What’s not to love about a country with the highest per capita consumption of beer in the world  AND boasts a 99% literacy rate?   As they say in Czech “Kde se pivo vari, tam se dobre dari” (Where beer is brewed, they have it good!).  I was looking forward to exploring the Czech Republic for a couple of reasons — 1) my cousin Jennifer and I visited Prague about 8 years ago, and I absolutely loved it, and 2) my husband is of Czech decent on his mother’s side of the family, so this falls under the “family heritage clause” of this project.

We started off by reading through a pretty decent library book on Czech history and culture, and, of course, the kids were fascinated by the fact that the Czech Republic is teeming with castles.  They have added this to their list of places that they definitely want to visit.  We also found a website with Czech fairy tales so we read through a few of those.  I had forgotten that fairy tales do tend a little bit toward the macabre.  We also found a site with audio of common Czech phrases , and we had fun wishing each other “dobry den” in the morning.

Since the Czech Republic is known for their crystal beads (I really wish I had bought more of these beads when I visited Prague), we pretended to be jewelry makers and used Deirdre’s pop-beads for our necklaces.  I also remembered the amazing marionette shops and was hoping we could put on a puppet show, but, unfortunately, we didn’t seem to make the time for it.  The kids really enjoyed watching videos of Czech folk dancing, and they loved dancing around the kitchen to the music.  Deirdre REALLY wanted to me to make her an authentic folk dancing costume, but that was just way beyond my realm of capabilities right now.  Maybe sometime…

Finally, we dabbled in Czech cooking.  We found this recipe for Palacinky (Czech pancakes) in one of our books, and the kids loved them so much, we ended up making them every morning for a week and a half.  There is now a “No Czech Pancake” rule in my house.

Czech Pancakes for Breakfast

Palacinky (Czech Pancakes) – 4 servings

Ingredients
1 cup flour
1 cup milk
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla
1 tbsp suger
2 tbsp melted butter
1/4 tsp salt

Directions
Mix eggs with milk. Add salt, butter, sugar, vanilla, and flour, mix until smoother. Heat and lightly grease griddle or frying pan. Make thin, crepe-like pancakes by filling a pan about half full in center and tilting pan so batter spreads quickly over bottom to edges.  Heat until batter is dry, then tun over and cook the other side.  Spread jam on pancake and roll up.  Sprinkle powered sugar on top.

We also had Czech food one night and made Chicken Paprika and Cabbage Poached in Vingear.  Pretty tasty, and the cabbage recipe gave me the chance to finally open the caraway seeds that came with my spice set!  And, of course, we had a Pilsner Urqell!

Next week – Dominica

I learned a few things myself this week during our ‘journey’ to Bangladesh.  I had always thought of it as a ‘tiny’ country over by India.  I really had no idea that it is one of the most populous nations in the world (7th largest population).

Fresh Okra

The book that we selected from the library was a little bit too dense for the kids, but we had fun scanning through the pictures and talking about what life might be like in a small village or large city in Bangladesh.  There was one chapter that talked about children growing up in poverty, and it mentioned that although kids didn’t have many playthings, they enjoyed playing games like hide-and-seek.  For some reason this really resonated with my kids — a common bond over one of their favorite games!  And, of course the wanted to talk about Bengal tigers (as luck would have it, we saw one at the zoo while we were on vacation a few weeks ago).

We also found a website that translated the letters of your name, or any word for that matter, into Devanagari, one of the forms of script used in Bangladesh. We printed out the kids’ names in really large font, and they decorated them to look like calligraphy painintngs.

Our two biggest projects were pottery and cooking Bengali food.  We learned that throwing pottery is a traditional trade in a number of villages.  I don’t have a pottery wheel, but we did manage to have fun doing some hand-building.   And, I’m pretty sure the villagers in Bangladesh focus more on  throwing bowl and pots, rather than animal-shaped Christmas tree ornaments.  Hopefully, we will be able to have these fired soon (thanks, Laurent!)

Our Own Pottery Workshop

Finally, I decided to try my hand at a homemade Chapati (flat bread),  Dhedosh (Okra) and Masoor Daal (lentils) The chapati was surprisingly easy and satisfying to make.  It was definitely a recipe that lent itself to having a 5-year old sous-chef.  Deirdre loved making balls with the dough and rolling them out flat.  And, I was thrilled to make the okra since we actually grew it in our garden this summer.  Yes, the picture at the top of this post is okra straight from the garden!  whoo hooo!  I had to leave out a couple of the more exotic spices since I didn’t have them in stock, but the meal was actually very tasty.  I’ll definitely cook my okra this way for the rest of the season.

