Knife Shoppe

Hi ya’all. I haven’t been very active here lately because I had some work to do. Including that after months and months of heavy procrastination, I have finally purchased web hosting and a domain and started a small webpage for my knives.

www.kb-noze.cz

Constructive criticism is welcome.

The webshop interface does not allow me to display prices in other currencies than Czech Crowns (yet), but I do hope that anyone can convert it to USD or € or whatever should they need to. I will gladly sell anywhere in the world as long as it is financially feasible for both me and the customer, but selling outside of the Czech Republic must be done through individual arrangements and cannot be done simply via the webshop interface (not yet). The reasons are simple – additional currencies and shipping outside CZ are both available for an extra charge and I am not ready to dish out more money than is strictly necessary. Not yet, anyway.

I am thinking about adding a knife-making blog there, but I am somewhat discouraged by the amount of work that it would entail.

I will leave this post pinned to the top of the page for some time.

The Greater Gardening of 2026 – Part 53 – Total Tomatoes

This year, the tomatoes were not particularly successful. As I mentioned, I made some kind of unknown mistake early on, and all the seedlings were rather tiny and sickly when I was planting them out. Most of them caught up somewhat, but then the weather was way too hot, and they stopped growing again. And I sacrificed some tomato-growing space for the loofahs (which were a success) and for bell peppers (which failed completely). And when it stopped being too hot for the tomatoes to grow, it very quickly became too cold. So I had to deal with a lot of green tomatoes, again.

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I wrote about three methods of doing this last year, but I only demonstrated the dig-out one. I used that this year for some of the plants that were outside again, and I did manage to save about 8 kg of tomatoes this way. Almost all of the green fruit you see in the picture ripened in the end, and only a handful spoiled and had to be thrown away.

However, I tried new trellises this year, and I couldn’t dig out those plants. They were intertwined with the trellises. So, I used the second method: I cut the whole clusters, and I hung them in the greenhouse.

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That was almost a month ago, when the weather was still somewhat sunny and warm during the day in the greenhouse, but cold-ish at night. That way, the fruits continued to photosynthesize, without drying too quickly.  Last week the temperatures plummeted, so I took them indoors.

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I already harvested and ate some, but as you can see, quite a lot are still ripening. At a rough guess, at least 3/4 of that initially green mess has become edible in due time.

Overall, I got over 20 kg of tomatoes, so we are stocked up on tomato concentrate for another year. And we still got some canned sauce from last year. So not a roaring success, but not a failure either.

Youtube Video: Eleanor Janega Explains The Medieval Hussite Wars

Teh Al Gory Rhythm recommended this video to me, and I listened to it whilst heating the house:

I am not a historian, but from what I remember from elementary school, this is a pretty good summation of that particular part of Czech history. So if you are interested in that, I recommend listening to this too.

Unfortunately, Eleanor’s pronunciation of Czech people’s and places’ names is a mixed bag. That is not her fault – it is very, very rare for a foreigner to get this right; our language is really difficult, especially for Anglophones. Although I do find some of it a bit baffling, tbh.¹

One example of bad pronunciation: Tábor. She pronounced the “á” as “a” in “baker”, whereas it should be pronounced in every word more akin to how it sounds in “father”. I had real trouble finding an English word that has this sound. “Á” differs from “A”, which is always pronounced as in “gap”.

On the other hand, she pronounced “Žižka” correctly, which I would expect to be more difficult for an English speaker since English doesn’t have “Ž”. Go figure.

¹ I find it a bit baffling that Anglophones, when learning Czech, insist on trying to guess the pronunciation of each unfamiliar word based on how they would instinctively pronounce it if it were an English word, given that English does not have any rules for pronunciation/transliteration whatsoever.² For example, “oo” in English sounds differently in: flood, floor, moon. In Czech, in an absolute majority of instances, each letter in the word is pronounced, and it is pronounced always exactly the same. The three aforementioned English words would be transcribed as: flad, flór, můn. Yet every Anglophone whom I have ever met struggles with learning these strict and easy pronunciation rules and insists on guessing as if English had rules (it doesn’t).
There are, of course, exceptions and difficult grammatical problems, but silent letters and similar nonsense are very rare, and cases of the same letter/letter combinations being pronounced differently in different words are almost nonexistent. At least I cannot remember any from the top of my head.

