Velvet Foodies

Velvet Foodies 

Today was the big food tour with Eva our guide from “Eating Prague Tours.”
The tour had six stops, and actually followed the webpage here pretty closely. 

The basic drill was that we ate sample foods from each place while Eva told us how the food was made, what was special about the place, and what the owners or principals brought to their crafts. We started at Perníčkův sen, which is a gingerbread bakery started by a couple of sisters-in-law (not to be confused with “Sisters” below). This place was absolutely packed with gingerbread people, houses, and other objects. It was a nice introduction into post-Velvet Revolution entrepreneurship, a theme that grew throughout the tour with Eva’s narratives. Apparently the sisters-in-law started very small, just selling cookies. When the authorities did not shut down this tiny bit of capitalism, they grew it a bit larger, and then a bit larger. I don’t know when they moved into an actual shop, but they did eventually. And they made it over-the-top colorful, which is also another reaction against former communist rule, when everything was gray: 

Our favorite was a plum jam roll, which isn’t gingerbread per se and is dull to look at, but was great tasting!

Eva then took us down a passageway. There's lots of these passageway shortcuts around the old town, but you have to look for them to see them. The passageways are part of the architectural and city planning concept of having people live entire days in one building, with their homes in apartments upstairs and offices, shops, and theaters downstairs. These downstair portions are open to the the streets at either end of the building, thus making shortcuts from one block, or blocks, to another. They are very ornate, with lots of Arts Nouveau and Deco as these blocks of multi-use buildings were erected from the 1890s through the 1930s. In the last couple of decades there has been a resurgence of this multi-use approach, with these lower passageways refilling with shops, museums, theaters, and art (?):

The bizarre inverse of the sculpture in Wencelas Square. Well, there's no accounting for taste!

The second stop after a short walk was Sisters, a bistro started and owned by Hana Michopulu, a famous Czech food journalist and the “mother of Prague farmers markets.” It’s a tribute to Czech traditional fast food, specializing in chlebíčky (open-faced sandwiches). These were Claudia’s favorites on the entire tour:

Open-faced sandwiches at Sisters. Top right were Claudia's favorite food of entire tour.

The next “stop” was right across the hall, at Naše Maso (translated means “Our Meat). This is a speciality butcher’s shop and the crowds are amazing. The Czech love their meat! An aside: I’ve seen “Naše” used as part of other companies’ names. It seems to hint at “Our” in a company name meaning “our local” or “our Czech” way of doing things, and may be in response to or mild reaction against domineering neighbors (Russia, Germany, Austria, etc.). Regardless, their kielbasa sausage (sadly, no photo), was my favorite of the tour.

Up next (up literally) was Restaurant Zvonice - it’s in a 15th century tower — the Jindřišská Tower. It's (I think) eight stories high. The restaurant occupies the top two stories. It's billed as being romantic (natch) and mysterious (which I did not "get," since it's so danged big and just sitting right there. You can't miss it. How mysterious is that?). 

I am not a fan of sauerkraut, but the sauerkraut soup here was fantastic. It was at this stop that Eva revealed to us that the mushroom harvest this year was not all that was to be expected...Rather gloomy. I blame Obama.

The penultimate stop was at Styl & Interier - a Czech froo-froo market (think Williams-Sonoma crossed with Chez Panisse and a dollop of Martha Stewart). This entire project is a reclamation of a dump from the communist era, I kid you not. Everything not nailed down is for sale. Actually, I'm lying. Even things that are nailed down are for sale, as are the nails. 

The nails are not cheap.

I’m having trouble understanding the history of the place, given what Eva told us, and what its current website says about it. According to Eva, it started as an artisan endeavor, making small wooden pieces for sale. The artist/owners also made some crude furnishings for their studio. Some customers visiting the studio thought that the furnishings were part of the “art” for sale, and so asked what the prices were. From then on, the artists-owners slapped price tags on EVERYTHING. It all sold. I don’t know when they expanded into food, but they made a great lamb pie and the black currant wine was very good. The raspberry lemonade tasted more like Kool Aid without the sugar, but they can’t all be home-runs. Check out their website to see how they’ve branched out into real estate, furniture, events hosting, food, and a bunch of other stuff - the ultimate poke in the eye to communistic authoritarianism!

And the final stop -- whew! -- was Café Louvre. "The cafe has welcomed a host of famouse thinkers over the last century, including Karel Capek [who?], Franz Kafka, and Albert Einstein." And now Claudia Saari and Jeff Boatright.

Standards may be slipping...

BUT! Café Louvre serves the most Czech of Czech dishes; The uh...whut...uh? Man, I don't even know what to tell you about this. At this point we've had about five hours of cookies, beer, wine, champagne, meat, beer, soup, wine, sandwiches, beer, meat, wine, and cocktails. And lemonade. I think. 

