HFM '24: March - "Sappy, Sweet, Syrupy, but not Sugary": Jidáše / jidášky - Czech Easter buns

 

This post got a bit out of hand. I haven't done the Historical Food Fortnightly in... huh... ten years. WHAT. I've definitely done historical recipes in the meantime, but apparently I haven't managed to do it topically.

Which wasn't just my problem, actually. After years of languishing, the HFF, just like the HSF years ago, has dropped the final F and exchanged it for M: It's the Historical Food Monthly now (link to Facebook group, which seems to be its only official online presence now). More manageable.

So I haven't written anything food-y here in quite a while, and it turns out I have developed a lot more thoughts on the topic since 2014.

Anyway. Sorry for the wordiness. I hate recipe posts with lots of rambly text before the recipe just like any other person, but, well, this isn't necessarily a recipe post. I swear, there's no "I took my kids to school and pondered the meaning of life" here. :D Just quite a lot of explanations of what I did food-wise and Easter-wise, and why I chose this particular food, and what I did to it and why, and thoughts on my process and cookbooks and research, and... yeah, I think that's about it.

The brief for the March challenge was to make something sweetened by something else than sugar. So, as it happens, these are a bit of a cheat, because there is sugar in the dough. Also I ended up actually making them on April 1st. Oops. The intention was to make them on Holy Thursday (March 28), when most traditions say they were eaten for breakfast, preferably before sunrise, so that people would be protected from poison, snakes and wasps (it would not have been breakfast in my case, but I don't subscribe to the accompanying superstition anyway). That did not happen, so I thought Saturday (some mentions of that being traditional as well), but, well, Life Kept Happening.

My original original plan was actually to make something sweetened entirely by honey, most likely gingerbread - I found online a 1920 book all about honey and its uses in the household (that's the name of the book: "Honey and Its Use in the Household", in Czech that is) including tons of various recipes for gingerbread. The problem with those recipes is that the dough usually has to rest for at least a week before being baked, and then very often the gingerbread has to rest, too, to soften and be more easily edible. It's what traditional Czech gingerbread (imprecise word, that) is like. And exploring and sharing that would be pretty great for the HFF, but... But. Between a week of nightshifts and then falling ill for more than two weeks and feeling pretty miserable for at least one (it's just some sort of seasonal cold, not Ye Newe Plague, but it's been pretty clingy) and being still pretty tired even on Easter Sunday*... I ran out of time for that kind of shenanigans.

So because of Real Life, at the last minute I changed gears and made these, which do have sugar in the dough but then are brushed with honey on top.

The name means "Judases" or "Little Judases". Warning: it's morbid. I'm currently unclear on where the heck that tradition and the name comes from to begin with, but, morbidly, they are - at least in the form I made them in, there are many others - supposed to represent the rope Judas hung himself on (which, by the way, only Matthew mentions; the other gospels say nothing on Judas' fate, and Acts says something else. I've just checked.) So, ahem, there's that. But, really, they come in all sorts of shapes including basically hot cross buns so that connection is a bit tenuous anyway, and if you don't want to be morbid, you can totally do something else.

 

I did opt for this shape because it's pretty simple and I wanted to try it, but next time I'll probably just make round buns the way I always make them, plus cross. I don't really have childhood memories with jidášky (we usually just had mazanec, so that's what I primarily associate with Easter), but I think mom did make them once or twice, and did make basically mini-mazance / hot cross buns: that's what my sister also thought they were supposed to look like. And what I had thought they were supposed to look like once upon a time before the internet introduced me to different versions that almost everyone else seems to be making these days. I'm glad the utter confusion in historical sources helped me clarify my own. :D

My lack of true family tradition of them is, obviously, precisely why I wanted to try my hand at them. One mention I ran into - now I can't remember which one, I haven't been entirely organised with my research here - says "spirals". My main recipe lists "variously twist them" as an option. Primarily it has you rolling the dough out to be about 2 cm thick and, "with a smaller doughnut cutter", cutting out circles (Czech doughnuts without holes, not American doughnuts), and then cutting "a lattice" into them (so not even crosses). I could have done that, but I did not want to do that because that way you end up with dough cabbage**, and then you have to deal with said cabbage.

Some 19th century mentions just say "placky" (something like "flatcakes"), and I even found mentions that poor people just ate regular bread with honey.

So it seems the shape and style varied a lot depending on the region, or maybe even family tradition; so you do you. The main point is that they should be quite small, and go with honey - either they are brushed with it immediately after baking (or even before), or they are spread with butter and honey when cooled down, either cut in half like breadrolls, or maybe even just on top if in a more "flatcake" form.

... phew, that was a lot of options to cover.

Technically, I think I could have used honey in the dough, too, because that may very well have been done by rural people in the 19th century and it's not like I was sticking to one recipe, anyway. But I wasn't really up to trying to calculate a conversion like that, I don't have proof for it, and also, to be honest, the illness still kind of lingers (aaargh!) and I have even better uses to put that honey to.

The Challenge: HFM 2024 #3 Sappy, Sweet, Syrupy, but not Sugary

The Recipe: Combination of "Jidášky" and "České koláče I" from Kniha rozpočtů a kuchařských předpisů všem hospodyním k bezpečné přípravě dobrých, chutných i levných pokrmů by Marie Janků-Sandtnerová ("A Book of Calculations and Cooking Recipes for All Housewives for Safe Preparation of Good, Tasty and Frugal Meals"), 36th-60th unaltered edition (?!) from 1941 - which I own a physical copy of. "České koláče I" for the dough, "Jidášky" for what to do with it.

But for the latter I also referred to "Jidášky - pečivo pašijové" from Úsporná kuchařka ("Frugal Cookbook") by Anuše Kejřová, specifically a 1938 edition I found online, which, it turns out, differs from my 1990 reprint of a 1924 edition that does not have this recipe.

And then I looked through the Digitální knihovna website for other mentions, and found a bunch of 19th century ones that did not give recipes, but described various ways of shaping, treating and serving them, which resulted in the paragraphs above about the various options for shapes. Annoyingly, most of the mentions I found did not say which region which version applied to. In any case, in the end I basically combined all of my sources.