² One rule for pronunciation is to pronounce short Czech names for each letter quickly after one another, and in 99,9% cases the word emerges. We teach little children to read this way. And boy, are Czechs caught off guard when learning to read English after that.

Equal Part Unpleasant and Important

I remember Caine every day when I log into the blog, but today I was reminded of her even more strongly. Because, as a present for my fiftieth birthday in the summer, my health insurer gave me a free preventative colonoscopy.

I was not particularly worried about colon cancer, since I live a healthier lifestyle than most: I do not smoke, I do not drink alcohol,  I eat a lot of fiber and very little processed food, and we do not have a cancer history in our family. But I do have an autoimmune disease, so I know my own body can turn against itself. And, of course, the memory of Caine’s cancer struggles will always be with me. So I decided to take the offer, make an appointment, and undergo the procedure. The appointment was today.

The procedure itself was unpleasant, but it was not the worst. The worst were the three days prior. I am one of those people who can shed weight much more easily than gain it, and who has had no trouble fitting into the same size jeans for decades. My BMI is 21, and my WHtR is 0.48, so I have almost no fat reserves for my body to draw on. And having to essentially starve myself for three days was pure agony. At least the first two days I could eat pasta boiled in filtered broth, but the day before the procedure, I could only ingest liquids. And then there was the mix of laxative salts, which tasted something awful and caused me dehydration.

The morning before the procedure, my hands started to shake from hypoglycaemia, and I had to drink half a bottle of Fanta to stave that off. I read the prep instructions multiple times to make sure I was allowed to do this, but I was still a bit worried it might be a problem. Luckily, it wasn’t.

I am happy to say that I got better results than Donald Trump on his dementia test – my preparation was very good, and my guts are perfectly healthy. And I won’t need to undergo the procedure for ten years. I spent the rest of the day eating and resting, because I was tired as if I had been working hard, since my body was forced to burn reserves it didn’t have.

If your physician recommends that you get the procedure, I urge you to do so. Colon cancer has decent chances of survival if caught early. And fuck cancer.

The Greater Gardening of 2026 – Part 53 – Germinating Grains

I started slowly peeling the grains off the cobs of my corn harvest. From the small or otherwise inferior ears, it goes directly into a beaker marked “Food”, but the rest is being sorted by color into different beakers. Yes, I could not resist the compulsion to sort the seeds by color. So far, I have these:

white, yellow, orange, blood red, bright red, pink, brown, light lilac, dark lilac, grey, black(dark grey)

There is also one ear with some green and blue seeds. Really. Unfortunately, the colors are a bit wonky and it is only a few grains, so these colors will be rare.

And then there is a separate beaker with an assortment of seeds that have either pastel colors or do not have a uniform color (marbled).

I did not know that corn can come in so many diverse colors, and I am both thrilled by it and disappointed by the lack of proper greens and blues.

After I am done, I will sort the biggest seeds of each color into tiny transparent bags and store them in a jar in my dark cellar. The plan is to sow the same amount of each color to get the widest possible color spread the next year.

But before I started all this, I took two seeds from each ear I estimated as ripe, and I put them to a germination test.

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I tested 48 seeds overall, and 35 germinated within a few days. That is 73% germination rate, which is about the same that the bought seed had this year. I was hoping for a higher rate, but I can work with this. I plan to sow the seeds in pairs spaced about a palm-width apart, and when they emerge, pull and discard the second one. With this germination rate, that should ensure that in most spots (over 80%) at least one should germinate, thus minimizing empty places, as well as selecting for a fast germination trait. The downside is, of course, that I need to put aside twice as many seeds as I intend to sow. However, since I intend to sow them at the right time next year, not a month late, I should get even better results for the following season.

 

I Am Not a Transphobe, But…

… I do sometimes kinda wonder, why not? As in, what are the reasons for me not being a transphobe? After all, as a lone loser, cisgender, heterosexual white man, I do belong to the demographic that appears to disproportionately soak up and represent most of the existing bigotries today, as well as in the past. With the added “bonus” that my life was, in a way, actually negatively impacted by a trans person. And I do know people with almost the exact same education and intelligence as mine, who probably are transphobic, at least a bit.

This will be a bit of a personal musing. I don’t think there will be anything triggering, but to someone, it might be, so be advised.