I've lost track. Using ter Google, I discover that what we must've had was this:

which is SVÍČKOVÁ NA SMETANĚ, or Czech dumplings (the thing that looks like a slice of bread), braised beef, and cranberry compote under a cream dollop. Very filling, actually. This was followed by apple strudel, natch. I could barely walk out of the joint under my own steam. Staggered, more like.

So that's the Foodie part; what this about Velvet?

The foodie aspect of the tour was as complete as we’ve ever had, and easily met our expectations. The food itself was very good, Eva did a great job of explaining how the food was made, what the background or views of the owners, chefs, or bakers were, and placed all in the backdrop of Czech and Prague culture, both historically and contemporaneously.

And that writing makes it all sound boring — but it wasn’t. Eva was hyper-enthusiastic about every topic, every bit of food, history, and architecture. But the tour was really more about Eva’s take on Prague, what she wants visitors to know about in this little portion of her city. 

First, she’s native, born and raised in Prague, very much in love with her city. Showed us the Church she was baptized in, and most of the tour is within shouting distance of where she grew up and still lives. She told us a bit about Prague under communist rule, and a bit of the experiences of her parents in the Prague Spring and of herself in the Velvet Revolution. More on that below. And though she’s Catholic, she gave us lots of information about the treatment of Jews over the centuries, around WWII, and currently. This part of the city lends itself well to all that as Old Town overlaps a lot with The Jewish Quarter, the very small part of the city that Jews were forced to live in for centuries.

So for instance, she pointed out that the sidewalks are mosaics made from little blocks of marble that are locally mined. There must be millions of these little blocks, making up sidewalks like this:

But then, look closer.

This is a stolperstein, a "stumbling block"  to "stumble upon", a cobblestone-sized brass plate inscribed with the name and birth and death dates of victims of Nazi extermination. They are placed at the last known residence or workplace of a person before they were arrested by the Nazis or their agents. Prior to WWII, there were about 30,000 Jews living in Prague. Now there are about 3,000. There are many of these little markers all over Old Town and the Jewish Quarter, quietly saying the name of one person so that person won't be entirely forgotten. 

This one person was Ida Ischenbrennerova. The marker tells us that she was born in 1882. She last lived free in the building that was shading me from the sun when I took this photograph. In 1942 she was deported to Terezina (Theresienstadt), a Gestapo concentration camp in Czechoslovakia. Eva says that it is likely that Ida died there.  

Things did not get back to normal after Czechoslovakia was liberated by the Soviets at the end of WWII. Soviet control was stifling of both personal freedoms and of the country's economy. In January of 1968, Alexander Dubček, leader of the Czech Communist Party, began pushing through reforms to remove restrictions on citizens' political rights and to decentralize the economy, all the while assuring Moscow that Czechoslovakia would remain a strong member of the Warsaw Pact. 

Eva told us that when she was a kid, her parents and grandparents would still talk about the hope that was beginning to grow in Prague that life would be better. But, that all got crushed in August of 1968, when the Soviets and Warsaw Pact invaded with 500,000 troops and 3,000 tanks. The troops were met with peaceful resistance, but to no avail. Dubček was more or less kidnapped and later his release had to be negotiated. All of his reforms were quickly reversed.

Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.

Many of the frontline Warsaw Pact troops had to be rotated out when they realized that the Czechs were not mounting an armed "counter-revolution," as they had been told. In many cases they refused to harm the peacefully protesting Czechs. But, not always... 

Eva says that the crushing of the Prague Spring in some ways crushed the Czech spirit, but it inspired some, like Václav Havel, to resist. By the late 80s, several Warsaw Pact governments were collapsing. This is was the backdrop of the Velvet Revolution, when the communist government relinquished power, punctuated with demonstrations in Wenceslas Square in November and December of 1989. 

Eva was there in '89, in Wenceslas Square, and saw Havel speak from a balcony,  declaring Czechoslovakia independence. She was 13 and a half years old. She nearly fainted. She must have describe this story many times on her tours, but she teared up telling us about it,especially about how inspirational Havel was that day. She also talked about what a great leader she thought he was as President for 10 years or so. She says that the Czechs really miss him now, and are nostalgic for his democratic approach to everything. She dismisses the current leadership as being not much more than vanilla bureaucrats (ah, but I think such is the price of "boring" peace and prosperity…)

Our little tour group stood in the dark area in the middle of Wenceslas Square, just off the tip of Havel's nose. We looked right up to the balcony that he's standing on.  

Havel is dead now, but the Czechs put this large poster of him as a backdrop to "Good King" Wenceslas. The script says "Havel Forever" 

The tour was great, but exhausting! Afterwards we wandered by the river. Here are some random photos of what is just normal Prague. All together we walked about 9 miles on the day.

Benches by the river. Why dragons? Why not?