The original ingredients according to Sandtnerová (I cleaned the list up a bit to be clearer on the measurements, it uses dkg and fractions of liter which always confuses me in recipes) are as follows:

500 g flour
salt (just a little bit)
1 cm vanilla pod, "pounded" (huh)
lemon peel
20 g yeast
250 ml milk
100 g butter
70 g sugar
2 egg yolks
Then, possibly more relevant to the koláče recipe, it also has:
20 g for greasing the baking sheet and to brush after baking
1 egg yolk for brushing
10 g of vanilla sugar (and with this one I was unable to discern in the text of the recipe where it was actually supposed to go, but I am including it here because it's relevant to the changes to the recipe I ended up making)

I altered the ingredients a little bit. For that, and the making-of, see How Did You Make It below.

The Date/Year and Region: Czechia, first half of the 20th century. Well, technically they may have a much wider time-spread: allegedly they may go as far back as the Middle Ages, but I did not research that far back, I suspect older recipes will be different, and I did not even find 19th century recipes (just descriptions), so my recipes are from the 1930s and 40s and that's what I can fairly confidently say my version is more or less accurate for.

How Did You Make It: First off, I made a smaller batch. The original recipe says "for 5-10 people", and this is a two-people household. On the other hand, I knew they'd disappear quickly anyway :D, so I did not halve it; I re-calculated for 400 g of flour instead of 500 g, which in my experience is just about right to fit on my very limited number of baking trays, so I ended up with:

400 g flour
56 g of sugar
16 g of yeast
200 ml milk (full-fat)
80 g of butter
I did not try recalculating the egg yolks :D and just used two, and also I did not recalculate the butter for brushing after baking and simply eyeballed it.

I also changed some of the ingredients:

- I'm not sure what sort of lemon peel was intended, but I used dried because that's what I have (they conveniently sell it in the local "bring your own packaging" shop). Instead of "fresh" vanilla, I used a packet of vanilla sugar with real vanilla (and used slightly less regular sugar): I figured that was a pretty good alternative, especially when the original recipe also names vanilla sugar.

- I used active dry yeast (I think that's the type of dry yeast I currently have). I don't really buy fresh anymore, because it tends to result in half a cube of mouldy yeast... So I mixed about 5 g of dry yeast with a teaspoon of sugar and about the same amount of flour, and then a little bit of warm milk, just enough to create a sort of wet paste, and after a while I saw it bubbling a little bit and called it good and used that.

Following the recipe, I mixed the flour with the other dry ingredients (minus what I used for my yeast starter), then warmed up the milk (using a little bit for the yeast starter first), melted the 80 g of butter in it, then mixed the two egg yolks in it.

Then I used my now tried-and-true method of mixing the wet ingredients into the dry ones gradually. I plopped in the yeast starter, washed out its bowl with some of the milk mixture - about a third - and added that, then mixed it. Another third of the milk mixture, mix. Add the rest, mix. This way, I don't have to knead too much; it comes together quite quickly and I can then work it by hand instead of pouring all liquids in at once and then faffing about with the wooden spoon and tiring myself out while waiting for the dough to finally stop sticking to it. (Honestly I don't know why so many Czech leavened dough recipes tell you to do that; this way is much better.)

Unlike Sandtnerová's recipe, I did not sprinkle flour on the finished dough before raising; I just put a teatowel on top of the bowl and let it rest in the kitchen. Kejřová does not mention flouring it.

Then I divided it into 16 pieces, and rolled (well... partially just stretched) each piece into a long thin strand - ideally: Kejřová says "about a finger thin and about 25 cm long", but mine ended up... varied. Some were just about right, some were bigger. I think a larger number of pieces might have resulted in a better size, but 16 is way easier to do. :D If you do a full batch, maybe 24 pieces would work?

 

Based on all my sources, I opted to create simple "rope" twists, to place them on the baking trays to rest a bit, and then to brush them with the egg-yolk. I thinned down my yolk a bit, too, with milk. It was pretty thick and I did not want to fight with it and wanted to be sure it would be enough for all of the pieces. And I was glad I did. I did brush them fairly generously, but I'm not entirely sure how one un-thinned egg yolk was supposed to be enough for a whole full batch.

If I remember correctly, I baked them at 190-200 degrees Celsius (my oven isn't very precise) for about fifteen to twenty minutes. I put both trays in at the same time which... was a mistake: the upper batch got quite dark, and the bottom batch needed more time. I grew up with a convection oven in which you can bake more trays at once. I keep forgetting that my current regular oven isn't well-suited to that. :D

And then I brushed them with watered-down honey immediately after baking. Half of them. I brushed my half very generously with about two spoons of honey mixed with one spoon of water, and my sister's half with melted butter because she asked for no honey. (She likes sweet bakes like this very, very mildly sweet.)

And that was that. Done! Enjoy!

Time to Complete: Hmm... I think it took me maybe 20-25 minutes to make the dough (I'm a bit unsure on this), then about an hour for it to rise, then about 20 minutes to make the shapes, about 20 minutes rest on the baking trays, and about 20 minutes to make. Let's say 2,5 hours?

Total Cost: Ahem. I don't knooow. I honestly don't remember how much the various ingredients were, especially since some of them had been sitting in the pantry for a while; and then with some of them (honey, the lemon peel...) I only used a little. I'm really not up to approximating it. Let's say it's not a super-expensive recipe, but with the honey and butter and vanilla it's also a slightly fancier one.

How Successful Was It?: Most excellent, will do again. With the wall of text all around this statement, I need to stress it again: they were delicious and very more-ish. And even with the honey, not too sweet.

How Accurate Is It?: Well, I documented most of my changes to the recipe(s) above. While I used dry lemon peel and vanilla sugar instead of vanilla + sugar, I think those are both plausible changes and overall it's not bad at all on the ingredient front. The most inaccurate ingredient is the active dry yeast: it was invented in 1943 in the USA, so it doesn't seem very likely to have been available in Czechia at the time. My father, born in the mid-1950s, remembers his mother buying pressed yeast by weight.

