The Hungarian Girl » Interviews & Profiles

Interview with the Food Bloggers of Emperors Crumbs

The Hungarian Girl — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 00:34:01 +0000

Katy and Valerian who are the creators of the blog "Emperors Crumbs."

It’s always nice to see other blogs or websites that focus on Central and Eastern Europe in some way. That’s why I couldn’t resist doing this interview with Emperors Crumbs, who are an American family that lived in Slovakia and blogged about their cooking experiences there. Presently, they’re back in the USA but are still blogging about their interactions with food.

They’ve also kindly offered to share their recipe on Császármorzsa (Hungarian) or Kaiserschmarren (German), a caramelized pancake dessert. The dish is very common throughout Central Europe. In English, it’s often referred to as “emperors crumbs”, which ironically is the name of their blog.

You can find the recipe below the interview. Enjoy!

Can you tell us a bit about your blog?

We’re a husband and wife team, from Slovakia and California, respectively. Our blog features recipes from and inspired by Central European cuisine.

How did it get started?

Just over a year ago we made the decision to move from Slovakia to California with our two kids. We’ve always been enthusiastic cooks, trying to recreate our favourite dishes at home, and with home about to move 6,000 miles we didn’t want to lose track of the delicious things we’d been enjoying in Central Europe. Since we enjoy writing and photography, and we thought other people might enjoy trying to make langose or parene buchty, a blog seemed like a fun project.

Why did you decide to call it Emperors Crumbs?

Of course because we do love to eat császármorzsa! But also because this dish is enjoyed under various names in many of the countries of Central Europe and symbolizes the ways in which food links the whole region. There is so much intermingling of cultures and flavours in the area where we lived, and throughout the part of Europe that used to be the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Part of the fun of working on these recipes is seeing the different versions of family favourites and tracing them through time and across geographies.

Has living in Slovakia changed the way your family eats?

Well, living in a village of 2,000 people there wasn’t a lot of take-out around! We make most of what we eat, even now. Prepared foods weren’t widely available (although that’s changing) so if we had a craving for Chinese or Indian food we had to make it ourselves, sometimes improvising with the local ingredients we could find. Now we’re making Hungarian-style bread in California. We also learned to be much more intuitive about cooking; classic Central European dishes often aren’t prepared according to a written recipe, but are handed down through families and rely more on experience and instinct.

What does your family most enjoy about cooking?

You mean besides eating? We’ve both combated homesickness with cooking; the familiar sounds and smells of the kitchen are always comforting. When we were living in the Balkans with an unreliable power supply and just a few utensils on hand, we still managed to make versions of our childhood favourites for each other: chocolate chip cookies and bryndzové halušky.

Do you have a favourite dish?

Mine is coffee. Seriously, I am crazy about coffee and I roast, grind and taste my own. Yes I don’t drink coffee I taste coffee. While living in Slovakia I had a micro roasting company and we roasted coffee on a Probat coffee roaster from 1938. Yes I don’t drink coffee I taste coffee.

——————————————————————————————————————————————————

Emperors Crumbs Recipe

Makes 5-6 portions

Ingredients

2¼ cups/300 g semolina
3 cups/750 ml milk
2 tsp vanilla extract
5 eggs, separated
pinch salt
1½ cups/300 g sugar
1 lemon zest
1/4 cup/50 grams butter for sauteing
powdered sugar, compote or jam or all three as topping

Method

Mix together the semolina, flour and milk. Let it sit for an hour or so to let the semolina absorb the milk. Mix the egg yolks together with sugar and stir it into the milk mixture. Whip the egg whites and a pinch of salt into firm peaks and fold it into the milk/egg mixture. Melt the butter and add the batter. Stir the batter with a spatula or wooden spoon until it starts to form little clumps – crumbs. Depending on the size of the pan this can take up to 30 minutes. Serve hot with powdered sugar or with jam, or with compote or drizzle with some syrup.

Interview with Food Blogger – Julia Kolker

The Hungarian Girl — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 13:43:02 +0000

Russian borsch soup made with beetroot as the main ingredient.

Looking for a taste of Russian cuisine? Want to learn how to prepare borsch, blinchiki, or even tvorog (Russian farmer’s cheese)? Well, Julia Kolker shows her readers how on her personal food blog. It features a variety of Russian recipes as well as everyday cooking and baking.

Here’s a short interview with Julia Kolker about her blog, Yulinka Cooks.

Who are you?

I’m Julia, also known as “Yulinka” on my food blog, Yulinka Cooks (http://yulinkacooks.blogspot.com). Yulinka is a nickname version of my Russian name, Yuliya. I was born in St. Petersburg, Russia, and immigrated to Milwaukee, Wisconsin (U.S.) as a child.

Julia Kolker

What do you do?

When I’m not blogging, I do marketing writing/editing/PR.

Tell us about your blog – Yulinka Cooks?

I began reading food blogs in 2005, and got inspired to start my own. A Russian-themed blog seemed like a good choice because few blogs covered this kind of cooking at the time. I wanted to cook the foods I grew up eating and to explore the cuisines of the former Soviet republics. Anya von Bremzen’s cookbook Please to the Table, which covers foods from Estonia to Azerbaijan, gave me a lot of ideas. I follow my blog theme about 80% of the time, but I also cover everything from cooking techniques to travel.

What inspires you to cook and bake?

Cooking is my creative outlet, and I really like coming up with new dishes. When I get home from work, I want to play around in the kitchen. It’s relaxing. (I’m not a baker, however, and I stick to very simple fruit desserts like this apple charlotte.

What is your favorite food?

I can’t pick just one, of course, but I like soups, all kinds of dumplings and vegetables in all guises.

What is your favorite drink?

Hot tea! Black or green, always loose-leaf.