Just some normal buildings along the river. It's all this gorgeous.  :)

This is the famous Charles Bridge. It's always packed with tourists.

The end of a good day!

The Doors and Madonna

The Doors and Madonna

Second day with no luggage. The Delta website tells us that our bags made it onto the ATL->JFK flight (our original itinerary), but for some reason are still sitting at JFK. As with the “who” of the lost luggage, nobody seems to know the “why” of its (hopefully temporary) encampment at JFK. “Adrift at Kennedy Airport” is a long short story by Richard Bach (author of Jonathon Livingston Seagull) in which he tells us that “Eighty percent of the people in Kennedy Airport this minute are lost.” Let’s hope Delta/AirFrance/AcmeAirlines doesn’t use his essay as an instruction manual.

We have a leisurely breakfast of eggs, toast, and very thin bacon, all of which we’d purchased at the little grocery a couple doors down from our apartment. Speaking of doors, there are lots of interesting ones around here; they go with the interesting architecture. Prague is one of the few European capital cities to have survived the World Wars relatively unscathed. Also, it’s been around a long, long time. The city is a showcase of all the styles of European architecture, from Romanesque (actual Roman buildings) to modern. I’ve skipped a lot and no doubt will write more on architecture (see this website for a good overview [though it skips Art Deco, inexplicably, since there's plenty of Art Nouveau AND Art Deco in Prague), but some of the doors we see on our walk to the grocery are examples of Baroque/Rococo and Art Nouveau and Art Deco;

Now THIS is a door! And the clock is right twice a day!

Art Deco double-door. Just a normal door on our street.

Not so much for the doorway, but follow up from the door. The wall art looks like something from Tolkien. Art Nouveau, I'd say.

This is our doorway. Not sure what the style is...Neo-Classic Chubby Baby?

Again, This is just on the way to the grocery, which is only a few doors down from our building.

After breakfast, we call Air France and the nice person there tells us that our bags actually made it onto Delta flight 411 and should be in Prague by noon and delivered to our doorstep shortly thereafter. We take this with a grain of salt, though, as we’d been told by another unfortunate while standing in the lost baggage line yesterday that he’d had the same promise made to him, yet here he was, back in line at the airport, three days later. We decide to tour very locally and keep the cell phone ringer set to “LOUD” so that we're handy if the luggage delivery guy calls.

As I mentioned, the monastery of St Agnes of Bohemia is close so it's an easy decision to visit it first. Here’s a photo of it from our apartment window:

It’s a large complex spanning that curved roof on the left to the spire on the right. It houses a medieval museum of some importance, and is highlighted in Rick Steves’ book:

Sadly, I must concur with Mr. Steves: “…many visitors might find the art itself to be, well, pretty boring…” It’s mainly Madonna-and-Childs, but I will say that the “S-curvy bodies and warm smiles of Bohemia’s 'Beautiful Style' " were interesting for the first two or three dozen (it seemed) statues:

Compare to a few centuries later, and we see Madonna was still rockin' the S-curvy body. She left the kid at home, though:

The convent grounds and some of its buildings were more interesting. Several pieces of modern art are strewn about, and much of the add-on architecture is also modern. By modern I mean from the 50s to the 70s: 

Now that just ain't right.

We lunched at Au Gourmand and discovered that the Czech really love their pork. I had a traditional Czech chicken skewer. It had as many chunks of pork as it did chicken. Claudia had a chicken Caesar salad, and by gosh, it had big strips of bacon (not bacon bits).  All good, though.

We later went to the Old Town Square and saw the Astronomical clock chime, walked up Parizska Street with all of it’s high-end stores (more about these later), then came on back to the apartment and waited for the luggage delivery, which finally came at 10:30 PM (!). Both suitcases were fine, everything in order, and only 28 hours after we'd arrived. No big deal.

To celebrate and slake our thirst, we went to Lokal, a sort-of brewpub that is the latest craze of the hipsters. It's one long room with three (!) service bars on one side and a single row of tables on the other:

The place was packed, but Claudia and I were able to squeeze in at that table just up from the window, right across from the tap. I must've looked especially worn out as the bartender himself brought me over a mug of beer without any signal from me (they had tons of waitstaff, but I guess I just looked that sorry!) He just nodded and smiled knowingly as a I thanked him. He knew what I needed. Claudia, as usual, looked much more presentable and so had to wait to order normally from a waitress. 

The Czechs are very proud of their beer. It’s said that few ever emigrate, even in the worst of times, because they’d miss their local brews too much. They are most famous for their pilsners. A pilsner is a type of lager, originally made in Pilsen which is in the south of the Czech state of Bohemia. Obviously we’ve only been here a short time, so I haven’t sampled a lot of beer yet, but the few I’ve had are changing my mind about pilsners. 

