Catching up- Swimming

Next in a long line of catch up posts.....swimming lessons.  The local rec center offers a baby and me swim class that is meant to get kids used to being in the water and start to give them some knowledge of what to do while they're in it.  They say big things like "teaching your child to survive" but thats not really the case.  I'm sure with the older kids it could go that way, but with our little ones, it was more about having fun in the water and learning what different things feel like. 

Here are a few random pictures.  Its tough to take good shots in an indoor pool, lots of weird lighting going on.

Catching up- VT Trip

Yeah, we took this trip in February and I'm now writing about it in August.  Whats your point?  :-)

Went to VT with some family to catch a mens basketball game.  Had an awesome weekend in Blacksburg and got to enjoy one of the few significant snows of the entire winter.  What a beautiful place that campus is.  The snow makes it even better. 

Enjoy.

Daddy and his little Hokie:

Hokie Bird on the court:

The team:

Halftime entertainment:

A baby at a bar?  You bet!:

Welcome to VT:

 Snow on the mall:

April 17 memorial:

Pylons during the day:

Burress hall at night:

All in all it was a great trip.  Things were beautiful, the Hokies won on a last second shot (that Mila slept through) and we had a great time with the family.  I do miss Blacksburg though!

Whoops!

I have been downright terrible about updating this blog I know.  But I promise that I will have pictures of our recent trip to NJ along with swim lessons posted here this week. 

All I have to do is remember to put the pictures on a flash drive.  That shouldn't be that hard.....right?  :-)

False Cape State Park

I realize I still haven't posted the swimming pictures, but I've been busy.  Deal with it :-)

Part of the reason I've been busy is work.  I recently spent 3 days at False Cape State Park, which is south of Virginia Beach, right along the Virginia/North Carolina border.  Very close to Norfolk and NAS Oceana so there is plenty of air activity.  I had never been to this park before but knew that it was isolated and difficult to get to, despite being so near a major population like Virginia Beach. 

To say the least, it was beautiful.  I was very happy that I took my nice camera along for this trip, as there was plenty to take pictures of.

We did quite a bit of work while there, but we also had a good time.  We went for a nice kayak trip one day where we saw some bald eagles, blue herons, and plenty of water snakes.  We also went for a ride on the Terra Gator, which is a former military personnel transport that the park now uses to move people up and down the beach.  Pretty impressive piece of equipment, although I've been warned that you shouldn't linger in it if it catches on fire O_o

Days were spent working and enjoying the natural beauty.  Nights were spent fishing on the beach and playing cornhole next to the bay.  Not a bad work trip at all.  Here are some of my pictures from the days we spent there. 

 



Busy, busy, busy

Who knew having a child would take up so much time?!  Things are hectic around here, but I think we're all learning that this will probably be the norm for the next 15-18 years.  Adaptation is key I suppose. 

We're finally getting into a good home rhythm with evenings.  Mila dropped her late nap, so there isn't as much downtime to get things done, but its much more fun to do things with her anyway.  We started swim lessons a few weeks ago at the rec center up the street.  Some days she loves it, some days....not so much.  Last night was a night she loved it.  She kicks her legs and moves her arms well, but isn't really into getting her ears wet when floating on her back.  Last night I dunked her a few times and she made the most hilarious face when she came out of the water.  I wish we had pictures of it.

I'll post some swim pictures when I get access to them tonight.  Ejdo has found that they are incredibly hard to post process due to the funny lighting in the pool.  I think they look great though.  Talk about priceless memories. 

Other than swimming and running around after a 9 month old, Ejdo spent most of Sunday building a cold smoker to make the bacon from our pig butchering day.  He put the bacon slabs into a brine on Wednesday and then built the smoker and smoked them on Sunday.  The house smelled amazing. 

Essentially how it works is the coals and chips are in the small smoker to the left.  The smoke is contained within an aluminum case (made from the aluminum pans at the grocery store) and piped through the ducting into the other smoker.  You don't want the meat to cook, just to get smoked, so it should be around 80-90 degrees max.  Amazingly, this worked really well.  Took some trial and error with the aluminum pans, but Ejdo got it nailed down pretty quickly. 

We cooked up a piece already to see how it tasted.  Its fatty, like the rest of this pig, and salty, which is probably very typical of a traditional bacon.  I think it will be awesome in a BLT.  Very excited to make some for dinner soon. 

Zabíjačka!

I know its been a while since I posted, but boy do I have a good one for you guys.  Definitely falls under the "Big Fat Czech Life" category.  This isn't cute pictures of my kid...this is a traditional pig killing and sausage making extravaganza, in my sister in laws kitchen.

Background:  My inlaws had a screened in porch added to their dock.  Construction foreman is somehow Slavic in nature (I don't know the specifics).  He also raises heritage pigs.  One thing leads to another and for the low low price of a bowl of dumplings, we have a pig to make sausages with.  A heritage pig that is descendent from Spanish pigs.  An Ossabaw pig.  A few phone calls later, its time for a party.

We skipped out on the whole pig killing part and received our pig already dead and essentially quartered.  Thats when my father in law and our friend Pino went to town.  Turns out many phone calls were placed to CZ to ensure that things were done properly.  We created the typical cuts for pork, chops, loins, hams, etc, but also took it the next step and created some of the more traditonal offerings. 

