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weekly meal planning + how i do it
this might be cool or lame, i’m not sure which, but i cook five or six nights a week at home. you might be thinking: am i at the right blog? it’s called ‘adventurings’, right? well, by home of course, i mean in the czech republic, and this adventure includes learning how to cook and doing it well! hooboy! (are you still with me? haven’t checked out yet? …. okay, good.) i might be a thirty year old married person with no children and a little doggie, but somehow i feel it so strongly as my duty to do this. cook, i mean. i can’t even tell you where that…
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friday things: hello, 2017
maybe i am just one of those perpetually upbeat people. even when things are going kind of rough or i’m wearing an all black ensemble, i can’t really help but be a bit peppy. even in january. the change to the new year always puts me in a great mood of new beginnings and usually brings icy wintery weather to budejovice. (a view from this morning, above) so! i thought i’d put in motion the first ‘friday things’ of the year! just some things that i’ve been into lately or have been making me happy. 1. this coat i’ve decided this year i stop worrying about trying to blend in…
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sunday cookin’: spicy & sour zucchini stir-fry
(okay, i’m aware it’s not sunday this time, but i hope this brings a bit of that sunday feeling to your day!) last summer, we started getting loads of zucchinis in our csa share box “bedynka”, as it’s called here in czechland. they are definitely not one of my favorites, in fact, they induced a few groans to see them week after week. alex was pretty happy, having no problem with this vegetable, because i would never buy them before. so i thought: how can i make these as appetizing as possible? answer: sauté them in soy sauce and some other delicious ingredients and serve with asian-style noodles. so, i…
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how moving abroad changed my attitude on cooking
pre-moving to europe, there were some kitchen items that were just self-evident. lean cuisines. a microwave. pancake mix. a toaster. a coffee maker. (alright, actually i’ve always rebelled against these, but they certainly are a staple in most american kitchens) a microwave. because EVERY good household needs a microwave, right? how would i heat up my lean cuisines otherwise? here’s an old kitchen behavior for you: i used to keep this giaaaaant container of minced garlic in the fridge that i was so proud of ‘cause whenever a recipe called for some, you could just reach in for a pinch. no chopping or peeling necessary. bam. so smug about that.…
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spring around here
officially, spring has sprung and since easter weekend, we’ve had a handful of gorgeous warm days here in south bohemia with highs above 22ºC! (although you wouldn’t know it by how bare most of the trees here still are!) i’m still not quite used to this continental european “spring”. it seems to come in mid-april, still with bare trees sometimes, and by early june, we are blasted with either heat-wave temperatures (or rain and floods, depending on the year). spring is a blink-and-you-miss-it affair, unlike western washington with our first cherry blossoms blooming in late february! i’m really trying to get into it this year, though… embrace those mild temperatures…
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říjen / rambles
goodness, i needed a day like today. when half of your classes cancel and so does your czech class, it was a godsend on a day like today when i just couldn’t wake up for several hours. i got in some good paris research (so excited to head there soon!) as well as research for day-trips and slight updates here on the blog, like the destinations page updated with all of the greece pages! you may have caught that i said czech lessons. yep, finally cynthia (and alex) have enrolled in private czech lessons. let’s hope this experience goes better than the first one, but i have every reason to…
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the bake off bake along, week 9
how funny– we all started bake off in the beginning of august and now instead of sundresses, i’m wearing hoodies to bake! i was pretty thrilled about chocolate week, because guys, i think that alternative ingredients week killed my baking mojo. i was such an ambitious, chipper little squirrel that first week with my madeira cake, but every week especially after that turning point, i have rarely liked my bakes. then i almost quit during victorian week, so it’s been a bumpy ride. and perhaps you noticed… i didn’t even post a bake last week! i really wanted to, but with a weekend in the city planned, i only had…
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the bake off bake along, week 4
it’s dessert week! after i watched the fourth episode of the great british bake off, i was at a loss. (even more so when i saw the preview for the following week! ahhhh) the spanischer windtorte seemed like something i really ought to attempt because it comes from a country very near where i live right now… and i’m just into that kind of thing. however, we were just about to leave on a long weekend holiday away and i couldn’t bear the thought of the torte just sitting there for four days. crème brûlée it was to be. now, custard and i have a history. at a relatively early age, i became…
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the bake off bake along, week 2
welp, week one started off successfully and innocently enough, so i thought i’d continue on to week two’s theme of the great british bake off: biscuit week. biscuits to americans are those big, thick (yet kinda fluffy) crumbly rolls that are normally served with savory foods, especially gravy. so as the episode rolled on, it was apparent that they are all baking cookies. buuuut, i’m pretty aware of these cultural differences by now. i did once mistake a yorkshire pudding to be a sweet american-style pudding pudding, and was totally disappointed that it would not fulfill my pudding dreams. (source) but yeah i get it, cookies = biscuits. let’s get…
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restaurants i love: polonia in michigan, usa
i only add places to the “cafes/restaurants/etc. i love” section if it is an absolute love. and i think now after the third visit, we can finally at polonia polish restaurant in hamtramck, michigan to the list. i first visited polonia in 2011 on my very first visit to michigan to meet alex’s family. one can be a little nervous when they’re about to meet their boyfriend’s parents for the first time, but right after picking us up at the airport, they took us to polonia. all discomfort dissipated. polonia is located in a special place: hamtramck, michigan, a suburb of detroit. it used to be a old polish settlement…