Interview with Executive Chef & Restaurateur Tom Kral

The Hungarian Girl — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 06:31:13 +0000

The Prague located in Toronto’s Queen West community has been serving authentic European cuisine for almost 40 years.

For almost 40 years, The Prague has been serving Toronto’s Queen West community with its authentic European cuisine. With specialities like schnitzel, goulash, dumplings, various sausages, soups, salads, and pastries, it has become the place for hearty home cooked meals. The eatery is now in the hands of the third generation of the Kral family. Here’s a featured interview with Executive Chef and Owner Tom Kral.

What inspires you to cook?

I have a passion for creating. Like artists, chefs use ingredients like paint to create their masterpiece. I’ve also always been kind of an extremist, and in the kitchen there can be a lot of pressure at times and you need to be speedy… you can say my days are never boring. I could never have a desk job, I was always good with my hands. There is a certain attraction that I have with food, it must be the idea that we are what we eat. I also like that food is social; it connects and brings people together.

Executive Chef & Restaurateur Tom Kral

What is your favorite thing about your job?

I love the variety in my day, it’s never boring. I do love to be in the kitchen but there are a many other responsibilities that I have which challenge me. Another big favourite is catering corporate/media events, it‘s amazing the people you meet through food. There are lot’s opportunities that I’ve had from catering’s and every event is different. You must adapt yourself into these situations.

What do you think is most important about your job?

To keep the quality high is very important. As soon as it slips just a bit you will soon find this will result in many other problems, almost like a domino effect.

Who are your most frequent customers?

This is a hard question, it’s whoever likes to eat and knows what good food is. Toronto is a multicultural city so we have multicultural customers, although Czech’s do frequent the restaurant too.

What do you see in your future?

I am a simple man. I do not need any extra responsibilities and I’m happy with what I have. There are many opportunities that I can have but it would really burn me out and would feel to loose quality on what I do now.

What expectations do you have of yourself?

Very high. I’m always pushing myself in different ways, learning new skills, thinking what needs to be fixed. The only problem is there isn’t enough hours in the day.

What’s your favourite dish?

Svickova. This is a medieval dish that takes some time to make, but it’s worth it. Basically it’s pickled beef, and it’s best to use the sirloin cut. First you prepare a brine infused with clove, lemon & peppercorns, bring this to a boil then submerge the beef into the liquid for a week. Second, remove the beef and sear in a large braising pan, then add a variety of root vegetables to brown. Place all ingredients into the oven with a lid until the meat is tender.
Third, remove the beef and pure the vegetables with the brine. Season with mustard, cream and a touch of sugar for balance. Fourth, slice the beef and serve with the sauce and dumplings, we call them knedlik in Czech. You can add a dollop of lingonberries and whipped cream on top for an extra touch.

What’s your favourite drink?

Beer! Since I am Czech this is a no brainer, although I do love my cocktails. An old friend of mine opened one of the finest cocktail bars in the world right here in Toronto called Barchef. My favourite there is the molecular absinth cocktail called Van Gogh’s Downfall. This concoction of absinth, orgeat, orange blossom water, lemon rind, clove and star anise syrup makes me see green fairies after a few.

One day when you have your own children, do you think they will take over the business?

It’s very hard for me to answer this question, who knows what the future of the city will be and a big question is if they will have interest in the business. You cannot force somebody into doing something they do not want them to do, so if it happens that they are interested then I will not stop their dreams.

—————————————————————————————————————————————————————

The Prague
638 Queen Street West
Toronto, ON
M6J 1E4
Tel: (416) 504-5787
http://www.theprague.ca

Interview with Food Blogger Gabriel Bucataru

The Hungarian Girl — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 13:15:16 +0000

Gabriel Bucataru, creator of Mamaliga, a Romanian food and culture blog.

Today’s featured interview is with Gabriel Bucataru, creator of Mamaliga, a Romanian food and culture blog.

Enjoy!

Who are you?

My name is Gabriel Bucataru. I grew up in the western region of Romania from a small city called Timisoara which was a mixture of Hungarian and Romanian communities. I immigrated to the USA in 2000.

What do you do?

Currently I work part-time as a computer programmer in the healthcare industry and I have a small business on the side building high end guitar amplifiers (www.gabtone.com).

Tell us about Mamaliga?

Mamaliga (meaning Polenta in Romanian) came first started as a name for a band I played guitar in 2000. Later, it morphed into my current food blogging domain name. I thought there was a strong correlation between the meaning of the name (a staple food in Romania) and my culinary adventures.

What inspires you to cook?

I grew up in a household that by modern standards would be considered ‘organic’ since we had our own vegetable garden, owned chickens, made our own wine, and cooking was an immense part of the day. My Mom and Grandma would literally spend their entire morning preparing a two or three course meal just for lunch! I was very much influenced by this lifestyle.

Moving to the United States where people tend to eat out a lot (if they want a decent meal) and where cooking at home is considered something rather special, my longings of early childhood took over, inspiring to get creative in the kitchen. Nevertheless it proved very rewarding!

What’s your favorite dish?

That’s rather hard for me to say. One thing I love about American food is the variety. I am still in a process of discovering new foods and cuisines (which will probably never end). I have many memorable dishes but it is almost impossible to pick one out that is a favorite.

What’s your favorite drink?

It depends on the dish but I like to pair wines with Mediterranean dishes like pastas, beer with meats or even pizza with the Romanian specialty known as ‘mititei’.

Any additional comments you want to share?

Can anyone tell me where to find Hungarian Csabai Salami ?!?

As well, anyone interested in authentic Eastern European cuisine should read Suzanne Urpecz’s blog, The Hungarian Girl!

*************************************************************************************

Be sure to visit Gabriel Bucataru’s food blog!

Mamaliga
http://www.mamaliga.com