Sunday, August 24, 2014

Golden Hands

There's an expression over here in Czechland about zlaté české ruce which means "golden Czech hands."  I've heard two different explanations for this phrase and, honestly, I can see the truth in both of them.

An ad proclaiming they have golden hands
The first one is because Czechs are such great craftsmen, tradesmen, and engineers.  You can definitely see this in the old architecture here.  The old buildings are absolutely beautiful.  The paneláky, prefabricated apartment blocks; not so much.

The second explanation is that due to the shortages of supplies, under communism, that Czechs learned how to make do with what they had.  Czechs became masters of "do-it-yourself" using whatever materials you could get your hands on.  This sometimes led to very inventive solutions.

This afternoon I wanted to make a dessert that requires apple sauce.  It suddenly dawned on me that I don't know if I've ever seen apple sauce here Czechland.  I know they have it in Germany but not so sure here.  And I wasn't up for a mad scavenger hunt at Albert, Billa, Inter-Spar and Tesco.  Instead, I used the Google and found an easy recipe and made some apple sauce from scratch.

I guess this constitutes my attempt at having golden hands.  Which has me wondering...maybe I can find an easy recipe for blue cheese dressing because they for sure don't have it here. 

2 comments:

  1. Hi Chirs! I work with a team in Brno too! However I am still in the US. I'm really enjoying your blog - and your observations about US/Czech culture. One of my guys recently asked me for a Buffalo Wings & Blue cheese recipe I thought they could replicate. Here's the link I sent them for the blue cheese dressing/dip. They said it was a hit. easy blue cheese dip http://leitesculinaria.com/78825/recipes-blue-cheese-dip.html - Bon Appitite - Mittany

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  2. Hi Mittany,
    Thanks for the link!! I have buffalo wing spice packs from my last care package and I'll be sure to try out the blue cheese recipe. Thanks for reading along with my adventures.
    Cheers,
    Christopher

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