Jack Merry here. If you’ve got a bit of time to spare, I could use your help! Remember me mentioning a couple of weeks ago that the fellow violinists in the Huddled Masses Violin Ensemble (at their reunion somewhere in central Europe) insisted on giving Bela, our resident Balkan violinist, lots of ‘creature comforts’? And that he shipped them back here via the Orient Express? Well, they arrived en masse this week… It took the porters at the station hours to load them onto the delivery van and bring them to our offices. Large crates with scribbling in languages long forgotten, casks of ale from breweries once thought mythical, and other goodies that made the kitchen staff literally weep with joy. But now it’s time to inventory all of it, so grab the clipboard and pen over there and I’ll start telling you what we got…
Besides Barack pálinka, a Hungarian apricot brandy, here’s two crates of Velkopopovicky kozel, a wonderful award-winning Czech beer that goes well with the Czech traditional eventide meal of roasted pork, cabbage and dumplings. Bela raved about it. Ahhh, nice — note that several bottles of a Lithuanian vodka (Baalta) are here too. And I see some very good Retsiona over here.
Moving on from libations… Looks like this box was carefully packed to avoid jarring the contents in transit. What’s here? Cooking chocolate. And not just any cooking chocolate, but French Le Noir Gastronomie, a bittersweet chocolate that our baker will use in making cheesecake! Speaking of cheese, I see several large jars of a traditional Hungarian Liptauer cheese spread. Yummm! Hmmm… Smell the garlic? That’s from the Hungarian kolbasz in this basket — heavy on garlic and paprika. Look, even better: kovbasa, spicy Ukranian sausage patties! Those should be good… perhaps in a hearty soup.
We’d better sample the Velkopopovicky kozel… And I thought there was more lekvar, but I don’t see it…