When it comes to technique, I wasn't accurate to any one recipe, but I think overall it's also quite plausible. One major modern convenience I used was baking paper instead of greasing (Sandtnerová) or greasing-and-flouring (Kejřová) the baking trays. And one last change I did not squeeze into the above paragraphs is that Kejřová says to brush them with watered-down honey before baking, as an alternative to the egg yolk. I opted instead to do both, egg yolk first, honey after baking. I did not find a historical recipe saying exactly that, but some modern ones and family traditions do say that, and it seemed to me safer to not put the sticky sweet substance into the oven. Considering I nearly burned the top layer, I think that was a wise decision. :D

Last notes and what I learned:

My honey was runny, which is perfect for brushing, obviously. If your honey isn't runny (has crystalised), you can just melt it gently in a water bath, or in the microwave. If your honey is of the honey paste kind, it probably won't be great for this recipe, even melted.

Overall, I think this exercise was also, for me, a good proof of how I have become more experienced and better organised with following recipes / planning my cooking (if I try), compared to the days when I started doing the HFF. I was still pretty scatterbrained from the illness, but I was able to prepare most of my ingredients in advance and flow smoothly from one task to another, without getting much confused and panicky and losing time along the way. Aside from that one moment when I went "oh, bother, my milk is pretty hot already, I need to use non-buttery warm milk for the yeast starter but I also need to melt butter in the rest of it because I have already turned down the flame because it's pretty hot already." That resulted in me blowing on teaspoons of milk to cool it quickly so that I would not kill my yeast but still had milk hot enough to melt butter in. It worked out fine. :D People posessed of a microwave oven will likely not have this problem.

Last note along the lines of being organised in the kitchen is that the remaining egg whites went into a soup the next day. The egg whites are something you do have to find a use for.

As said waaay above, I did learn more about the various versions and traditions of jidáše / jidášky, although less than I would have liked. I did not learn which version comes from where, and why some 19th century mentions said they were something done specifically in towns when it seems from other mentions they totally were being made in villages as well, and whether that may have something to do with the different versions and regions. And what the heck exactly was Čeněk Zíbrt talking about in the late 19th century when he said recipes for them can be found in Old Czech cookbooks? Mr Zíbrt, could you tell me where? I'm not going to stress any of it, though; it's not my primary area of interest. If I ever have time and opportunity to learn more, I will be happy to, but I don't want to get lost in this rabbit hole right now.

I also learned that brushing rich, heavy leavened dough like koláče immediately after baking with melted butter or some sort of liquid helps keep it nice and soft. More precisely, I had already known that, but due to the craziness of recent years this was the first time I actually got around to doing it. And also I had never before seen mention of doing that with water (well, watered down honey in my case, so that may play a role), only milk or rum, but it seems it might actually also work. So that's one for the mental notebook.

Also also: Kejřová puts poppy seeds on top and Sandtnerová almonds, which I think is the first time I have ever heard of doing that (though now that I google pictures, I can see some - mainly poppy seed). I left them out, also because, somewhat annoyingly, Sandtnerová's recipe for jidášky redirects you to the dough recipe for koláče that does not use almonds, and she does not have a separate ingredient list for jidáše so the info of what else you need for that particular recipe is buried in the text. I wonder if those toppings are traditional (for somewhere), or 20th century "improvements". I wonder the same about the vanilla - Sandtnerová uses it, Kejřová doesn't.

The search for recipes was also, for me, a bit of a further proof of what I already suspected, that is, that while we tend to think of Rettigová's 1820s-1840s cookbook (which I've used before) as THE basis of traditional Czech cuisine, it actually does not have a lot of the recipes we now think of as typically, traditionally Czech, and Sandtnerová a hundred years later does. Rettigová is definitely where the modern Czech cookbook tradition begins, but hers is mainly the aspirational cuisine of relatively rich bourgeoise families of the Biedermeier, and I think a lot of what we think of as typically Czech originates in more rural traditions. If you want the sort of thing thought of as typical Czech cuisine nowadays, forget Rettigová***, "Sandtnerka" (first published in 1924, then many many many times more) is the golden standard.

Which is why I consider my copy one of my greatest treasures, even when it is, as we say in Czech, "a salad edition". ****

* Part of the reason there wasn't an Easter Sunday post this year, either. It was exacerbated by Easter Sunday being the same day time changed from winter to summer time. Extra awful this year, that. I went to church late, and arrived even later because not that far from there I had to sit down on a bench and sit there for about twenty minutes, bird-watching, because my legs had gone wobbly. And quite honestly I think after so many years of this blog's existence I have kind of run out of ways to write a generic Easter post. Easter is still happening, and it's still great, but I think I'm giving up on that self-imposed duty and I'll just write things around Easter from now on.

 ** AKA offcuts / remnants, a historical tailoring term. Its application to dough originates with Bernadette Banner and her years ago attempt at Victorian gingerbread. Sadly, it seems in her more recent switch to  professionalism she has removed that video from public listing, so you cannot bask in its beautiful nerdiness anymore. :-(

*** No shade on Rettigová. She definitely has some bangers that don't deserve to be forgotten.

**** Loose leaves, kwim?

Where Were You When... Take 2

There hasn't been much posting here recently, for a number of reasons that can be summed up as "Real Life". I have a whole bunch of unposted, unfinished posts in the background. Waiting for photos and stuff like that. I even had my usual Easter post written for this year, and then I... I don't even know. Fell asleep? I was ill over Easter this year, so that seems like a probable explanation.

Google reminded me that it's Labour Day today. As an explanation, I did not exactly forget what day it was; a Monday off is easy to remember. But I've gotten used to thinking of it simply as "First of May", probably because there is more than just Labour Day connected to the date in Czech culture (such as our Day of Love proudly distinct from Valentine's, and Maypoles, and stuff). So. I got reminded it's Labour Day, and I remembered something from many years ago, and it both amused me all over again, and reminded me it's been nearly twenty years since we officially joined the EU, back in 2004. Which is a bit of a weird realisation. It doesn't exactly feel like it (maybe in part because we did not join the Schengen Zone until later) - until I remember where I was back then and where I am now.

Back in 2004, I crossed the border from Germany to Czechia on April 30th, on the return journey from a week-long school exchange trip. It felt rather symbolic. First of May fell on a weekend that year. I can't remember which day exactly, but I think it was Saturday. (I should probably be able to find out for sure, but I don't feel like it.) I do know it was a weekend, because that same weekend a weekend youth event in our presbytery was taking place, and I went there a day later, on May 1st, because I had been in Germany. All those events lining up is why I think it was Saturday.

