Spaghetti Night in Prague

I cooked yesterday. You say what? I can hear it from across the oceans .. yes yes, dear community of culinary experts, I cooked, in a foreign country no less.

Going shopping, grocery shopping in specific, involves a heavy does of daring in Prague. Not because the food is that far out of my range of recognition (I am German, and its close enough), but I can't READ Czech. Since being here I bought cottage cheese for my coffee instead of half and half, I purchased powdered sugar when I needed regular cane sugar and lets not even talk about cow milk vs. goat milk.

Being that I cannot read the labels most days, I go by feel, and yes, by picture association. If it's not clear, I look at the label to see if I can recognize any words at all that would hint at the mystery inside, such as milk/mléko, chocolate/čokoláda, pepper/pepř, you get the drift. Of course, this "feel and tell" is a 50/50 shot as you can see from the above, but yesterday I decided I wanted Spaghetti.

I hopped on the Prague Metro, and upon arriving at the Andel Mall, the spaghetti were easy to recognize at one of the local grocery stores called Tesco. Pasta in a long clear package. The word "špagety" was sort of a give away, but lets not assume anything right? 'Looks' people, gotta go by 'looks' *smile*. Next I needed a sauce.

I usually make my own but here I have no clue how to get the ingredients yet without winding up with fire breathing out my nose because I used chili powder in my sauce, so I was looking for a base to start with. I saw tomatos/rajčata (yes, they look the same here in the produce section), a glass jar that said Bolognese (I know that somehow this is meaty tomato something) and all I needed was some oregano (sůl and pepř I have), some fresh garlic/česnek (also easy to spot) and I was set. I grabbed some green salad on the way out and what looked like a 'frenchy looking dressing', some fresh baguette readily available in the bakery section, and off I skipped to my apartment, yodeling Venice tunes.

I arrived at the apartment to wiggling tails and wet tongues (oh how I love them dogs of mine) and dashed to the kitchen to create magic. Thankfully I had no mishaps for once, winded up cooking way too much, still, I have to say, I am proud of myself. I was able to produce a spaghetti dinner in Prague, one close enough to pass as a spaghetti dinner in the US. Bon Appetite!

Angelika Courtois