Ridiculously boring post on lasagna.

I am not really lasagna folk. I eat it. It's fine. Like peanut butter and jelly is fine. But, I don't often get a hankering for it (though I've made and will make again the Smitten Kitchen mushroom lasagna. Light and good.). This week, though, the local pasta dude had sheets of homemade goodness, and I had to give them a try. And I think that now I may be a convert.

Except for the olive oil, ricotta, and nuts in the pesto, every item in that lasagna was locally grown or made. All farmers' market freshness: pasta, basil, veggies, cheeses. Amazing. Even more amazing? When I totalled what I'd spent to make it (because people like we Greens like to write down everything we spend and then play with the numbers and then talk about it and then blog about it and then laugh at how much we are like our mother), I cheered. The lasagna, head to toe, was 165 koruna, or USD 9.88. (sidenote: This was worth a cheer, as in Singapore I once figured out how much my lasagna cost: USD 68.)

Prague just scored a point, and I just got my boys to eat a lot of hidden vegetables. (and accidentally deleted the photo of the finished product.)

And now I need to do something more intelligent.

List of Praha Loveliness

After listening to a Freakonomics podcast on the Economics of Parenting, I'm feeling a little better. Apparently my ineptitude will not derange the little guy as long as I'm warm and loving and happy for having him. Gus and I both breathe sighs of relief and take heart that we abandoned cleaning for a spontaneous zoo day. Whew.

Other joys were discovered. I revisited the quirky Holesovice market and found it far more navigable and charming without a squealing four-month old strapped to my sweaty body. Gus ran between the zillion stalls of oddities and Neighbor B and I bought the biggest and cheapest bunches of basil you have ever seen. In addition, when I need a copy purse, Gus sized guitar, Hungarian potato pancake, or I heart Prague sweatshirt--I'll know where to return.

For now, I'm content with the basil pesto filling my freezer.

On a buying-local high, the next morning we met Tracy and her patient-with-Gus daughter S at yet another fabulous Praha farmers' market (Jihiro z Podebrad). While S lovingly wrangled wily G around the square (the latter flinging his Vietnamese noodles--thank goodness for the abundance of dogs), Tracy and I bought local butter (from the actual cow owners)*, Moravian cheese, homemade pasta, Bohemia grown raspberries, and cold pints of microbrew. I appreciate a town where one can push her stroller with a plastic cup in hand and receive nary a raised eyebrow.

And today--today little G and I took on our neighborhood market at an hour most folks found appropriate for sleeping. We grabbed some produce, more pasta, the last of the local strawberries, and two packages of fruit dumplings (svestkove knedliky). Steamed Czech dumplings covered in melted butter are one of the greatest things about living here. They are also lunch in this house.

This farmers' market bender is peppered with a visit to an uber-friendly and shockingly reasonable Czech glass bead shop where the shopkeepers--gasp--took Gus from me and gave him a homemade chocolate chip cookie and a bucket of beads to sift, and yet again, fling. When I left, we were all crunching beads underfoot and yet everyone was laughing and smiling and telling me how wonderful that was. I don't understand it, but I support it and will absolutely return.

And, perhaps most joy-producing for me, there is a triptych completed and awaiting its new owner. We hope it adds cheer to her daughter's room.

    

*Butter note: I am told by smart Tracy (does everyone know this?) that fresh butter changes color throughout the year based on what a cow is eating. Fresh grass vs. hay will alter the color. This makes me want to buy even more butter while the grass is green.

For Moi-Moi

I'm able to see the lighter side of things today. At least enough to waste part of the afternoon finding this article on Weela. I read an Outside magazine article on her in 1996, cut out Weela's head (I really wish THAT photo was on this site) and put it on my driver's license over my face. Yes, it's dumb. But at that sleep-deprived-college-studying time, it was hysterical to all involved (MM). 

I'm also able to think on serious things. My dear adventure-racing partner, PH, as heroic as Weela in my book, recently had to say goodbye to a dearly and long-loved dog. Moi-Moi was one heck of a dog and my friend PH is one heck of a woman. She's ten years my senior (though you'd never know it by looking at us), and yet I humbly spent all of our races watching her get further ahead while cheering me on to keep up. For amazing PH, a doodle is in the mail and a hope for a race with you dedicated to Moi-Moi is in the wishbook:

 

 

Blue skies smiling at me

I am getting over myself! As humbly happens, I recently went on a tirade about folks taking themseles too seriously. And then, heh heh heh, the same week I got all serious. Amy Carmichael wrote that we need to keep our spiritual "atmosphere" clear. If we allow even a "fugitive wisp of a cloud float across our sky"--that is, a wish for things to be different--then we create an overcast spirit.