I first learned about the existence of trans people sometime before 1989, still behind the Iron Curtain. As a curious child and a voracious reader, I often read my parents’ magazines for adults behind their back (not to be confused with adult magazines; those didn’t exist), which discussed concepts and events not generally considered suitable for children. In one of these magazines, I read a column about a man in Sweden whose wife told him after a few years of marriage, “I think you are mentally a woman”. And after consultations with medical experts, he did undergo a sex-change operation and changed his official gender to female. (Note: the word “gender” does not have a Czech equivalent for personal identity; the word “pohlaví” covers both sex and gender. Currently, Czech appears to be in the process of acquiring the word “gender,” and it might take time for the vocabulary to settle.)

To be honest, I didn’t think about it that much at that time. Not more than the many other cool things that I read about. I filed it under “interesting,” and that was it.

In high school, the topic didn’t come up at all. At least I do not remember it. The biology class was milquetoast boring and simplistic when it came to teaching about sex determination: XY=male, XX=female in mammals, plus some differences in other animal clades.  If there were any queer or non-binary people in my class, I never learned about it.

But a few years later, a girl from the high school class below ours transitioned to male. And again, when I learned about it, I didn’t think about it much – I was already studying biology at university, where I learned about the many complications that don’t conform to the binary view of sex determination and development. However, it is a sad fact that at least one person who learned those very same things in the very same class did express somewhat transphobic views to me a few years back.

And it was at the university too, where I actually came to know two trans people a bit more closely.

One presented initially as a man whom I strongly disliked for his absolutely disgusting hygiene habits, or, to be more precise, for his complete lack of any hygiene habits whatsoever. After she started transitioning to female, she became visibly happier and more comfortable with her new identity, but alas, she still didn’t develop proper hygiene habits during the time we interacted, although she learned how to apply makeup properly. That way, I learned that trans people are not special. They can still be smelly slobs, just like cis people. I have no idea what happened to this person; we haven’t interacted since.

The communal bathrooms and showers in the student dormitories were single-occupancy and therefore gender-neutral. So after she started to transition, she was simply moved from a room shared with two other people to a single-person room, and that had that issue sorted. We gossiped a bit, but nobody made a big issue out of it. I do not remember anyone getting out of their way to misgender her, or being mean, or insisting that she can’t be a woman. It was seen as curious, interesting, peculiar, extraordinary, but not worth being upset about or dwelling on. AFAIK, girls accepted her as one of them.

The second trans person I met at the university presented initially as a woman in whom I had romantic interest. I won’t go into the details; it didn’t go anywhere, obviously. The interesting thing about their transition is that they were treated as “he” by a lot of men long before they themselves actually thought of themselves that way. I did have a few heated interactions with people whom I have perceived as misgendering someone I liked, and I let my disdain known. Fast forward a few years, we went for a drink together, and I had the privilege of being one of the first people outside of immediate family to learn about their upcoming “official” transition to male.

I do remember that conversation well. I did say things that were perhaps a bit ill-informed from my perspective today, but I didn’t say anything mean or unsupportive. I accepted the new reality; I didn’t show how internally upset I am, I wished him well, I told him that his new identity is real, and that was it. We share a circle of friends; we meet about once a year, and we still consider each other friends. He is a divorced single dad now, and is accepted as a man by everyone whom I know.

This is the point where I was personally impacted – I was confused, torn, and heartbroken again. But all that was aimed inwards – I examined my feelings, my orientation, my person. I quickly found out that having once been attracted to a short-haired athletic woman who turned out to be a trans man does not make me gay, or even bi. I never did and still don’t find men sexually attractive. I still like athletic women with short hair, but truth be told, I don’t have an actual type – I was given the push by a wide variety of women.

This is the point where I might have turned a transphobe. If all that confusion and heartbreak turned outward, into anger and denial, it could solidify into bigotry and hate. But it didn’t. I am not complaining, but I do sometimes wonder why not. And why is it that so many people are vitriolically, even violently, transphobic, despite never actually interacting with a trans person in real life, ever? I feel like I am missing some insight here.

 

The Greater Gardening of 2026 – Part 52 – Asessing Arable Area Again

My father painted some wooden stakes red for me at the end of the summer so I can mark the edges of my various growing patches for better visibility. And I also used them to measure out how much arable area I have at the end of this season, to note the progress against last year.

Let’s look at it from my windows.