The most "important" thing we were going to make this weekend was jitrnice.  This is a sausage made from the head meat.  Casings are cleaned pig intestine.  The head of the pig is boiled in huge pots with water, onions, carrots, herbs and spices, and garlic until everything on the head starts to fall apart.  Then you pick the meat off, grind it up, add more garlic and other spices and stuff your casings.  Pretty simple, if you don't mind the whole boiling pig head in your kitchen thing. 

Warning: this photo is probably graphic for most Americans who don't understand where food comes from.

So once you've got your pretty little boiled pigs head, you strip all the meat off of it and grind it up.  You don't have a meat grinder?  Kitchen Aid makes an attachment that works like a charm.  Check it out. Although I will warn that they only sell the plastic ones now, so some care should be taken.  Ours is metal and practically indestructable.

Once you've got everything ground and mixed, you start stuffing your casings.  It is very important to make sure that your pig intestines are very clean (obviously).  Ours came pre washed, but my father in law and our friend Sarah spent 30+ minutes at the sink insuring their cleanliness.  I walked in to find a 65 year old man and a 17 year old girl at the sink cleaning pounds of pig intestine.  I was struck with the thought that this sight could not be replicated in any kitchen within probably 20 square miles of where we were standing and that was sad.  We as a society are losing touch with our food and our traditions. 

Anyway, back on track.  Another thing that we were super excited to make is called škvarky.  Essentially, its fat.  We have always thought that it was fried fat, because the texture of the end result is little crispy bits of fat.  Turns out we were wrong. 

Making škvarky is a pretty simple process.  While you're butchering your pig, save all the large pieces of fat in a bowl.  Make sure all the skin has been removed, along with any hair or other things you don't want to eat. 

Then you fire up your propane burner (outside) with a large stock pot on top.  Add the fat to the stock pot and cook over very low heat for the next 2-3 hours.  As the fat renders out, strain it off into an additional bowl. 

Eventually you will be left with what are essentially small pork cracklings.  Traditionally they are eaten whole on a piece of bread with salt.  I've also had them ground up into a paste to be eaten on the bread with salt.  Either way, they are incredible.  Ejdo and I used some of our share in eggs and pasta over the next few days and both of those uses were phenomenal.

Now, all that fat that was rendered off.  Strain it through some cheese cloth to remove any solid particles.  As it cools, stir constantly.  This will help create a pleasant, non grainy texture.  Once its starting to turn white, pour into jars.  We created I believe 6 Mason jars of this fat, called sádlo.  It is just rendered pork fat, but its not like bacon grease.  It does not smell of pork and can be used in just about anything.  Many Czech baked goods use sádlo, and no Czech kitchen is complete without a jar. 

I should also mention the ever present Czech beer.  We happened to have a keg leftover from another party that was perfect for this occasion.  Unfortunately, the tap didn't arrive until almost noon (the horror), but we had plenty of bottles to tide us over.  Once the tap arrived, we put a hurting on that keg.  The Czechs don't do anything without copious amounts of liquid refreshment.  Anthony Bourdain of the Travel Channel once attended a zabíjačka while he was in CZ for a show.  He had so many shots early in the morning that he proclaimed that "verticality was becoming an issue".  Anyone who has watched Bourdain's shows knows that he can handle quite a bit of liquor, so you know this must have been a hard hitting event. 

At the end of the day, we all came away with quite a bit of food.  Ejdo brought home 6 pork chops, 4 pork steaks, a side of bacon that we are going to cure (I'm sure this will be a post later), ribs, loin pieces, a baggie of škvarky, a jar of sádlo, a jowl, and I believe 10 jitrnice.  My mother in law later made head cheese with an aspic she created from the hooves and bones and some of the meat that fell off the head while it was boiling.  The consistency is a little off putting, and I'll admit I'm not going to run out and eat more, but if I was hungry it would do.

We've already eaten all the škvarky, and had four of the pork chops last night for dinner.  They were small, but tasted amazing.  Simple marinade of lemon juice, olive oil, garlic, and a tuscan seasoning blend from Costco, combined with a few minutes on the grill and you've got a fantastic tasting piece of meat. 

The day was a complete success and the freezers are a little more full now.  More importantly, we in the younger generation learned how to make these traditional Czech items and will be able to carry the torch for a little longer.  Some things should never die, especially not anything that tastes this good.

An afternoon in the woods

More pictures of the trip to Blacksburg will soon follow, but while I'm working on those I'll share a few shots from my afternoon in the woods last week. 

I'm still searching for the other half of the shed antlers from the huge buck.  While wandering, I visited our beaver pond, which is the new winter residence of four Canadian geese.  They weren't too happy to see me, but were fairly photogenic. 

In the same general area I found a few turtle shells.  One was just from a small box turtle, but the other was a fairly large snapping turtle.  I bet when he was alive, this was a 30-40 lb turtle.  Pretty impressive.

Finally I capped off my day by getting some shots of a bald eagle and a robin that looked sad and ignored.  Its gotta be tough to be a common bird.  No one gives you any love.

Hopefully I'm able to find that shed soon, but until then I'll certainly enjoy my walks in the woods.