Czechmatediary

Ray Kroc was born in 1902 in Chicago, Illinois. His Czech grandparents, however, came to he US from Stupno (near Pilsen). In 1917 a 15-year old Kroc lied about his age and joined the Red Cross as an ambulance driver. He never left for Europe though because the war ended. Disappointed Kroc had to find work to feed himself. He played the piano for a radio station during nights and functioned as a salesman of paper cups during the day. Later on he obtained exclusive marketing rights for selling the five-spindle multimixer - the miracle of speed and efficiency of that time. For next 17 years Kroc traveled the US selling these mixers until he encountered the San Bernardino restaurant in California, owned by Dick and Mac McDonald brothers. This simple-menu hamburger restaurant ordered 8 mixers on the spot. Kroc was quite blown away by the restaurant’s efficiency and offered the owners a partnership where his part would be building McDonald’s stores across the USA. Kroc says: “I was 52 years old. I had diabetes and incipient arthritis. I had lost my gall bladder and most of my thyroid gland in earlier campaigns, but I was convinced that the best was ahead of me.” (more…)

A worldwide known Czech photographer Jan Saudek created yesterday historically the biggest Czech group act. 218 naked volunteers - including Jan Saudek himself - gathered on one of the Olomouc’s vacant green pastures with the oldest participant of the group being as old as 74 years. According to the photographer’s orders the crowd was told to jump in the air as they were being photographed. The finished art piece will be available in Olomouc’s gallery Podkova starting September 19th. Also, the artist decided to give 100% of the profit to a local charity which plans on building a park and a children’s playground. (more…)

Even though Apple strudel is now mostly a Czech/German/Hungarian delicatessen, its origins go back to an ancient Greece where the thin layered dough was perfected into Baklava (http://www.kitchenproject.com/history/AppleStrudel.htm).
This is a great recipe because it is EASY and FAST. Enjoy!!

Ingredients:

1. 1 portion of “flaky dough” (Listkove testo)
   • 2 1/2 cups of all-purpose flour
   • 1/2 cup of water
   • 2 1/5 sticks of unsalted butter (= 250g)
   • speck of salt
2. some flour to roll out the pastry
3. 3 -4 tbs. of bread crumbs
4. 3 tbs. of sugar
5. 1 tsp. of cinnamon
6. 6 - 8 sliced apples
7. 1 beaten egg (to spread onto the strudel)
8. powdered sugar (more…)
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It is well known that Prague has a very bad reputation with its taxi drivers. Why? Because they rip you off in any way they can! Even the city looks at this issue as being detrimental to the overall tourism. To see for himself how bad the situation is, the mayor of Prague, Pavel Bem, dressed up as an Italian tourist “slicking back his hair, putting on a pair of shades, and donning fake facial hair”. And Bem did get very overcharged; not once but both times! The first trip was supposed to cost about 4 Euros but the taxi driver charged him 26 Euros!!! (more…)

Once upon a time, back when I was a highschooler, I really wanted to learn Italian. Unfortunately, after researching the whole situation I found out the only country that would “take me” was England, and I had to become a nanny to go. But I didn’t want to go to gloomy England! I wanted to go to beautiful and sunny Italy!!! Oh well, I thought to myself, I guess I will at least be ready for my final exam in English when I come back….So I left for the summer and worked for a lovely English family, but little did I know what awaited… (more…)