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I expanded the patch where I grew oats this year. Next year, I will grow green peas and pole beans here. The patch with blueberries and strawberries is left the same as it was, but I completely flattened the raised strawberry patch – it was too much work, and it did not work particularly well. I will plant the flattened area with strawberries in the spring, and I expect it to both perform better and be easier to maintain.

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My legacy patch was not particularly productive this year – all the pumpkins died, the beans rotted in the ground, and the sweet corn was pathetic. I am letting it fallow over the winter. I will plough it in the spring, fertilize it, and I will probably grow a few rows of potatoes and some corn or beans or both.

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The biggest continuous patch was sown with peas and alfalfa this year, and I have sown it with wheat. It started to grow last week. If it turns out that one or both of the wheats were not a winter variety, I can sow it again in the spring. The strip on the left that is covered with fresh compost will be tilled in the spring, and I will grow butternut squash on trellises there.

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The patch where soybeans failed this year was tilled in the fall, but not fertilized. I will fertilize it in the early spring and sow it with oats.

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My second biggest continuous patch is where I grew potatoes this year and where bush beans failed. It is partially hidden behind the bushes in this picture. To the left of the bushes is the patch where I grew the Painted Mountain corn this year.

On the bigger patch, I plan to grow corn and yellow peas. On the smaller patch, I will probably try soybeans once more, this time with my own seed.

And in addition to this, I have the three raised beds and some large-ish patches near my greenhouses that cannot be photographed from my window and that I am too lazy to photograph outside. It is not necessary; you get the picture. In the raised beds, I will grow onions, soybeans, and carrots. Around the large greenhouse, I will grow runner beans and pole beans. I will also try to put outdoor shelter for tomatoes somewhere in all of this; I have not decided where yet.

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No big trees were destroyed in the coppice in the last two winters, so this year, it is covered with growth. I will probably harvest all of it this year.

So, how much does all that add up to?

The various vegetable patches are about 400 m² in total. That is double what I had last year. I will add about 60 m2 of temporary growing patches for potatoes in the Ruth-Stout method too. But after the potatoes kill the grass, I will sow those areas with alfalfa, clover, and other legumes, because they will need to be either walked on or driven over from time to time and cannot be converted into permanent food-growing areas.

I think that 460 m2 is quite a respectable growing area for one person to manage. Which is why most of it will be used for various grains, legumes, and potatoes, because those are low-maintenance crops.

The coppice is (from memory) about 500 m2. Now that it is established, it should hopefully provide me with about 10% of my heating wood needs per year on average.

And that is all, and I actually think that this is maxing out the use that I can get from my piece of land. I will still have some grass to mow, but it won’t be that much, and it will be mostly to manage walking paths, not to manicure a useless lawn. And where I do not need to walk or grow food, I intend to encourage legume-rich flowering meadows, not a lawn. That way, bees should get a lot to feed on, and when I mow it, I should get nitrogen-rich compost. We shall see next year how all these plans turn out. Right now, I am doing repair and maintenance works mostly, before the winter comes.

The Greater Gardening of 2026 – Part 51 – Colorful Corn

The Painted Mountain corn produced some good-sized ears, despite being sown a month late. And some of those ears did start to dry out on the stalk outdoors. Not all of them, though. Nevertheless, when the first morning frost came last week and the plants died, I harvested them and brought them indoors to dry out and, hopefully, ripen.

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I hung them on the clothes drying rack and blew room-temperature air on them during the day. As the husks dried, I slowly peeled them away. When they were all dry, I ripped them off.

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They are beautiful indeed, although the pollination was a bit patchy. Which is to be expected – I planted about 60 seeds, but only about 40 germinated and grew to full size. So the growth wasn’t large or compact enough for proper pollination. And the late sowing was a problem as well, of course.

I will now wait until they are completely dry. Then I will strip the seeds from the cobs and test germination. I have zero experience growing corn for seed, so I don’t know whether anything I have done so far is good or bad for the seeds’ viability. Still, at least ten big ears were almost fully pollinated and already drying out when I harvested them, so I am hopeful that those seeds will be viable.

If they are viable, I would consider this a success, because I need “only” about 700 seeds for next year to sow a large area I already prepared for them. And 700 seeds would be rather expensive to buy – they cost 5€ per packet of 100 seeds. Plus, if these are viable despite very late sowing and very early harvest, it would mean they are now selected for a short vegetation period, which is exactly what I need. We shall see. I will, of course, let you know.