The king of beers here is not Budweiser (although they the original and true Budweiser is made here), but rather Pilsener Urquell. This is what they overwhelmingly sell at Lokal. Now, this is a pretty good pilsner, and I'm glad the bartender brought one right over without me even asking. BUT, we could not figure out what the attraction is for Lokal. As we're discovering with most Prague bars, only one or two brands of beer are sold on the premises. Urquell is decent. The food is very standard sausages, cabbage, and potatoes. Yet earlier in the day when we passed by, lines were out the door and a block long! And every single table was packed and people were standing cheek-by-jowl about the three service bars. Ah well, I guess it's a hipster thing. Regardless, I must say that as crowded as the place is, the service is great and the beer and foods fresh.

One last note about that: we've found that the Czech people at museums, shops, pubs, everywhere, are very friendly and easy-going. In fact, I forgot to mention that on our first night, with no luggage in sight and tired from the flight, we wandered across the street to Chez Marcel. 

This photo is taken looking the other direction from our apartment window. Sort of fitting: to the left is a monastery, to the right a pub!

The waiter and waitress were great here. They offered to act as the repository for our luggage so that we wouldn't have to wait around for it to be delivered. "We do it all the time! And we're here all the time! Most of our foreign customers fly through Paris, and so there's LOTS of lost luggage!" 

Of equal importance, the waitress sold me on Vinohradsky Pivovar, which is a GREAT pilsner, made by a small brewery just across town:

And that's a great place to end: Friendly people and good beer.

22 hours to Prague

Hello Friends,

(I’m no longer allowed to call you peasants…)

We’re in wonderful Prague (Praha) for a week! We’re staying in a HomeAway apartment, Hastalska 11, Praha 1, owned and rented out by the lovely Maia of Bisgrove Films. She’s been wonderful to work with, very communicative even if only by email (she spends most of her time in LA). The apartment is in the Old Town/Jewish Quarter. With that borough name and a zip code of “1,” you can guess that we’re pretty much in the middle of the classic Prague scene. We are right across the street from the Church of St. Castulus (built 14th century, one of the places where the remains of St Agnes of Bohemia supposedly reside). Haven’t seen much of the old gal yet, but there is a St Agnes monastery nearby, so hope springs eternal. Apparently she's a superhero:

Speaking of Spring, today (August 20th) is the anniversary of the 1968 Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia that crushed the Prague Spring. They are not celebrating it here. Don’t worry, though, there was a happy ending just 21 dreary years later with the Velvet Revolution, followed by the Velvet Divorce a couple of years later. And now they have us visiting them, so they got that goin’ for ‘em.

…Back to our trip…

Our apartment is second from the top, with all those open windows:

The inside is quite modern, with Scavolini kitchen wood cabinetry mixed with a chrome and glass dining suite and warm-colored living room sofas. Eclectic but works:

The main bathroom is larger than the entireties of my first two Atlanta apartments:

Maia has fully equipped the apartment with everything you’d need in the bed, bath, and beyond (as in full kitchen set-up, plenty of books and DVDs, etc.). Small but nifty bit: The DVDs are in special sleeves marked “Awards Screener — For your consideration.” We all love to have our Oscar picks, but Maia’s opinion apparently counts!   

So, that’s all nice, but getting here was challenging. Weather-induced flight delays made our JFK connection to PRG (Prague) impossible. The nice helper at the Delta desk rebooked us on Air France ATL->CDG(Paris)->PRG, but as Stand-By. We figured, “how bad can it be?” 

I cannot recommend this choice.

We waited several hours to find that we were last in line to board an Air France Boeing 777. I got stuck in a middle seat. On both flights. But shoot, man, Air France has great food, even in Economy, and even for the shorter flight. And very nice crew. Easy all the way.

But…they lost our luggage. Actually, Air France didn’t. Maybe. To use the Lost Baggage helper’s phrasing, “your luggage has become lost.” See, that way nobody gets the blame. It’s just lost. Who knows who did it? Delta? Air France? Handlers at the airports? Saint Agnes?  

Not a big deal at the time. The property manager, David (a good guy; more on him later), waited an extra long time at the airport for us, so we still had a great ride into town to our great apartment in our great neighborhood. And man, that shower is GREAT! 

So we got to see how normal, regular Czechs live as we had to shop for some clothes and toiletries at the Palladium shopping mall, which is where a lot of Czechs are on a Saturday night. The Palladium Mall is five stories tall. It is fairly high-end and has a lot of shops that you’d see in London, Paris, and NYC. Claudia did just fine and I got to gawk equally at the price of designer deodorants (238 Czech crowns  =  US$10.76 for 106 grams!) and the Beautiful People, of which there are many. Question: Where do rock stars and supermodels, both of a certain age, go on a Saturday night with their kids in Prague? Why, to the Palladium Mall, of course! 

Only 22 hours door-to-door.

...and 28 hours later, still no luggage...

Ah well, as they say here in Prague: "Ahoj!"