After I arrived, my sister told me that that morning, the person responsible for waking everyone up walked into the room where they had been sleeping, and announced something like: "Rise and shine! Early bird gets the worm! We'll celebrate Labour Day with labour! And other than that, we're in the European Union."

Which always amused me, and did so again today.

If I remember correctly, the labour in question was helping out in the parsonage garden. I remember running around with a barely cooperative old lawnmower at some point, and I think it was that particular parsonage garden, so I think the memories slot together. I can't be sure anymore, though. It's been nearly twenty years.

So it's a bit of an interesting exercise in memory retainment and retrieval. A good deal of the memories can be retrieved with the help of other factors, like a historical date, and knowing how the weekend events usually went so knowing Saturday makes the most sense. But I don't actually remember. I need those mnemonics to put the memory together. The actual memories are fragmented, more like isolated images, and some of those images may not be from this particular time.

* * *

A while ago, I found this quote:

"There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs."

And found out it came from here.

Ayn Rand passed me by completely, and the more I learn about her, the more I'm glad she did. I think overall she's more of an American phenomenon. The Lord of the Rings, on the other hand, entered my life much earlier than at fourteen, and I'm also very glad of that. What a poor childhood it would have been without it. (I can't remember when I first read it. It wasn't entirely in one go because we were borrowing the books.)

So I can't remember if there was any book that "changed my life" at fourteen in particular.

Did I read The Last Hero at fourteen? (My first Pratchett, incongruously, because, as a heavily illustrated book, it ended up in the children's section of the library while the rest of the Discworld books were in the adult section.)

I can't remember.

I know I first read Pan Tadeusz earlier. By about a year or two years, I think, based on when Wajda's film came out.

The only conclusion I can make is that fourteen was not a particularly life-changing age for me. Zooming in on it, in the quote, feels rather random to be honest, which of course makes a lot more sense when you realise it was just a rather random, irreverent paragraph coloured by personal experience, quickly fired off in a blog post.

This, too, is that sort of blog post.

* * *

The previous post of this kind was from 2014. It serves, in a way, as an example of its own kind. There's the mention of me and my sister discussing big countries bent on acquiring and retaining territory at all costs. It was, of course, in reference to Russia and the annexation of Crimea. At this point, I'm honestly not sure if I should say it aged well, or it didn't age well. I think the observation I made back then did? I think I'm still glad to live in this country. We have loud grumblers, and out share of problems, but overall, it's still a good country to live in.

Just a pair of stockings

I'm finding out this blog has been sadly neglected in the past years and there are lots of things I never posted about.

Like my stockings. Which I already made a couple years ago, for some HSM challenge or other - if I dug through the Facebook albums in the HSM group, I'm sure I'd find it, but I don't particularly care to do it right now.

It's my first attempt at sewing historical stockings (well, second, after a sort of rough mockup of my pattern), and they're nothing special in execution, wonkily sewn and not particularly historically accurate (there's lycra and machine sewing).

But they look the part.

And they contain three different tees, two thrifted, one of which was my orange tee from years ago after it stretched out of shape (and that's why I no longer wear lycra tees because if you don't have a dryer, they do sooner or later stretch out of shape while line-drying.)

The other thrifted tee was just bought specifically to make up for my lack of fabric in my original white tee.

That was my white Latvian tee, made in Latvia, from back in 2011. It got yellowish with use and also a bit stretched out of shape. (Don't believe people who say lycra assures your knits will retain their shape.)

So they are, in a way, a sentimental object.

And I'm currently knitting a wool(-ish) pair for colder days, so I decided these needed to be posted for the sake of painting the full picture.

My garters are two layers of plainweave cotton tape, paired up with vintage ribbon from my grandma. (I could have sworn I blogged about them and other stuff when I got them, but apparently it's one of a myriad of things I never blogged about.) I had ideas of embroidering some satin to put on the tape to make them really pretty, but that never materialised. So far.

Because it's "found materials", one of the ribbons is slightly different from the others. I actually rather like that my ribbons are mismatched and that my stockings are pieced. I often enjoy the mismatched and pieced items in museum collections more, because they have more... character, than the picture-perfect gowns that people are oohing and aahing over on social media...

 

Which reminds me - I've been pondering joining Instagram because that's where all the cool kids are these days, and when I blog I spend this huge amount of time writing blog posts that no one then comments on. So I eventually started reading their Terms of Use, where they keep talking about how it's aiming to be a personalised and up-to-date service, and yet somehow they fail to mention what it actually is, in the several paragraphs I got through. I backed out again at that point because a service incapable of telling you what it is that feels the need to instead keep wrapping pretty words around the fact they keep tabs on you... probably isn't something I want to sign up for, regardless of how many costuming friends are using it (and regardless of how many online services these days do the same keeping tabs thing). I've never been one of the cool kids anyway, why start now?

2013 in Review, Part 3

What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?

26... I can’t remember what I did on the day itself, but the day after I celebrated with my family in our favourite café.

How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2013?

More of the classic, more of the historically influenced eclecticism, more of what I enjoy.

What kept you sane?

Being with my family and friends and being alone, in good proportion.
Seeing new places, and visiting Chotěboř and going through the breathtaking Doubrava River Valley like every year. Being in a forest from time to time.

And writing stories (because the pressure of my ideas would drive me insane otherwise).

And good music.

And jumping around the house the way I’ve always done, with music, or because I have too much energy, or too many ideas.

And the occasional Bible verse. :-)

Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?

In December, I fell victim to the Tom Hiddleston craze (he's both funny and considerate, which is a rare combination). And I've watched a lot of Ian McKellen interviews, too. I guess I have a thing for thoughtful British Shakespearean actors now.

And Peter Capaldi, obviously. This documentary about Scottish art is the best thing I've seen in quite a while.

What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?

If I'd actually managed to keep up with the Historical Sew Fortnightly.

What political issue stirred you the most?

I’m not very politically-focused, but the first direct presidential election would capture anyone’s attention.

And the death of Natalya Gorbanevskaya, which is a private event in itself, but what she stood for was not.

 

Who did you miss?

