Readers Have Their Own Czech list
Bet you receive plenty of mail about “The Kolach Trail” [January 2014]. Loved the article and, of course, love the product! I know every single place could not be covered, but can’t believe Prasek’s Hillje Smokehouse (near El Campo) wasn’t mentioned. Their kolache are so very good; there’s always a waiting line.
And for us Texans (and those elsewhere), a klobasnek is a pig in the blanket!
Judy Bishop Jurek | Brady (former Wharton County EC and Jackson EC member)
Oh, no! You left out the best kolache bakery—B-Jo’s Czech Bakery at Prasek’s. Even better than Hruska’s. Friendliest folks around and right on U.S. Highway 59 [near El Campo].
Leon Macha | Nueces EC
The Trail Continues
Sure made me wish there was a Kolach Trail around Abilene. They sounded and looked delicious.
Mittie Dunham | Big Country EC
The West Village Bakery might take credit for the sausage-filled pastry, but my Czech great-grandmother brought her kolache know-how to Texas in the 1860s. This included a sausage-filled dough version that our family has always called sausage kolache.
I remember my grandmother treating us to cottage cheese, poppy seed and prune kolache. My mother raised nine kids on kolache, mostly peach or plum, but a favorite for picnics or a quick breakfast before the school bus came was smoked sausage.
At 99, Mom no longer can knead her dough. She supervises my brother, her caretaker, as he carries on the family tradition.
Cecilia Boyd Ashley | Cooke County EC
It’s a shame you missed what the very young Katz brothers are doing in San Marcos at Dos Gatos Kolache Bakery.
P. Michael Summer | Pedernales EC
Once a cousin from Katy flew up for another cousin’s wedding in Dallas, bringing three suitcases full of Hruska’s kolache. Dekuji! (Thank you!)
Lisa Sladecek Noyes | CoServ Electric
A good article except that traditional kolache do not include cream cheese. This is a recent version of the old-fashioned cheese kolach that was made with farmer cheese or dry cottage cheese.
Elizabeth Opiela | Upshur Rural EC
I was surprised you left out east Bell County on the Kolach Trail. Green’s Sausage House in Zabcikville and the Kolache Kitchen in Temple have been making kolaches for as long as I can remember.
Steve Easley | Heart of Texas EC
If you had just managed to go a little west of West, to Clifton, you would have discovered Sulak’s Czeck Bakery & Meats, of which we are very proud.
Saranne Penberthy | United Cooperative Services
Your article brought back fond memories of my attempt to be a judge at the Fort Bend County Fair in the early 1980s. They assigned me to the kolache contest, and I had to inquire as to what exactly was a kolache. My memory is that not all kolache are equal.
Bob Atwood | Pedernales EC
I am very sad to read your story about the Kolach Trail with no mention of the best one in the state—Country Czech Bakery in Hillsboro.
Many of the customers come from West because they feel the kolaches have the best authentic Czech flavor. People from the Czech Republic have visited and said the kolaches were like grandma’s back home.
Doris Haberl | HILCO EC
Battleship Texas
Money was raised to bring the Battleship Texas home [Hit the Road, January 2014]. As a child I put my pennies, nickels and dimes in and participated in these drives held by schools to get her back to Texas. It was a proud and wonderful time to see her come into her berth at the San Jacinto Monument.
Peggy Raley | Bandera EC
I still have my card making me an honorary admiral in the Texas Navy. It was issued to us in elementary school for contributing to the funds for preservation of the ship.
Scott Cameron | Pedernales EC
Nip It in the Bud
Even a city slicker like me knows the tool shown on the title page is one normally used by farriers and vets to trim horse and livestock hooves and is not a wire cutter. [“Barbed Wire, Barbaric Backlash,” January 2014]
Mike Prendergast | Pedernales EC
Editor’s note: The tool we identified as being wire cutters is actually a nail nipper, which has many uses, including shoeing horses, according to Lee Liles of the National Museum of Horseshoeing Tools and Hall of Honor in Sulphur, Oklahoma. We appreciate all the observant readers who wrote us about our error.
Winning Recipe
I had to laugh when I saw Peggy Dickerson’s recipe [“2013 Holiday Recipe Contest,” December 2013]. I’m sure it’s wonderful, but I counted the ingredients: I would never try to make a recipe with 29 ingredients.
I think I’ll stick to my favorite shrimp recipe. Has shrimp and five ingredients. Prep and cooking probably a total of 20 minutes tops, not including a couple of hours marinating in the fridge.
Charlie Patin | Houston County EC
Lutefisk Memories
My experience with lutefisk was that years ago my Danish mother in Minnesota would drag me to every blasted church festival that served this “delectable” dish [“How We Make Our Spirits Bright,” December 2013]. Unfortunately at that time, lutefisk was not as “refined” as the current offering. People would get their delight from a special meat shop from a wooden keg (similar to the ones that held herring).
People have told me that lutefisk has risen to much better standards. But my memories of this dish remain that one had to dump a pile of creams and such to mask the horrible smell.
Chuck Hamsa | Pedernales EC
Love of Reading
Last year I told my daughter about the Little Free Library [“Take a Book, Leave a Book,” December 2013]. She was delighted to know of it and began one in her neighborhood in Austin.
Her library is one of many that have sprung up. She and her family have made many new friends because of a love of books.
Mary Corgey | Jasper-Newton EC
Legend of the Ring
Thank you for Martha Deeringer’s article on the cat’s-eye ring [“William Travis’ Ring,” October 2013]. I am a descendent of the Bellville Cummingses, and I am always happy to see the ring depicted in a way that matches my family’s legend about it.
Lucinda Cummings (Cumings) Kilmer | Dallas
The Online Advantage
Thanks so very much for the opportunity to view our favorite magazine online even after we moved away from the co-op in Scurry County [Big Country Electric Cooperative], where we were members for many years. I didn’t think I could live without this interesting Texas magazine.
Tommy and Mary Williams | Christoval
