Fascinating Font Caricatures

In desperate attempts to further procrastinate and push off writing a midterm essay, I came across these amazing font caricatures.  It took me a minute or looking before I made out that they were entirely made of font characters.  I wonder what fonts they used exactly, I'm not sure whether it is the font itself or the placement that makes it look so flowing and natural, almost like a Al Hirschfeld sketch.  The most intriguing aspect of these figures are the small details like the buttons, the shoes, and the hair, the fact that they could make the hair seem so natural and curly is what really impresses me.

Cool Czech Jobs

One of the coolest jobs to have in the Czech Republic would be a tow truck/crane game operator.  In Prague if your meter runs out then they call in the crane game.  They attach a boot to each wheel and then they lift it straight up out of the spot.  They have a whole bunch of levers that control different functions.  Once over the flatbed, they spin the car around until it faces forward and then lower it down onto the truck.  These operators must be amazing at carnival crane games.

Kofola (A Post on the Epic Soda Quest Front)

I thought that Kofola was just a generic Czech brand cola so I have not tried it yet, I was very wrong!  Its got a crazy complex flavor.  It has accents of cola, but seems more to be a herb infused soda.  At first there is a strong citrus burst.  This intense citrus explosion caramelizes into a slightly sour (but very pleasant) licorice flavor.  At this point there is a creamy fade out of flavor while hints of cumin, cinnamon (the combination of these last two remind me of a dark, incense infused tea shop), and sour apple surge to a crisp finish.  One of the best features of this soda is that you can taste the seltzer, meaning that it is not overly sweet or syrupy.  Great advances were made today on the Epic Soda Quest!

Autumn Festival

About two weeks ago there was an Autumn Festival down at the local square.  It was nice and quaint, there were lots of little stands that had local goods and food.  The main attraction were the stands above, burchak stands.  Burchak is young wine, it is made from young grapes and is the primary step in the wine making process so it is sweet and a bit bubbly.

There were candle stands.

Lots of homemade scarfs and sweaters.

Here are chimney cakes.  its dough wrapped onto a metal tube and then rolled through cinnamon sugar, or cinnamon and nuts. then coated with some butter and rolled over a fire to bake.  They are delicious and are starting to show up in NYC at street fairs.

This is a Honey Wine stand.  They served it hot and cold,  the hot honey wine was great on a cold day.

I have no idea what this was but it looked traditional.  First they made fresh, what seemed to be Czech tortillas.  They then spread a herb butter on and added lots of different herbs spices and spreads.  The smell was amazing.

I opted for some Czech kielbasa.  One of the local wineries had a huge wood burning grill that smelled like the perfect winter fire, it gave the kielbasa a great double smoked flavor.

Out of know where came a traditional Czech band and flag throwers.  The had traditional czech costumes too.  The flags were spun around their bodies and then they soared about fifty feet up into the air.  Czech festivals are fun!

Puppets

There is a authentic, old looking marionette shop in Lesser town that has these moving puppet contraptions.  I don't think that they work anymore, but I think that you put a euro in and a little scene plays out, just like in the first Shrek!

St. Stephen's Cathedral

While in Vienna, in between a few museums, I went to check out the main cathedral in Vienna, St. Stephen's.  It has a massive gothic spire tower that is one of the most ornate and decorated that I have ever seen.

The roof itself, I think is pretty ugly, but it is impressive that it is tiled in a way that creates a giant mosaic.

Check out the vaulting of the roof, as well as the columns running through the cathedral.

The stained glass was nothing compared to St. Vitus, or any other cathedral I have seen.

Each of the columns had ornate stories and figures that were sculpted onto the column itself.

Some of the chapels were in the center of the cathedral instead of off to the sides.

The organ, was one of the more impressive features of the cathedral, this was only the center piece, there are one on each side of this centerpiece.

One of the columns toward the back of the cathedral had a stone staircase which led up to a stone pulpit.  We even took a tour of the catacombs.  They had rooms full of bones and a huge pit of plague victim bones.  Since Vienna was the capital of the Hapsburg empire, there was a room full of Hapsburg bodies, and another room full of Hapsburg organs in jars., these jars were many times sent all over europe so that different countries can say that they have some parts of the Hapsburgs.

Rosh Hashanah Dinner and Latkas

I decided it was necessary to make a homemade meal for Rosh Hashanah, because its not quite the same without.  Above and below you can see the vegies.  A nice colorful mixture of onions, carrots and broccoli.  They were just sauteed with some olive oil and garlic.  Then there were the potatoes which were covered in garlic and a spice mix made primarily of cumin.  On the right is some of the main dish, honey/apricot/balsamic chicken (sweet for a new year).  The glaze caramelized really nicely and left the inside of the chicken nice and moist.

It's nice when vegies look and taste good!

Here was the dinner spread, in the two trays were my pride and joy, potato and noodle kugel.  I have never appreciated a food processor more then after making the potato kugel.  I had to wash all the potatoes, peel them with a knife (the kitchen didn't have a peeler), then grate them on the finest setting.  After the potatoes were grated I had to do the same to the onions.  Once those were mixed together with some flour and eggs I put it in the oven to bake.  The noodle kugel was made by mixing together cooked noodles with a mixture of butter, sugar, raisins, apples and eggs, and like the noodle kugel baked in the oven.  They came out perfect, its really nice to have comfort food while away!

Speaking of comfort food, today I decided to make latkas with the left over potatoes.  Grinding them up this time was an easier task since they were ground to bigger strips and the skins were left on.  The onions only had to be finely chopped too.  I added the flour and eggs (I'm starting to detect a pattern in Jewish cooking) and fried them up and salted them.  They got all crispy and browned and was an excellent finish to the week!