No one I want to mention here...

Who was the best new person you met?

The new members of our youth magazine group.

Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2013.

Mentioned in some of the previous posts. More lessons, actually. And they're a kind of thing I've known before, but now I know them better.
Just because plans fall through does not mean the world falls down.
And I have to watch out what kind of mindset I surround myself with or take for granted or some such. It's so easy to stop noticing that I've gone somewhere I had not intended to be.

Quote a song lyric that sums up your year.

I can't think of anything. Because I tend to listen to songs that do not have very vague lyrics. And if you want to sum up a whole year, you have to be somewhat vague.
So maybe Don't Forget Your Hat from Privateering; I'm not sure why. Hat, and rain (there was a lot of rain in 2013, though maybe not more than in some other years), and travelling by train, and maybe something else, too.

Well, look out the window
Never saw so much rain
You better get down to the station
If you want to catch that train
So long, I guess that's that
Hey, hey, don't forget your hat

Well, you don't call the action
You don't make the rules
You don't pay the piper
You don't even pay the fuel
So long, I guess that's that
Hey, hey, don't forget your hat

Well, it's a big old world out there
Go get it if you can
You got a ways to go
Before you get to be a man
So long, I guess that's that
Hey, hey, don't forget your hat

That's the hat of the year 2013.

Five personally significant events of 2013:

Two photos from this blog were published in a book. (Daniel E. Freeman: Mozart in Prague, Bearclaw Publishers. It's the suits of Count Černín.) So that goes to show me that my efforts to document "Czech Republic not-so-well-known" do have some sort of significance somewhere.
The editorial board meeting and workshop in Mnichovo Hradiště - already mentioned a lot.
Not exactly an "event", but I did some of my first official translations.
The Bombino concert, because it's definitely not every day I meet a Nigerian musician (although I really, really, really hope he will come again...)
A certain private online conversation concerning one of my stories - that had a very personal significance, so I will not say what exactly it was, but it is connected to one of those two lessons I've learned.

Five things I want to do in 2014:

Post more.

Sew more.

Keep working on the youth magazine.
Finally make myself a Regency dress...
... and visit a certain chateau while wearing it.

Five people I’d like to know better in 2014:

... real life people. All real life people, I guess.

2013 in review: Part 2

Compared to this time last year, are you:

1. happier or sadder? I think happier, because unlike the years before, I did keep in touch with more of my friends, at least a bit, and that helps a lot. And as evidenced in the previous post and below, I’ve discovered some great music, and realised a little thing about the way I spend my time, and that helps, too.

2. thinner or fatter? About the same, I think. I don't keep close trace. (The Little Black Dress still fits.)

3. richer or poorer? See above. The same student living on potatoes and onions and stuff. :D Though unlike the year before, I've discovered the awesomeness that are chicken skeletons for soup (with enough meat for a dinner for one!) and homemade noodles. (Why it took me so long? I guess because I was head over heels in love with leavened dough. I still am in love, but it's toned down now, and I've gained enough experience with it to whip it up confidently and shift my attention elsewhere.)

(And why I talk about food? Because it's part of what most of my money went into.)

What do you wish you’d done more of?

Sewing.

And more meeting with the editorial board, which due to my not being in Prague was not possible. This year, more of us are not from Prague, and so it will hopefully be better.

What do you wish you’d done less of?

Procrastinating, as usual...

And spending time on a certain Czech fashion-focused site/forum. I'm a happier person when I don't go there and don't engage in discussion with people who don't get my drift and try to force theirs on me. There were some interesting discussions (often historical-related) and some good advice, but it was mostly eating up my time and energy, and reinforcing a sort of negative approach to life and vainglory or what. The whole site has too broad a focus and it's pretty much all based on critique. And while I originally thought constructive criticism was useful, there was far less of it and far more of the other kind than was good for me; a tendency to find faults at any cost, or failure to explain why someone did not like something (a system of posts rating that leads to a lot of unexplained anonymous hate. Most notable case: American Duchess shoes!)

I'm not going to go and delete my account to demonstrate my epiphany (a lot of the more reasonable members whom I actually enjoyed a discussion with seem to have done that), but phew, I do have better, more positive, productive things to do with my time.
Like the newer and so far mostly stagnant Czech sewing forum. That's much closer to my heart.

I mean, I like constructive criticism. I may not like it at first if it is aimed at something dear to me, but in the long run, it helps.
I just think it is a waste of - not just time, but humanity -  to almost purposefully not like things in a not constructive way. And even though I said, and keep saying, that I do not make resolutions, my one resolution for 2014 and onwards might be the obvious and often repeated but still easily forgotten "whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, dwell on these things." (Phillippians 4, 8)

Phew. Time for something more worthy of praise.

What was your greatest musical discovery?

Bombino!

So many thanks to Jana Š. for bringing him to my attention. It’s... just wow. Perfect feel good music for me.

Bruce Springsteen. It used to be one of those names you keep running into and for some reason never check out (does that happen to you?). So I finally did. And loved a lot of what I heard, particularly these two songs:

For the record - because these seem to spur a lot of heated political / social debate on YouTube - I am not going to pretend I know all that these songs are about. I love the music, and the fact that the lyrics are engaged and engaging does not hurt.
And now I regret that I did not check him out a year earlier and missed out on his concert in Prague last year.

Plus, in a convoluted internet wormhole way, I started listening to the Seatbelts' Cowboy Bebop soundtracks at the very end of the year, and again, wow – with this, and Privateering, and The Bad Plus that Oona brought to my attention earlier, I’m finding out that I actually like jazz and/or blues. :D

Aaand... once more, Radůza's Psalm 22.

Thank God for YouTube - it's an excellent source for musical discoveries! The world is full of great, great music.

How did you spend Christmas?

Fell ill before it, and did much less preparation than I planned to. Had fried carp. (I've had carp before, but not fried in the traditional Czech Christmas way. It was good.) Had our usual wine sausage, too, and wanted more, even though there was lots. Managed to make a good potato salad in spite of forgetting several ingredients: celery was a good addition, and it always helps when it's been in the cold for a day or two.

There is a decided lack of green in that salad, because I forgot the gherkins.

Made much less cookies than I wanted to.

