, brenne auf, mein Licht,
aber nur meine liebe Laterne nicht.

Lantern, lantern, sun, moon and stars.
blow out the lights, blow out the lights,
only leave my lantern so it can burn bright.

Tonight the temperatures have dropped and the clouds hang low in the sky. Will St. Martin ride by?

Filed under: Prague winter weather music holidays