The Greater Gardening of 2026 – Part 50 – Ridiculous Roots

This was a first year of growing carrots in my newly established raised beds, which I filled with soil that was specifically targeted towards root vegetables – sandy, with zero stones. When I pulled all the roots, I filled the wheelbarrow completely, just like last year.

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That does not look so bad, does it? Well, I was not disappointed, but I was not thrilled either. There was no rodent damage; in that regard, the raised beds did exactly what was expected of them.

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But nearly all the roots are multifurcated, some in quite humorous ways that will be bugger all to process. Many roots have some slug damage, especially above ground. And some roots are split lengthwise – probably a result of a combination of heat stress and drought. The raised beds were in partial shade, but since the soil is deliberately sandy, I had a bit of trouble keeping the carrots suitably watered during the heatwaves.

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I didn’t get the behemoths that I had last year, but most of the roots are still of respectable size. Just the funny shapes will be difficult to process.

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With 11 kg overall harvest from this one raised bed, I cannot really complain. Really the only issue I have is the funny shapes, which, again, will be bugger to process.

For now, they are in a covered bucket outside where it is cold. At the nearest opportunity, they will be processed, i.e., dehydrated. In combination with butternut squash, we should be set with beta-carotene for a year.

 

Czech Word to Consider: “Slibotechna”

Czech language readily borrows, steals, modifies, and combines words from all around the world to create new words for itself. Slibotechna is one of those. It probably was created sometime between 1900 and 1980, and it has remained in the vocabulary ever since.

How can I be so sure about the timeline? Because the suffix “techna” is a derivative of the word “technologie”. And it was used since the start of the 20th century as a suffix for naming companies, where the prefix hinted somewhat at what the company makes. Like “Elektrotechna” (manufacturer of radios and similar) or “Mototechna” (manufacturer of cars and motorcycles). It was especially used in the 50s for naming newly established state monopolies.

And during that time, some smartass added the prefix “slibo” to this widely used suffix. “slibo” is a derivative of the word “slib”, which means “promise”. Thus, a new word was created for someone who constantly overpromises and underdelivers, or, even worse, just promises and never delivers.

Does English have a similar word? I think there is a need for one. I was reminded of the Czech one recently with Trump’s third promise of thousands-of-dollars cheques for US citizens.

The Greater Gardening of 2026 – Part 49 – Sure Slight Soybean Success!

I dried, shelled, and weighed all the soybeans that I harvested.

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Not a particularly good result; I harvested 30% of what I had sown. So, from that point of view, it is a failure. However, the bought seed had an abysmal germination rate; most of it has rotted in the ground (over 95%). So I took 20 of these seeds – 10 of the biggest and 10 of the really small and still slightly green – and I put them on a wet towel to test the germination rate.

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This morning, 19 out of 20 germinated. The last one germinated in the evening too. So I am at the very least hopeful that I managed to grow reliable seed for the next year. However, I will probably do things differently next year. I won’t sow a big dedicated soybean patch; I will sow it around the edges of all the grain patches that I will be growing. And at least for some of them, I won’t sow them directly in the ground – I will try to first grow small plants in pots and then carefully transplant them, just as I usually do with runner beans, bush beans, and pole beans. If all that fails again and I get less than I have sown, then I will at least know I cannot grow this crop at all.

The Greater Gardening of 2026 – Part 48 – Winter Wheat

In a way, this article could count towards next year’s gardening. I have sown wheat on the biggest continuous patch that I have.

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The upper half is sown with spelt, the lower half with durum wheat. Why these two species? Because they are significantly more expensive than ordinary wheat.

I am not 100% sure both are winter varieties; I assume they are, because for both species the winter variety is the rule and the spring variety is the exception. If none survive the winter, they will still serve as cover crops, and I can always sow/plant something else in their stead in the spring.

But growing wheat on this large-ish scale poses a problem, one I also encountered with the naked oats (which I plan to grow next year too) – how to separate the grain from the chaff. I will still have too little to thresh with a flail on the ground, so I wanted to build a bucket with a DIY drill attachment for threshing small amounts. I tested a functional idea with the oats already, and I was all set to build it over winter. However, that might not be necessary anymore, for I had a stroke of luck!