Attempting the Cuisine - Lentils, Okra and Chapati

Next week, Czech Republic…

Where Shall We Visit?

Maybe I was a little bit inspired by Julie and Julia, or, perhaps, its just the adrenalin rush preceding the first day back to school next week, but we are embarking on an “Around the World in 52 Weeks” project.   The concept is that we will “virtually visit” 52 countries in alphabetical order (looping through twice).  I figured we could learn a little about the culture and history, try out some recipes, do a few traditional crafts, listen to a little music, and (for Jon’s sake) drink a local beer.  I decided to let the kids pick what countries we focus on, the only caveat being that we will cover counties of our families’ heritage.  Of course, that means our country list will be somewhat Northern European-centric the first time through.  So, I proposed the project to the kids.  They thought it was a great idea.  In fact, they said they wanted to start with Maine, and could they please ride the horses when we get there.  Ummm… this was followed by a quick explanation of states vs. country, the concept of alpha order, and that, no, we would not actually be visiting all these places (as appealing as that would be…).  After running through a list of countries that started with the letter “A”, the kids unanimously chose Australia for our first visit.  And, for some reason, Deirdre has requested that we learn about funerary rites practiced by each culture (or, as she said, “what they do with dead people after they die”).    So, check back in next week to learn about our adventures in Australia!

If you could be an animal, which animal would that be?  After giving it considerable thought, I, without doubt, would be a house cat.

Catnip Kitties

Just think about it — fresh food and water always on hand, the ability to roam about in the ‘wilderness’ (or suburban neighborhood) at will, an entire house full of couches, pillows, and beds at your disposal, chase squirrels when you feel a bit feral, and then come inside for a good scratch behind the ears…  I guess I wouldn’t want to be just ANY cat; I’d want to be one of MY cats.  I know, there is a certain level of cache and adventure to being a wild animal, but do you really want to have to hunt for your food every freaking day?  Not to mention, who wants to be dodging predators when you could be napping in the sun?

Box of Catnip Kitty Toys

Anyway, in honor of being a cat, I wanted to share one of our recent craft ideas.  Using a similar technique to my wild things felt dolls, my kids and I made catnip toys for our kitties (Bacco, Max, and Petunia) and some of our other kitty friends.  These little toys were fun and easy to whip up in an afternoon.

Materials:
1. Craft Felt
2. Scissors
3. Permanent Markers
4. Fiberfill or Cotton Batting
5. Catnip
6. Sewing machine or needle and thread

Step 1 (for the kids) – using the permanent marker, draw a cat face on one of the pieces of felt.  Draw eyes in a contrasting color
Step 2 (for a grown up) – cut out the cat face and eyes.  leave about 1/4 – 1/2 for seam allowance. trace the cat face onto another piece of  felt and cut it out so that you have to matching pieces (a front and a back)
Step 3 (for a grown up) – sew the eyes onto the face
Step 4 (for a grown up) – place wrong sides together of cat face front and back; sew together leaving 1 – 2″ opening at the bottom
Step 5 (for the kids) – stuff the toy with fiberfill and catnip
Step 6 (for a grown up) – sew the bottom shut
Step 7 (for the kids) – toss the cat nip toy to a kitty and see what happens!

Our cats love wrestling around with their catnip kitties!

Look What We Made!

Completely off-topic, my daughter made this creepily realistic pair of legs out of our leftover fiberfill and a pair of her tights.  I just had to post the photo.

Funky Tights - Preschool Artistic Expression!

One of My Displays – Kitties, Bags, and Hair Clips

I did it!  I survived my first large-scale craft fair this past weekend (a joint venture with my mom and cousin).

