Not Much in any Particular Order
12:34 56s 7/8/9A bottle of Becherovka, shots & a one second party under the horse’s ass of the King Wenceslas statue at Vaclavske Namesti. Check. Done.
More Becherovka. This time add Wii, shake & stir. Lather. Rinse. Repeat. James Lipton & Lou Gossett Jr. play baseball.
Workshops, Visas, & Zivnostensky lists OH MY! *Note: it was ’suggested’ that I present some kind of timeline for getting a work permit/zivno/visa. I tried to explain that’s nearly impossible due to the government bureaucracy but alas, they think I’m an idiot and just making this more complicated. They’ll realize soon enough that it’s a nebulous process and there is no speedy and painless route. You’re welcome in advance before you even realize it. Just be thankful you didn’t have to deal with R.J. on this one. It’s neither easy nor cheap. Remember I told you this.
Rain rain go away, why won’t you bring summer weather with you to this fine city?
1) Awake at 7:30am on a Sunday morning. 2) Laundry done by 9. 3) Hang laundry out window to dry. 4) Grocery shopping by 9:30. 5) Wait, WTF to #3?
I like public holidays although I don’t get paid. Good or bad. I can’t decide. Both?
Chili cookoff round 2. I’m the only competitor. I win & so does my stomach. Close race. Ahh. All mine!
I broke my quasi-good headphones last week. I stepped on them. The cheap replacement is such an inferior piece of shit. I miss the old ones.
FOOD and FOOD
I enjoy cooking. No mistake about this; I blog about it often. Anyway, I’m a ‘cook what you have’ kind of person. What do I mean by that? Well firstly, I do follow recipes. However, I don’t follow recipes all the time. I think the idea of a recipe is to have a base. If you know how to make some basic things, you can riff off the tenets of what to do and ingredients and various quantities. If you cook for yourself, you know what you like. So, if you think something will ‘go’ together in a dish, fuck it, throw it in. In other words, if it’s in the kitchen, for God’s sake use it! You aren’t a restaurant critic, you can always toss it and start anew.
1) Budget shopping. As much as it sucks, it must be done. I’m on a shoestring budget here and I’ve learned what to buy and what is cheap. Certain staples are key. Potatoes and onions are always on the cheap. Loaves of bread are usually a good deal. Eggs are fairly inexpensive too.
2) Unless you are boring and just love bland and flavorless food, you need to buy some herbs/seasonings. Fresh herbs are a bit harder to find here but there’s a fair amount of individually portioned/bagged dried herbs & seasonings readily available. They’re a good deal, too. Well-flavored food can make an otherwise lifeless meal a bit more interesting.
3) Fresh fruits & vegetables… the selection isn’t what it is in the U.S. but generally speaking, carrots, cabbage and occasionally tomatoes are on the less expensive side.
I love breakfast food. Always have. This will not change. Lately, I’ve been making larger ‘American style’ breakfasts on the weekends.
Why did I just mention all this stuff? So I can share with you my most recent morning treats! Keeping in mind the points I just covered, here’s what I made last week:roasted potatoes & onions with misc. herbs, omelette with ham, cheese & tomatoes, and some nice hearty thick-sliced Czech bread.Vitamins!
Today’s meal: toast, roasted potatoes & red pepper with thyme, oregano, basil, paprika, salt/pepper, olive oil, three cheese omelette (Hermelin, bleu cheese cream cheese & Moravian cheese–similar to Parm), a nice sliced fresh tomato…. sprinkle more fresh cheese atop and voila! I wouldn’t normally use those kinds of cheese in an omelette but it follows my ‘use what you have’ mentality. Cheese, eggs, potatoes, bread & butter are some of my favorite things!
Some random images from iPhoto!
a) Fine wine of the week. A well-spent 49Kc at Albert. b) I spilled Ranch on the floor. In a land where it’s unavailable, this pretty much went down as the following–Oh shit! Man down! c)Let’s call this the slicer of death. I was at a party at a colleague’s flat in Zizkov a few nights ago and this rusty old Eastern Bloc instrument of torture is about 3 feet from the front door and in plain view of anyone in the kitchen. I inquired about said death tool. It looks like an antiquated meat slicer; you know the kind that the guys in the deli would use. No, this is a bread slicer. Or so I was told. According to my colleague (flatmate of the proprietor of said device), this was affixed to the counter in this spot so when slicing bread, the crumbs will just fall into the sink. Our query, ‘Who the fuck slices bread like this?’ Buy a knife, dude.