My poor sister was actually ill during Christmas, so almost nothing went as planned, and our Christmas stretched over several days, but it was quite fine in the end. We did not decorate a tree, did not sing, and put the usual Bible reading from Luke together from memory, which made it all the more poignant.
The sermon did not give me much this year, but we sang the two best Czech Christmas songs. One is so popular that it's an unofficial Czech Christmas anthem (seriously: last year at an Advent concert, people stood up to sing it), the other is almost virtually unknown outside of church circles. Both are medieval.
You see, medieval Christmas songs are what I grew up with. Listening to an LP. And look, one of the tracks is up on YouTube now!

It's not my favourite, but the whole album is my favourite Christmas album. I already wanted to share last year, but it was nowhere to be found, so yay!

My friend gave me a fabulous scarf. I gave her The Ocean at the End of the Lane. I have yet to read it myself, but I've heard only good things about it.
We visited grandma as usual, and she filled us with food as usual. This time, I made use of my new camera and took photos of objects in her flat, things I've always been looking at there and never thought of photographing.
My favourite is this little glass monkey. Well, it used to be a monkey: it used to have a tail, once, I'm told. I'm told that when one of my sisters was very small, she somehow bit off the tail, and now the tail is lying on the bottom of the glass and the monkey is an ape.

It's the same word in Czech. Well, there is a special word for ape, but most people in everyday setting don't distinguish between them, even less so than in English. It makes the whole Librarian business in Discworld even more fun.

How are you spending New Year’s?

I spent the night with my sister, her husband and a bunch of their friends, like last year: singing and prayer (which I unfortunately missed this year, in part due to the water disaster mentioned in the previous post) and of course good food, and games! Dixit’s the best game ever, but I don't have a picture.

There is a terrace on top of the house they live in that makes for good fireworks watching. And I finally have a camera that sort of photographs them.

Who did you spend the most time on the phone with?

I don’t phone much. Almost not at all. Probably my mom or my sister; those are the two I am on the phone with most often.

What was the best book you read?

Huh. Murder in the Cathedral by T. S. Elliott? That did blow my mind, although not quite in the “the world’s never going to be the same” way...

And speaking of medieval English, Pearl is quite beautiful, and so well written.

It's school-related books that spring to mind, because my leasure readings were usually things I've read before. And fanfiction - there's some awesome stuff out there, but you have to wade through a lot of not-so-good. My favourite from this year, which is definitely reaching book proportions by now, is probably the stories Wholmes Productions are putting out.

Did you fall in love in 2013?

I don’t think so...

What was your favourite TV show?

I don’t have TV, so I catch up with them where and how I can, and Doctor Who remains my favourite, even though I admit the quality is variable. I enjoy it the most because I tend to like the thinking behind it.
Besides that, I basically discovered that I like series that have self-contained episodes. Sci-fi and detective series fit the bill most often for some reason.

Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year?

No.

What did you want and get?

Honey. :D
 

What did you want and not get?

Doctor Who DVDs for Christmas, but there’s no complaint whatsoever, because instead, my whole family bought me a ticket for an Ennio Morricone concert this February!
 

I'm not showing you where exactly my seat is, but for that huge arena, it's pretty close!

What were your favourite films of this year?

Smoke Signals. That did blow my mind in the “the world’s never going to be the same” way, so much so that anything else I can come up with pales in comparison.

Go and see Smoke Signals. It’s much less of what you’d expect it to be, and all it should be. Huh, I guess I’ve just come up with a sort of my own definition of an outstanding film or something...

This never fails to crack me up. :-)
And the ending always blows my mind.

2013 in review: Part 1

There was a decided lack of posts in 2013. So I'm borrowing something from Natasha Marie (who borrowed it from someone else) and posting a wrap-up.
Seeing as this also happens to be my 200th published post on this blog, I think a wrap-up is very fitting.
Warning: it's long. I'm making up for a year of little posts. So it actually comes in more parts.

What did you do in 2013 that you’d never done before?

Saw an opera. My sister and her husband’s birthday gift for me was a visit to an opera they’d been to several times before already. Now we all want to see it once again, and more. It’s a modern recreation of the earliest at least partially preserved opera, and the music has only the best features of both.

(There's Czech monologue/dialogue until about 1:55.)

(Awwwww, everyone, and I mean everyone, needs to hear that thing! In person! One of the saddest realisations of 2013 is the realisation that that’s not humanly possible.)

I picked one of the artificial laurel leaves they pour out during the performance and keep it as a memento. I do not think I was the only one.

After that, we met with some of their friends from church and made pretzels, which was a first for me, too.

Had port. (Nom!)

Made plum cakes. Cuts. Whatever. (Yummy.)

Made handkerchiefs. :-)

Read medieval English literature in actual medieval English. (With lots of footnotes.) 

Visited Karlštejn. Tourist trap level as expected. The guide's level of knowledge was a less expected letdown. While the castle itself is certainly interesting, you might want to save your money and go visit somewhere else, maybe Ploskovice. I'll post about it this year, promise.

Spent a whole weekend with the people from our youth magazine editorial board (we're mostly volunteers), learning about media and having lots of fun.

Spoke to a Touareg. (Something along the lines of “Could you please sign this for me. – Thanks. – It was wonderful.” See below.)

Did you keep your New Years’ resolutions, and will you make one this year?

I don’t do New Year’s resolutions as such, so there. I do make occasional resolutions (occasional as in for / at an occasion), and right now it’s to finish more of my sewing.

Did anyone close to you give birth?

Not anyone very close to me.

Did anyone close to you die?

Sadly, two of our cats, Yksi and Kuusi (so yes, that Kuusi lesson is a retrospect...).

What countries/states did you visit?

I visited many new places around my own, and loved it!

(The year before, it was Finland, which I still have not gotten around to telling you about. Ahem.)

(This was already in 2012, but whatever.)

What would you like to have in 2014 that you lacked in 2013?

I cannot think of anything in particular. Except maybe attending the interpreting course.

What date from 2013 will remain etched upon your memory?

I don’t remember any particular dates for things that happened to me. So I’ll go with November 8th when my friend did not take an important exam in the end. :D It’s because it’s an important date from my country’s history (the battle of White Mountain) that I could never remember, and now I do!