It was the Prospect Park Craft Fair in Brooklyn, and, I have to admit, it was pretty fun! I sold more than I expected, and I met so many great people — both sellers and customers.   Aside from a very small church fair that my mom and I participated in a couple of years ago, this was my first real craft fair experience as a seller.  Since I didn’t know what to expect, I reached out to some of my fellow etsians to seek their advice on what I should do to prepare.  I’m happy to say, I got loads of great info.  That said, there were lot’s of lessons I learned along the way.  Here are just a few things I’d like to pass along:

1. Beware of the Weather – since we were expecting a rainy day, we packed out canopy to keep our stuff dry.  As it turns out, the rain blew in sideways, at an angle, and totally defeated the canopy.  Now, water won’t hurt most of my things, so I wasn’t that upset.  That is, until I found out the hard way that the ink on my tags runs when wet.  (I printed them with my color laser printer at home).  There was a moment of frenzy as I ran around ripping tags of my carefully priced items to prevent the ink from staining my crocheted pieces.  Nothing was ruined, but I did end up with a number of items without price tags.   Then, once the rain ended, we had to deal with gale force winds which blew over canopies, blew over displays, and covered everything with dust and pollen (yuck!!!).  Honestly, the wind did more damage the rain ever could have.

Some More From My Stash

2.  Kids Count – One of my fellow etsians gave me a heads up to include some children’s items in my inventory.  Based on her advice, I whipped up a bunch of really cute amigurumi animals.  These ended up being really big sellers, and next time, I will be sure to have even more on hand.  What I didn’t expect was that kids would have such an impact on their parent’s purchase.  Whenever a child came over to my shop, I treated him/her just like an adult customer.  I chatted with them, told them about my items, and asked them to pick things up and touch them.  Most importantly, it’s just nice to make them feel welcome, but I realized the adults seemed to linger more if they didn’t feel like their kids were in the way.  And, the kids were definitely very vocal about making purchase recommendations to their parents.  As an example, I ended up sale a very ‘grown up’ looking celtic purse to a 7 year old girl, because she convince  her mom she really loved it.

3.  Hagglers are Not a Necessary Evil – At the small church fair my mom and I did a couple years ago, everyone haggled over our prices (which weren’t that high to begin with).  I had braced myself to face more of the same last weekend.  I was so pleasantly surprised that not one person haggled over our prices.   Its nice to know that given the right venue and right crowd, people actually appreciate the effort that goes into handmade goods.  I know there were a few people that walked away empty handed because they didn’t want to pay that much, but it was done in a very respectful manner without questioning the value of our items.

4. Get to Know You Fellow Sellers – Like I said, we met some great people.  I wanted to give a shout out to some of the other crafters we met along the way.  Please check out the 2010 Park Craft website for some pictures of the day (the little felted kittens were mine!).  Also, here are a few highlights:

Wooly Cat – this is my mom’s shop where you can find some amazing felted bags, hats and ballerina dolls.

Lyrical – this shop was our next door ‘neighbor’ at the fair.  I really admired her beautiful jewelry made with lovely, sparkling gemstones.

Born In Brooklyn - this shop was our other ‘neighbor’ at the fair.  She makes amazing handmade ceramic pendants.  I used to do pottery/ceramics myself, so I know the amount of effort that went into these gorgeous pieces.

AngelRox – this shop sells the coolest wrap around convertible tops/dresses/skirts/shawls.  I can’t even do them justice by trying to explain them — check out the site.  My sister-in-law bought one and spent the rest of the weekend giving us a fashion show with a new look every 15 minutes!

Regina and Rebecca (me) At Out Booth

Some More icebluberries Jewelry, Clips, and Cozies

If you’ve been watching the news, you know that those of us in Rhode Island have had our fair share of rain last week.

Spring Daffodil

Even though we got by relatively unscathed, it was still pretty weird to see your backyard turn into a swamp in a matter of hours.  Although the highways are open again, and most of the water has subsided, many of our neighbors are still draining their basements, and some friends are still waiting to get back into the house.  The ’silver lining’, so to speak, is that now everything is turning green and growing like crazy.  So, I thought it would be fun to write about our early gardening ventures and show some pics of all the great things getting a head start in the yard.

Last year, Jon built 5 raised beds in the yard and built a cloche over one of them.

Bacco and Max check out the sage and lavender

Typically, seeds packets advise you to wait until the last frost to plant outdoors, but we figured we could shave of 4-6 weeks by planting under the cloche.  So, as soon as we had a sunny weekend, we got started with our early spring crops.  The Demesne garden site has some good info on spring planting, and some fun ideas on companion planting.  In the end, a lot of what we ended up doing was based on trial and error.  A few things to note – most of the planting was done pre-flood, and you can’t get seeds in a straight row when a 4 year old is helping!

