Breakfast

Since before we left for Morocco Kept Man and I got into the habit of weekend brunch when we had a day off together. In California we usually went out, Rick and Ann's or La Note being the destinations of choice in Berkeley and Cajun Kitchen or Tupelo Junction in Santa Barbara. In Marrakech and Prague there is a void of quality brunch locations. In Marrakech we usually ended up at Cafe de la Poste for a French breakfast while in Prague we gravitate towards The Globe Cafe for an American style brunch.

While we do go out for brunch from time to time our preferred choice since leaving the States has been to cook at home. Our go to meal is Buttermilk pancakes and bacon, from the Bride and Groom Cookbook - our magic book - which I bought before I even met Kept Man and now give as a wedding present. Incidentally we need a 2nd copy. Ours is covered in grease and batter spattering from being used so much. We've also experimented with muffins, breakfast burritos (yummy), French Toast and some not so eggy dishes.  Too much egg and not enough stuff and I may puke all over Kept Man. Ugg. One of the worst smells I can think of is a frying egg. I know everyone out there will probably disagree with me but all I can say is blah.

Last Saturday it was the good old pancakes with bacon. Side note on the bacon. This was the first bacon we found at our grocery store that was labeled "British Bacon" meaning it was smoked. It was yummy and crispy and Kept Man was able to stock up on his bacon grease. It's amazing since one of us has time to cook how much more we use and save in the kitchen. Did I mention that Kept Man has made preserved lemons recently? We're going to try them out in a Tagine sometime soon. Marrakech with it's easy to buy preserved lemons was wasted on us. sigh.

Anyways back to the pancakes. They were supposed to look like this:

But in reality with the prep and the cooking

                          
Did I mention how my food pictures suck?


They looked a bit more like this:

 

I'm only working with a point and shoot here. And Kept Man is the photographer of the two of us

 But I'm too lazy to have him edit the photos because by the time he's done I won't want to write anymore. So you have uninspirted food photos I"m afraid

Today Kept Man decided he wanted muffins. No low fat crap muffins. Real muffins. So we found a recipe. Albeit a bit of a complicated one. (Kept Man remarked that it made a lot of dishes) and set to baking

Kept Man did not like the sugar lemon topping

But I found it quite enjoyable with my coffee

And Kept Man didn't snub his nose at them either for all his talk of how the lemon made it taste funny.

 

Now don't you all want to come over for breakfast? Or late lunch. I am lazy on the weekends. If you can't tell from our state of grooming in these pictures. So I guess that would be 3am California time. Surely you're all free.

Winter in Prague

So I wanted to share a picturesque view of Prague in the Winter. Snow on the hill, big fluffy flakes falling slowly in the foreground. You know the ideal winter, where it's so pretty you can't possibly be cold. I had that view before Christmas and I was ok with the cold weather because it was the holidays. But I never seemed to have my camera with me. sigh.

Well since after Christmas we had a bit of a warm spell. And by warm spell I'm mean in the 50s (California cold!) so all the snow melted and not a smidgen of snow in site.

I took the above picture on a foggy morning a week or two ago as I thought it would do in place of a picturesque hillside full of snow. Didn't know we had fog in Prague did you? And then I procrastinated, hoping that snow would show up, but also hoping that it wouldn't.

And then the past week just when I thought we were getting closer to spring (wishful thinking, I know) the temperature dropped and it snowed overnight. I should have taken a picture while I was on the tram the next morning. We were passing by the park and all the trees had a fresh layer of snow and it was still all fluffy and pristine on the hillside. So pretty. But I'm always self-conscious taking photos. I don't like looking like a tourist especially on my morning commute. So I took this picture instead after I got off the tram walking to work.

It was snowing while I took this picture but there are no fluffy snowflakes apparent in the photo. Probably didn't use a slow enough shutter speed or something. Use your imagination instead. Are you cold yet?

Grin

It is a commonly known fact that Kept Man hates my mug collection. He thinks it is crazy that we have so many mugs and never use them and that we have dragged them halfway around the globe. I however challenge him to pick one that does not have a specific memory for me. And I'll have it noted in the official blog/internet record that I have gotten rid of quite a few mugs and those that are left are just the must haves. It's not my fault my family remembered vacations and memorable events via mugs. Not t-shirts, mugs. I am a product of my environment. Or my mother's excessive tea drinking. You decide.

The one he dislikes the most is my Cheshire Cat mug from the Disney Store because it's so huge and takes up so much space. But I can't possibly get rid of it. It was a going away gift when I left the Cheshire Cat Inn in Santa Barbara. Memories man.

So upon hearing how cumbersome my mug was again when it finally showed up in Prague I decided to get it out of the house and bring it to work. And while my brilliant mug was under-appreciated by Kept Man it has been praised, remarked upon and a cause of a lot of smiles at work.

Vindication! I'm never getting rid of this mug.

As a side note as I was typing this Kept Man asked what I was blogging about and I said, "My mug" and he said, "Your mug. Your ugly mug?"

So for the record; Suck on it Kept Man. Everyone loves my mug. And by my mug I also mean my face.

Discovery

Living abroad definitely teaches you to embrace the unknown. New customs, new food, new laws, new surroundings. Soon you get used to. From time to time something pops up that makes you realize your not where you grew up but that is part of the fun. Or the frustration. Take your pick.