Did you move anywhere?

No.

What was your biggest achievement of the year?

Probably translating quite a lot into English, in an official capacity. It's not something that you should be doing, mind you, translating into a second language and not your own; we'll have an English editor go over it.

What was your biggest failure?

Probably still failing to finish my sister’s kathak skirt. My sewing failures stand out the most to me, because they’re still lying around the house to remind me.

Did you suffer illness or injury?

Thankfully, nothing serious, just the usual seasonal colds.

What was the best thing you bought?

One thing? Phew. That would be very hard to decide; I don't buy big things.

A beige felt cloche and bamboo scent in January with my Christmas money – the hat is pretty and practical and very much me, and that is actually my first scent, one that’s very much me, too (before that, everything had always smelled just perfume-y to me).

A pair of lace-up boots. 

The Felicitas Queisser scarf - I wear it all the time now, 1797 fichu en marmotte style.

Those 15 meters of lining fabric - that was definitely the haul of the year, maybe even of the decade, but only fabric-wise.

And I finally got myself a purse/shoulderbag that's almost perfect. It might even be leather and it was dirt cheap in a thrift shop. My only complaint is that I would prefer a wider shoulderstrap.

Two Cadfael books, the last in the shop, hidden away in a "last copies" shelf: one for me, one for my sister for Christmas.

Whose behaviour merited celebration?

I think the biggest thumbs up go to my sister for inviting her Latvian colleague and friend who had to stay here over Christmas to celebrate with us, and the rest of the family including grandma for going along with it - even though in the end it did not go quite as planned because of my sister's illness.

On the internet, it's without a doubt Leimomi, for running the Historical Sew Fortnightly which turned out to be hugely popular and way more time-consuming than she had expected; and doing it again this year!

Whose behaviour made you appalled and depressed?

I can’t think of anything. It was a fairly happy year, all in all.

Where did most of your money go?

In general, school.

What did you get really, really, really excited about?

As evidenced by this post, Peter Capaldi as the Doctor.

What was the best concert you’ve been to this year?

It’s a tie between Mark Knopfler & Co.’s concert in May (an online newspaper review gave it 90%, which caused an outrage from commentators who demanded to know what was their excuse for the lack of the remaining 10% :D) and La Dafné in December (an online review gave it 100%). And how could I forget Bombino?! 2013 was very good, concert-wise.

What song/album will always remind you of 2013?

Privateering! The album. I still love it more and more and more. Song is probably Yon Two Crows from it.

Or maybe Her Tenere by Bombino. Yes, that will be the song, because friends and concert and awesome discoveries about the world thanks to the internet.

Have a good one

I think I'm obliged to post something here before 2013 is over. It was a somewhat awkward year in many respects, with many things left unfinished (as evidenced by the lack of posts here), and things going differently than expected (like our Christmas; but it was still good!). But it wasn't a bad one. In spite of various things going wrong, the last straw being my aunt calling this morning that the flat at school was most probably flooded, there were lots of good things happening, too. The last, so far, being my aunt calling again that the flooding isn't too bad at all.

Sometimes, I can take lessons from our cats. Seriously.

A Kuusi lesson: when something does not go as planned, make the best of it and go on as if that was the purpose. Because who knows, maybe it was.
(If you do not catch the bird in the tree, make yourself comfortable in the tree and pretend that was the plan all along.)

I had some great times this year, and in spite of once again not managing to meet with lots of friends I have not seen in ages, I think 2013 was a very friend-rich year for me; I will get around to writing about some of it one day. So for the next year, I wish you some great times, good friends to have them with, and the capacity of making the best of the less so.

Have a good one, and be good. I'll try to do the same.

More fun with search terms on my blog

I played with these in this post; but since then, I did more of occasional checking the statitics, and I've got another list to share.

"skica]" - Another of those accidental characters. (For the record, that's Czech for "sketch".)

Connected to that is this one:
"dress images  skica" - So strangely mixed up English and Czech. One redundant break. Ah, I love these accidental searches.

"meme kráva" - "Kráva" is "cow" in Czech. I HAVE ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA HOW THIS SEARCHER ENDED UP ON MY BLOG.

"mechanical things to wear" - Ditto for no idea, although "the same words but not together" might be at work here.

"adk 125 / 2" - When I search for this one, it gives me a crane truck. Yep. This is dress diaries, people! (Apparently, this happened because this picture on my blog ended up with that string of characters in its URL, because internet obviously does not like Czech diacritics.)

"indian fashion maker machine for beeding n overlocking and all type of fabrics" - Sounds a lot like the magical machine that would make anything you put a picture of into, that I dreamed up as a child...

"19th century wrocław painted bowl" - Aww. Mine are modern, unfortunately.

"first time raw fish" - Yeah.

"gif soup horses" - Sorry, what?

"stuff white bear holding a rose" - Bear, yeah. Rose, yeah. Rose, and Rose. Lots of white stuff.

"old algerian dress" - Not a dress, not old (I suppose). Does it still count as a searching success?

"dressing a black bride" - Well, sorry I can't help.

"clay relief art" - Here's mine.

"sauerkraut soup" - Really! I hope that was helpful.

"shweshwe for brides" - Wrong blog.

"czech recipi for škubánky" - "Recipi" is SOOOO cute. I wonder who searched for that. Someone who knew how to write "škubánky" and did not know how to write "recipe".

"iron age baltic needle case" - I wish.

"pan tadeusz outfits" - Oh, please, come out, you! I'm sure we'll have something to talk about.

""tadeusz czech" or "tadeusz * czech" or "czech, tadeusz"" - Well, that was resourceful. And it's Tadeáš. You're welcome.


Oh, and on Sunday, there was this:
"doctor who twelfth doctor" - Well, I'm not sure I'd tell, even if I knew! I'm apparently not alone in thinking Peter Wingfield would make a great Doctor; but he's probably going to make a great doctor instead, and good for him, I think.

Spring, Once Upon A Time In The West, and so on: a wrap-up post

The recent weeks were... I don't even know what. Frustrating for sure, because it's April already and there had been no Spring to speak of until about Monday. I also missed Easter Sunday service. That's really frustrating, and I thank everyone who wrote wonderful Easter posts on their blogs, because I fairly lived by those in these recent days, even if I did not comment. I think you'll know who you are...