Don't I know it.

I re-entered Praha with more than my fair shares of wishes. There were colds all around and a bee sting of gigantic (you've never seen cankles like this one) proportions. There have been cold rainy days and outings in August in-gasp-sweaters. Wily Gus has been frustrated with his boring old parents and longing along with us for his out-of-this-world grandparents in very loud and parenting-skill-testing ways. We're on doctor's visit number three. Already. This house has rattled and shook with wishes, and I've felt the result of that stinking thinking in an overcast heart.

But, no more gosh darn it! How can one hope for otherness when one has so much goodness? I take note:

1. A kinder-than-he-needs-to-be Tony M gave me a completely random and treasured gift of DELECTABLE Delirium Tremens. I can count the bottles of the golden Belgian awesomeness I've been privvy to enjoy in my life on one hand. At 8.5% that's probably enough for a lifetime. Get thee to a specialty bottle shop and buy your own pink elephant.

2. The farmers' market is back in action. There has been blue cheese walnut sauce on fresh tagliatelle pasta and berry filled dumplings and organic carrot carrot cake and farm fresh egg and veggie quiche on our table.

3. We've brunched and happy houred and biked and brewery toured and walked and dined and breakfasted and Skyped and coffeed and teaed and desserted and jogged and baby grouped with good folks. Today's gathering honored a special guest who leaves our Old MacDonald refrains for the big kids at skola. Gus will miss his musical pal Dee-Dee.

Worried about the toothpaste decorating the cake? (famers' market carrots carrot cake!)

4. I've returned to the drawing table with commission pieces and celebration doodles.

 
5. There are library books newly checked-out, hand-me-down dresses acquired, new babies born, road trips planned, awfully nice neighbors relied upon (perhaps no longer with prepositions hanging out there like that), and Desigual sales attended.

Blue skies!

 

 

 

Today's List

I ate nearly an entire head of cauliflower. (Thanks a lot for the recipe, Kaye Syrah. I'll let you know what happens to a girl who eats this much cauli in one sitting.) 

I played at the park with three very lovely women and their energetic children.

I hugged a new neighbor and waved at a friendly landlord.

I CALLED my son to lunch because he was playing BY HIMSELF.

I texted the US for free. 

I read an article on healthy eating that has me all fired up about low fat products.

I spent less than a buck on two gorgeous bunches of fresh basil and made it into almond pesto.

I doodled a gaudy little thank you card that does not come anywhere close to thanking the people that need to be thanked.

And I woke up before Gus did.

Praha is looking up.

Homecomings

We touched down in Praha last night. The re-entry is less bewildering than last year, but not without its reminders that we are still Czech Republic novices. We'd been home less than an hour when a kindly passerby hollered at us--thinking we'd dropped something from our stroller. Of course, not speaking Czech, we ignored his comments until they reached full-on shouts. Sigh. We forgot that we spend a lot of time dodging yells. 

There is much to sort. Closets and suitcases and groggy post-summer brains. Last summer we were too new at parenting to really understand how a Gus alters one's priorities. But this year, this year we have a lot on which to think. It's always tough business on our hearts leaving the ranch, but it's far more difficult when a rowdy G gets six weeks of four-wheeler rides, mud puddles, swimming pools, doggie cuddles, sprinkler parties, swing sets, sandboxes, lizard chasings, cousin loving, and non-stop grandma and grampa antics. Oy. Re-entry is weighty.

I feel like I spend a lot of time asking overseas families how they cope and how they structure time and how they make things work, and the answers are never the same. This is our own little adventure to figure out, and thankfully I've got two pretty great men with which to do that solving. 

This early morning, however, (2:30 was rise and shine time today) is not the time for the solving, so we'll stay tuned. And instead today, as we chase a grandparent-lonesome-Gus, (missing them muchly ourselves) we'll be grateful for a grand six weeks on a gorgeous ranch with a fabulous family. And not ones to shy from a challenge, we'll--gasp--take on the dreaded post office. And if we're not too shell-shocked from that, we'll dodge more shouts and treat ourselves to some Czech cookin'. Welcome "home", Greens.

Good peeps.

Even better peeps. (Hopefully some of C's congeniality will rub off on serious G)

Aw.