Monday, December 27, 2010

Carp, Duck and Ostrich

I've survived my three days of Christmas dinners. On the 24th I had my first Czech Christmas carp. My friends, Katka and Robert, invited me over for dinner which was very sweet of them. But to be honest I was a little nervous. The traditional Czech dinner on the 24th is fish head soup followed by fried carp and potato salad. Not exactly the ham and turkey I'm used to in the U.S.

Katka laughed when I told her I was nervous about the soup. Fish head soup?!?! I had visions of lifting my spoon from the soup bowl and coming up with an actual fish head. Apparently, the head is only used to flavor the soup while cooking. Who knew? By the way, the soup was really good.

Katka wanted to try something new this year so instead of frying the carp she wrapped it in bacon and baked it. Normally carp tastes like mud to me. But if you soak it in either milk or beer then it's fine. In fact, Katka's bacon carp was quite tasty. And Robert made a potato salad with pickles and red bell peppers. My contribution was a pecan pie.

On the 25th, my American friend Scott came over for dinner and to hang out. I planned to cook a chicken and some side dishes. Well, I thought I had bought a chicken. But it turns out that "Kacsa" is the Hungarian word for duck. Again, who knew? It turned out pretty well, especially considering I've never cooked a duck before.

On the 26th, I went to Sabine's for St. Stephen's Day. That girl can whip up some French food. Five courses and everything was so dang good! Plus, it was the first time I had ever tried ostrich.

So in three days I had my first Christmas carp, my first Christmas duck and now my first Christmas ostrich. I gotta' say that the sandwich I'm having for dinner tonight just seems rather boring in comparison.

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