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This is a grain shredder. My father exchanged it for something when I was a kid with an acquaintance at work, who was moving away and therefore did not need it anymore. Then, another neighbor borrowed it to shred grains for cows and chickens, in exchange for allowing my father to mow grass for his rabbits on part of his meadow. And then we all kinda forgot about it.

The neighbor is retired now, and he no longer has either cattle or poultry. And his wife put her foot down – unneeded junk must out, and the grain shredder should be either tossed or returned. We met at the doctor’s when my mother went for her flu shot, and he broached the subject – do I want the shredder back, or should he toss it?

My mind immediately went to using it to thresh the grains I plan to grow next year, and I said I’d gladly take it back.

© Charly, all rights reserved. Click for full size.

The machine is very old. The motor has Azbuka inscriptions, so it might have been built in the USSR. It was certainly built during the time of the Iron Curtain, because we got it during that regime. It possesses a truly mighty induction motor for a domestic utensil. And it also was in possession of a no-longer-used type of wall plug. I had to change it for a modern version (I also added the wheels when I was at it).

The rewiring, although simple in principle, was not painless. The machine was tripping the breaker, so I was suspecting I wired the plug wrongly. Luckily, an old friend was willing to assist me via WhatsApp, and he confirmed that I did wire the machine correctly, so maybe it was tripping the breaker for one of two reasons: 1 – the startup current was too high, or 2 – the residual current was too high due to the machine being too old. I despaired, but since I was assured the wiring was OK, I tried to plug the machine into the Variable Frequency Drive I use to regulate the speed on my belt grinder.

And to my joy, the machine worked. The VFD starts the motor slowly, the machine no longer trips the breaker, and I can regulate the speed from 5% all the way to 100%. I hope it keeps working for some time.

© Charly, all rights reserved. Click for full size.

The principle is simple: inside the drum are two sets of blades: two rotate with the edge, two with the flat, and an outlet is covered with a sieve. Since I can regulate the speed, I can stir the grains relatively gently, as well as bash them to the point of breaking if I want to. For threshing, I will probably remove the sieve completely. And if I somehow manage to grow a lot of grain, I can use a fine sieve to make whole-grain flour too.

This was truly a stroke of luck that does not happen often. I am glad I have honest neighbors.

Cookin’ Potatoes

Bruce requested some recipes, so here they are. First, though, a note:

In Czechia, we commonly have at the very least three types of flour: fine, medium, and coarse. AFAIK, this is not the case in most western countries, including the USA and Canada, where usually the only flour available is the “fine” type. If you try to make these foods with fine flour, it might work, but the results will probably have a slightly different consistency and may require some changes.

Here go the recipes.

Savory potato pancakes

500 g of cooked crushed potatoes
2 cups of medium flour
1 teaspoon of salt
2 spoons of cooking oil

Mix the ingredients into a malleable dough, adding either flour or potatoes for the desired consistency. Roll the dough into a 3 mm thick flat and cut pancakes of the desired shape(s) and size(s). We usually use either a round cookie cutter or we simply cut it into squares with a rolling waved-edge cookie cutter. The pancakes can be either fried in a thin layer of oil or lard (lard is IMO the tastier option), or on a dry non-stick pan and subsequently brushed with oil/butter or another fat of preference.

For added taste, it is possible to add fine-diced ham or tofu directly into the dough.

The pancakes are usually eaten either alone or with salami, sausage, or hot dog, or baked meat of any kind, or with cheese of preference.

Bramborák

This is a different type of savory potato pancake. To my knowledge, a traditional Czech dish.

500 g of raw potatoes
2 dcl of milk
2 teaspoons of salt
2 teaspoons of marjoram (or more, or less, according to taste; oregano and basil are suitable substitutes)
8 garlic cloves
2 cups of medium flour
3 spoons of cooking oil

The potatoes need to be either grated on a fine grater or shredded in a food processor/mixer, then mixed with milk, salt, and crushed garlic. Then slowly and thoroughly mix in the flour and oil to make a thin smoothie-like batter. Try to fry a piece, and if the dough is too runny, add flour; if it is too thick, add milk.

For best results, these pancakes are to be fried in lard. Simply scoop the runny dough with a small ladle and pour it onto a hot frying pan. Once the edges turn golden-brown, flip them and fry the other side.

They are usually eaten with a potato-mushroom soup, turning the soup into a full meal and not just a first course. Like the previous kind, they can also be eaten with baked meats, or cold salami or cheese.