As I said, though, Spring's finally, finally here. The sun's shining and the blackbirds are singing their syrinxes off.


I've been to the National Theatre. The National Theatre is a perfect example of squeezing as much as possible from as little as possible. It was built from money raised by popular collections, on a plot by the river that looks very romantic nowadays but was probably a low-rate spot back then. And small. It seemed to us as if the stage was bigger than the auditory, and we sat high above it and it gave my sister vertigo.
My Little Black Dress got another outing, the excitement of which was kind of ruined by the heinous weather and badly fitting shoes (a case of "they fit all right when I bought them, and never since").

The play was awesome, though.


In other news, my ooold computer finally died on me (as in, it kept hiccupping while doing the most basic things, and finally certain things stopped working), so now I have a new computer that Father's had in works for a long time now. The new computer is so, so much faster. And so, so much quieter. The old one was somewhere between 8 to 12 years old, though with upgrades...


I finally, after a very, very long time, made it to an editorial meeting of our youth magazine again. Nearly everyone in the "editorial board" is from Prague or studies in Prague, except me, so I have not been able to attend for a long time, and it was another frustrating thing, being in touch with these people only through the internet.



The last post still remains unfinished. And I realise I must have forgotten to inform some of the last blogger awards nominees...


Best school quote of the week: "You should not be surprised by American hypocrisy. America has the greatest ideals, and therefore also the greatest hypocrisy."

Apologies to my American readers. The man who said that is American, too.


And I have only finished a single Historical Sew Fortnightly item so far, and that one a bit late. Item to come.


The most exciting thing for now: Once Upon A Time In The West in cinema! Sunday evening. I had not been able to just let something roll for a long, long time. I needed that. I love the music. I cried at the end, as always. (It's beautiful in that very raw Western way.)

Here's an iconic costume-related scene that may explain at least part of it.

Blog awards and Sewing with Cats

Warning: a very long post ahead! It took much longer to write than I planned...

I've been awarded a blog award; actually, two linked blog awards from two people, Lady Katza of Peanut Butter Macramé and Becky of Sew and So.  Thank you both; I hope you enjoyed yours, because you both deserve it.

The rules alternate between the two blogs, so I decided to go with this (somewhat my own) set:

1. Thank the person / people who awarded you.
2. Add the One Lovely Blog Award / Very Inspiring Blogger award to your post.
3. Share 7 things about yourself.
4. Pass the award on to 7 nominees. (or 10, or 11, or how many you prefer...)
5. Include this set of rules. (or any set you prefer...)
6. Inform your nominees by posting a comment on their blog.

The 7 things about me? I like Becky's approach of "crafty confessions"; but I also realised there are several things about my blog and my online personality that never got explained here. So it's a mix.

- My profile picture / avatar? That's me standing on the shore of a lake in Ignalina, Lithuania, back in 2006, as photographed by my sister.
(Yes, Ignalina's famous for the nuclear power plant, and that's what you're most likely to find if you search for it, but the plant is actually still a long way away from Ignalina, in a completely different town, Visaginas - it's just Soviet-time secrecy. And Ignalina and it's surroundings is a most pleasant place to stay if you're into lakes and nature. But I digress.)
I really liked it as an avatar picture, because it showed me without showing me. It just shows my long hair, and my ever growing penchant for wearing things on my head, and the colours are very much me. I still like it as an avatar picture, because it's not so susceptible to change: it's 2013 now, and it still works.

- My header picture? That is (was) a small piece of fabric of mysterious origins in my stash; one of those pieces I very much regretted, and still regret, not having more of. So I immortalised it as my header. It matched the colours in my profile picture nicely.

- My nickname / moniker? Marmota? That dates back to a summer camp where I was with one of my sisters; we were divided into two groups with separate programs; the older ones (where my sister ended up) were called Beavers, while we younger ones were called Marmots (or Groundhogs, depending on which part of the Marmota genus you're familiar with). We kept the nicknames afterwards. I'm using Marmota online, instead of the Czech word, because it's more internet- and international-friendly. (Try saying "svišť"! Try saying "Na cvičišti čtyři svišti piští"! :D)

My second favourite plushie (after my old panda) is Howard the Groundhog

- The first thing I've ever sewed (and I'm sure I've mentioned this before, somewhere but probably not here), was a "top" for one of our dolls when I was about 3. I took a piece of (knit) fabric and made a number of stitches in the middle that scrunched the fabric to such an extent that it somehow stayed put on the doll. I was quite proud of my achievement. And no, I'm not going to show you: I don't think it survived to this day.

- One of the things I loved most at school was making geometric bodies. You know, cubes and such. This I've mentioned before, the turning of a flat pattern into something 3-dimensional. What I did not mention was my very, very brief foray into model-making. On the trip to Austria that photo of my panda teddy was taken on, I also designed a metro unit. Don't ask me why. I only remember it was an exercise in persepective-drawing, and I suspect my father's love of all thing rail-related was also an influence. When we came back, I tried to make a paper model of my metro, and more or less failed - not on the pattern-making front, rather because the paper I chose was not sturdy enough, and I think I just glued it with sticky tape...

- Mom taught me the basics of knitting, and the basics of crocheting. The first thing I ever knitted was a blanket / sweater for a rubber weasel toy that happened to be Russian in origin and have a price tag pressed into its side (hello, centrally planned economy!). The first thing I ever crocheted must have been a plain string, which, of course, also adorned a toy. (And I find this fitting; apparently, knitting was more my thing from the start.) After mom taught me the basics, she very wisely gave me a knitting booklet and let me figure out the rest on my own. I still do that.

Meet Weasel

- The other big influence, other than mom and my Wonderful Crafty Grandma, was an art school / course teacher who is more of an artisan than artist, and thanks to whom I realised the same about myself. She did things like weaving and felting with us, and somehow taught me that no inspiration was too small and insignificant. She's one of my real-life heroes.

This clay pendant was inspired by a smudge on my worktable.

So now that's off my chest, I can nominate people. :-) People who have lovely blogs and are inspiring bloggers, hmm... If any of them have received the award already - I'm sorry for making it duplicate, and thus taking it away from someone else who could have got it... I hope not, though.