What's funny though is that you (or really I should say Kept Man and I) are contstantly on the look out for things that are familiar to us but not readily available in Prague. I would think that it is a common expat or immigrant experience. Familiar things are what you make you feel at home and for Kept Man and I this mostly relates to food. Family members and friends have already heard of our Mexican food obsession and have been nice to ship us hard to find items.

I thought I would document some of our (read Kept Man's) finds because 1. It's been an ongoing process and we are very excited every time we discover something and perhaps only our friends and family outside of Prague will understand and 2. A list of places to find hard to acquire itmes might be a nice resource for any other expat in Prague. If we had found something as useful as another expats list of places they shop and find speciality items we would have been extremely excited.

I asked Kept Man what his favorite discover was in Prague so far and it is no surprise that has to do with Mexican food. We had gone to dinner at our favorite Tex Mex restaurant, Cantina, which was a life saver for two Californians in desperate need of enchiladas and tacos until they could get their own kitchen. On the table was a bottle of Cholula which brought back fond memories of our old work cafeteria and how the staff went through liters of the stuff. As I was looking at the bottle I started to wonder where the restaurant had purchased it. You can get hot sauce readily in Prague but I hadn't noticed Cholula. On the back was a sticker with the ingredients listed in Czech and a website. Kept Man immediately grabbed the bottle and made me remember half of the website address.

Upon returning home he looked it up only to find that not only did this place sell Mexican food items but that they had a store front in Prague. I think it took him less than a week to head out to the store. He has since discovered that it's better to order what he needs online and then pick it up than to go to the store and try to explain what it is that he wants. But they have dried chillies so we are no longer hoarding the ancho chillies like they're the last ones on the planet and there is even Masa Harina to make corn tortillas so family members are no longer required to ship it to us and we don't have to use of valuable weight in our suitcase the next time we're in the States. We also now have a tortilla press which Kept Man is enamored with. Before he found the store he was getting to the point he was going to go to a hardware store to see if he could put together some sort of home made tortilla press.

So our Mexican obsession now continues in Prague with fewer restrictions than before and that makes for two very happy native Californians living in Prague.

Voucher Phenomenon

There is this phenomenon in Czech Republic where websites offer a discounted price on various services. (no, not those kind of services!) Things like restaurants, gyms, spas, and bars. Mostly service related industries but there are some general shopping opportunities as well. Maybe this phenomenon is not only available in the Czech Republic but it's the first time I've run into it. Either way it's a promotional way to get people to discover your place of business and I've found through my work colleagues that it works. (At least to try the place out).

Case in point our Accounting Department at work are the partiers of the hotel. I know weird right? Anyways they are always the ones who are putting together an outing with everyone. One time they wanted to head to Hooters. I asked the Financial Controller why. Cause seriously I'm not a Hooters type of gal. The reason? He had a bought a voucher one one of these sites. And then he tells me (to convince me to go), "I would never go to Hooters, but I have this voucher with chicken wings and beer...." And therein lies the genius behind these vouchers. Things people would normally never ever buy, or places they would never ever go, they buy vouchers for on these sites because it's a "good deal." Even an uber smart Financial Controller. Go figure.

Garren and I have not been immune to the voucher siren call. The Yoga sessions I recently purchased? Total voucher buy. And last night? Garren and I went to a little restaurant called Mon Rouge Pif. A little out of our way and it was only the two of us in the entire restaurant but for 260 czk total (approximately $15) we both had a 3 course meal with 3 glasses of wine. The food was decent, the wine tasty and the service friendly and attentive. We had mistakenly bought two vouchers thinking that the price was per person. We might go back on a Saturday to see if the atmosphere is a bit more lively and get another meal.

I think we (and by we I mean I) may be slightly addicted. We recently bought another meal for sushi for two (which is normally very expensive in Prague) and just today I was contemplating buying another meal at a Brazilian restaurant that is around the corner from us. I'm trying to control myself, but when we're talking about getting to try out new restaurants at a fraction of the price it's a little hard to resist.

If you're interested in pursuing these sites just for fun the top three listed below are these are the ones I frequent the most. The last one is apparently a compilation of all the voucher sites for easy viewing pleasure. I only found out about it today. I might have to pretend I wasn't told about it.

Slevomat
My Deals
Lime and Tonic
Skrz.cz

Movement

I'm not sure if it's because of the New Year or if I finally feel settled enough to pursue a hobby or perhaps it's just because my foot no longer hurts and has been confirmed to not be broken but this past week I:

1. Bought passes to attend to Yoga classes to try out a studio
2. Emailed about and then attended an Irish Dancing class

I don't know how long this new motivation is going to last. It's already been put to the test. I had grand plans to attend Irish Dancing class on Friday and then Yoga on Sunday to stretch myself out. Yeah uh-huh. Too bad I'm so out of shape that I could barely move all weekend. 

I have an insanely wonderful husband who massaged my legs Saturday morning. He made fun of me the rest of the weekend for my old lady shuffling around the apartment and constant moans but I forgive him because he started with the massage.

Irish Dancing class was actually great. Everyone is Czech but the teachers speak English and not speaking Czech gives me the excuse to not make chit chat with anyone. I am so anti social. I'm going to make it a weekly thing. Here's hoping my legs get used to it and my motivation lasts. I must have made my mom bring the Irish Dancing shoes from California to Canada for some reason besides taking space in my closet, right?

Next weekend I'll try for Yoga too. Hopefully I won't be moaning in pain after that just as badly. I don't like my body reminding me that I'm not 15 anymore.