The thin dough can also be poured into a baking tray and baked in the oven into a savoury cake. As a kid, I liked this cake baked with whole hot dogs and quarters of sour apples floating on the surface. It does sound strange, but it works.

Savory potato dumplings

AFAIK, this is also traditional Czech food.

1 kg potatoes
2 eggs
1 teaspoon salt
1 spoon of milk
3 spoons of potato starch or flour
3 spoons of fine semolina
400 g of coarse flour

The potatoes need to be cooked at least a day prior, left to sit overnight in the fridge, and then crushed/grated/mashed. Mix the eggs with milk and salt, and pour into the pile of crushed potatoes mixed with the starch, semolina, and flour. Work thoroughly into a somewhat homogeneous dough (there will always be pieces of potato here and there).

Form the dough into dumplings, cylinders approximately 5 cm in diameter and  10-15 cm long. Cook the dumplings submerged in salty boiling water for circa 20 minutes. After they are scooped out of the water, they should be immediately cut into 1-1,5 cm slices. The best way to cut hot dumplings is with dental floss or another type of strong, thin, flexible thread. To cut the dumpling, the thread is scooped under it to the desired position, then crossed over it and firmly pulled – that results in a clean, straight cut.

These dumplings are most commonly eaten as a side dish with baked meats or poultry, together with either sauerkraut or pickled/steamed/cooked/baked vegetables. My favourite combination is with baked duck and spinach. Sometimes these dumplings are made with a hot dog rolled into the cylinder.

If desired, for the dumplings to absorb fat more readily when eaten with particularly greasy meats, white bread cut into small cubes can be added to the dough.

Fruit potato dumplings

The only sweet dish in this round.

250 g of soft cottage cheese
250 g of crushed boiled potatoes
250 g of medium flour
2 spoons of fine semolina
2 eggs
5 spoons of cooking oil
a pinch of salt
a pinch of baking powder

Whisk the cottage cheese with eggs, oil, salt, and baking powder. Then add flour and semolina while continuing to whisk. At last, add the potatoes until a malleable dough is created.

To create the dumplings, a piece of fruit about the size of a plum should be wrapped in a few mm of dough to make a ball. Usually used fruits are: plums, apricots, peaches, apples, cherries, strawberries, blueberries. You can also use jam or marmalade instead of whole fruit.

Formed dumplings are either cooked for 8 min in salty water or for 15 min in steam. When using water, take extra care to make the dumplings watertight so the fruit or jam doesn’t spill out.

These dumplings are usually eaten as a standalone dish, sprinkled with sweet cocoa powder, powdered sugar, grated hard cottage cheese, and melted butter.

That’s the batch of recipes for now; have fun if you try them.

In all of these recipes, a part of the potatoes can be substituted with pumpkins, squash, or zucchini.

The Greater Gardening of 2026 – Part 47 – Acceptable Agrie

I wanted the title to be “Amazing Agrie”, but alas, the variety fell just short of my standard for that.

© Charly, all rights reserved. Click for full size.

Some plants were still green, but I decided to harvest them all anyways to curtail  the ongoing pest damage. There was less of it than in other varieties, but it was still substantial, and even some tubers in storage have some wireworm holes that I hope won’t lead to too much spoilage before we manage to process them.

As far as tuber size goes, the variety performed extremely well. I did put aside 100 pieces of circa 50 g tubers as eventual seed for next year, but I had trouble finding enough such tubers – most were significantly bigger.  But all show signs of drought stress – some are split, some are bumpy and knobbly, and all are warty and crusty. All these three issues are due to heat and drought. Still, I did get a lot of very big tubers over 500 g, and several over 750 g.

© Charly, all rights reserved. Click for full size.

And the record holder for this year is a tuber mere 20 g shy of a full kilogram. Impressive indeed.

Judging by this variety alone, my intelligence must be abysmal, since the old Czech saying goes, “The dumber the peasant, the bigger the potatoes.” But I personally think that saying is more an expression of folk envy than of folk wisdom.

So why do I not consider them amazing? The overall harvest was just about 80 kg, circa 4 kg per m², so not much more than the other varieties.

As far as cooking goes, all four varieties that I grew this year are extremely tasty in all uses, and all are very well suited for potato pancakes, bramborák, and Czech potato dumplings.

I will write about dehydrating them in a separate post.