Czech-Mex…

When my great-aunt taught me how to make kolache–a Czech pastry–from an old family recipe, I knew that no matter how much I practiced–I would never make kolache as sweet and delicious as hers. In America, most people have never even heard of kolache, but today the New York Times did a story on how kolache in Texas is a perfect example of Czech-Mex.

When I was living in Prague, I took a side-trip to Brno (where I took the photo above) to learn more about the history of its Roma community. This photo–of a Roma mother buying her daughter something sweet–has one of my favorite Czech words in it–zmrzlina, which means “ice cream.” I have such fun saying this word, because it starts off with 5 consonants in a row. Some Czech words don’t have any vowels–like the word krk (“throat”). In fact, there’s even a famous Czech tongue twister which is a sentence with no vowels at all: Strč prst skrz krk (“Stick your finger through your throat”). Now, try saying that 5 times fast…