Spinach – the spinach was actually planted last fall and somehow managed to survive the winter as a little sprout.  When Jon put the cloche back up a few weeks ago, it really took off.  This is definitely a hearty plant!

Spinach Plant

Snow Peas – for some reason, I just love the way pea shoots look.  They are so cute!  These seeds were ones that I saved from the peas we grew last summer.  They sprouted in less than a week under the cloche and are growing well.  These are a great cool weather plant.

Snow Pea Shoots

Arugula – we always do really well with arugula.  These seeds were also from plants we grew last year that went to seed.  They sprouted in less than a week, and the ones in the cloche are growing very rapidly.  I hope to be eating arugula in a couple of weeks.  (As an experiment, I planted a few rows under the cloche and one row out in the open; the ones under the cloche are about 3 times as big).

Arugula

Kale – I never grew kale before, but heard it is a great cool weather crop.  It sprouted in a little over a week and already has its second set of leaves.

Kale

Carrots – These are supposedly a good cool weather crop.  Ours haven’t sprouted yet, but I’m still hopeful.

Garlic – You can’t go wrong with this herb.  Put them in the ground around Halloween, and don’t worry about them until August.  I planted cloves from one head of garlic last fall.  All of them sprouted over the winter and have been growing steadily.  We’ll have scapes early summer and 15-20 heads of garlic by the fall.  Yum!

Garlic

French Tarragon – I was told this plant couldn’t over winter in our zone.  I dug it up and put it in a pot, but accidentally left it outside all winter.  Much to my surprise, it totally came back!  I just moved it into its permanent home in one of the raised beds.  I guess it is pretty hardy after all.

French Tarragon

Sage – This is a very hardy plant.  It stayed out all winter, and its all ready getting full and bushy.

Parsley – Once again, I didn’t think this plant was a) a perennial, or b) could survive the winter.  Well, our parsley is alive and well!

Mint – What can I say about mint?  You can’t keep it down even with a steamroller.  Get ready for mint juleps!

Basil, Dill, Cilantro, Oregano – just put these seeds in this week.  The jury is out!  (although we always seem to do well with herbs)

Rhubarb – this is the second year we’ve had this perennial in our garden.  The roots were a transplant from my uncle’s and aunt’s garden in Maine.  They seem to be thriving!

Rhubarb

I can’t wait until we start picking and eating!  Happy spring, and happy gardening.

Azalea

As I write this article, I’m looking out my window watching three doves take a bath in our birdbath.   After a long and frosty winter, it really seems like spring has made her move.

Wheelbarrow Ride

I can’t believe the temperatures were well into the mid ’50’s all weekend.   I thought I would never be able to rid myself of my heavy coat and hat.  Don’t get me wrong; I’m not naive;  this is New England, so I know the cold and ice will be back before I know it — we may even get another snow storm.  But in the meantime, I’ll heed the buddhist teachings and live in the moment.   And, what a great ‘moment’ this weekend has been!  My family and I were outside getting a headstart on all our spring cleaning.  We raked leaves, cleared out flower beds, and checked for signs of life.

Budding Daffodil

The kids rode around on their bikes, and I even took out the old skateboard for a spin. (don’t get me going on skateboards…I’m not that good, but good enough to ride one home from Manhattan to Prospect Heights during the big blackout of 2003).

But, the biggest coup of all was getting our first veggie crops planted in the garden.  Jon had noticed that a small patch of spinach had managed to survive the winter in our mini-polytunnel.  It was suprisingly balmy under that plastic canopy.  I figured if that little patch of spinach could pull through, maybe we could give it a go with some of the early veggies.  So, we put in arugula, kale, mixed greens, peas, and carrots.  I’ll keep a close eye on them over the next few weeks to see what sprouts.  If all goes well, I’ll do an updated post with some pics of our seedlings!

The Poly Tunnel

Spring Spinach Shoots

Spring definitely gets me in the mood for fresh veggies.  Although it’s still too early for most of us to pick anything from our own gardens, did you know that you can still buy fresh produce at certain farmer’s markets in the winter? For those of you lucky enough (like me) to live in Rhode Island, the Pawtucket Wintertime Farmer’s Market is open from Nov. 7 – May 29. I’ve also enjoyed going to the Union Square Greenmarket in Manhattan and the Grand Army Plaza and Fort Greene Farmer’s Markets in Brooklyn year round.   And, remember, only two more weeks until the official start of Spring!

Hanging Out In The Trees

Helping With the Yard