My Small Collection Of Old Radios

I collect old radios.

I'm not sure what it is about old radios that I find so appealing. The design, for sure. I'm an Art Deco fan, and radio designs from the 1930s seem to encapsulate all of Art Deco's elements in a miniature little package.

There's also a romantic attraction to all the foreign cities often listed on the dials. And the idea that families used to gather around these radios to listen to the news or serials.

I should say that I used to collect old radios. I haven't added to my collection in awhile, although I've certainly come across quite a few wonderful specimens in antique shops here in the Czech Republic. It pains me to pass them by, but I simply don't have any place to display them.

   

I thought I'd share my small collection here. I don't really know anything about them, other than their brand names. Two of them are Philcos, one is a General Electric, and the big floor model is a Silvertone.

I'd be happy if anyone knows anything else about these models.

A Gamble That Paid Off

Daisy and I used to spend a lot of time hanging around the Casino Grand in Brno. We'd watch gamblers come and go, see them win some and lose some, and when they looked to us, two regulars, for advice, about whether they should hold 'em or fold 'em, as they inevitably did, our expressions would remain inscrutable.

Way back in 2002, our good friend, the multitalented artist Stewart Moore, used Daisy and me and another friend, Jennifer Lau, as models for a commission from the Casino Grand. He painted three massive portraits, all of a rather fantastical nature, incorporating sentences from a text on gambler's giveaways, a "Book of Tells," if you like.

The paintings as they looked when they were still hanging in the Casino Grand

Daisy and I always thought it cool that our likenesses were hanging in a dark casino in the Czech Republic's second city. We even went down to visit them one time many years ago. And we always wondered what might become of those paintings once the casino was through with them. Would they be bricked up behind a new wall, sold to the highest bidder, or blanketed in bubble wrap and put into a dark warehouse somewhere?

A few months ago, on a whim, I wrote to the casino to inquire about the paintings, not really expecting an answer. But as luck would have it, the operations manager wrote me back, saying the paintings were in storage after a casino refurbishment a few years ago. And they were for sale.

After a bit of negotating, we agreed on a price, and the three paintings were delivered to our Prague 6 flat.

Now, as I said, the paintings are huge -- 285 centimeters by176 centimeters, to be exact. That's 9 feet 4 inches by 6 feet. I wondered whether they would even fit through our front door, let alone whether we could find a wall on which to hang them. Totally impractical, but totally cool. There was no way we couldn't buy them.

Turns out they fit through our front door, but not up the staircase to our top-floor flat. The delivery guy and I had to hoist them by hand up a just-big-enough slot between the stairway and the railings. But we managed to get them into our apartment, where they now sit, sideways, since, indeed, we don't have a wall big enough to hang them on.

We're not quite sure what we're going to do with them. Stewart says they can be removed from their backing frames and rolled up quite easily. He can even cut them down to a smaller size and reframe them, although that seems a shame. We may be able to hang them in a future flat that we'd like to buy.

The portrait of Jennifer is quite wonderful, too. She's playing the accordion. But I don't want to remove it from its bubble wrap before she comes to pick it up and I can't find the photo I took of her portrait when it was still hanging in the casino.

Hopefully, I can update this blog post with a photo at some point in the near future.

Seeing Savages In Prague

I first heard of Savages after reading a profile of the band in "The New Yorker" a month or so ago. I checked them out on iTunes and liked what I heard. I bought their album, "Silence Yourself," and fell for it. Hard. It's raw, driving, splintery, with great hooks. Each instrument -- guitar, base, and drums -- is clear, distinct, and urgent in the mix. And I love lead singer Jehnny Beth's voice, even if I can't quite make out what she's singing about most of the time.

Last week, I was doing a casual check on the web to see if Savages were touring Europe anytime soon and discovered that they were the opening act for Portishead in Prague on June 19. I had no real desire to see Portishead, but there was no way I was not going to go to see Savages.

In the end, I paid $70 to see an opening act. I left the Portishead show after two songs. Just not my thing.

But Savages, my goodness. They came on precisely at 8 p.m. and played a blistering 40-minute set. The crowd at that point was sparse and I was able to easily get right up front. (That's my photograph above.) I'm not sure any of the folks standing around me had ever even heard of Savages before, although they seemed to enjoy the show.

It was a perfect night of rock 'n' roll.

Waiting For A Sign

I love cool signs, especially if they're written in cool fonts. Here are a couple more to add to my Gusto collection (just search fonts, if you're into that sort of thing). I found these up at Barrandov Studios in Prague.

I like the hip Soviet-looking 1960s graphics in the No Smoking sign above. The sign below basically asks for quiet, as filming is going on.

Oscar Lives

Daisy met a little ghost the other day on a bike ride.

Down to the black eyeliner, this Únětice fellow on the left was the spitting image of our late, great Oscar (right) from one village over in Černý Vůl.

The resemblance is uncanny. As if the new guy was Oscar reincarnated.

We're so glad to see the bloodline lives on.

You can read more about Oscar here. It's full of links to all of my other blog posts about this cool cat.

Eating And Drinking (And Spending) In Oslo (UPDATED)

At Bar Boca

In March, Daisy and I took a trip to Oslo -- our first -- to catch one of our favorite comedians, Louis CK, in concert at the Oslo Spektrum. The show was fantastic. It was very impressive to see Louis come out, stand alone on a bare stage under a single spotlight, and make 8,000 people laugh for 90 minutes nonstop.

My doppelganger, Louis CK

Of course, while we were in Oslo, we ate and drank in some cool places.

Daisy's a big fan of the Harry Hole books by Jo Nesbø, so we checked out a few of Hole's watering holes, including the Underwater Pub and Restaurant Schrøder. The former was very cool, all dark wood and cozy little tables hidden in nooks and crannies. We happened to be there on a Thursday night, when professional opera singers come in and perform for free. The latter, however, was a bit of a letdown. The atmosphere was nonexistent and the food just passable. Of course, we ordered Harry's favorite dish: stekt flesk og duppe (slices of fried bacon, mashed turnip and boiled potatoes). Not sure what he sees in it, but what are you going to to? At least it was reasonably priced, by Oslo standards.

Stekt flesk og duppe

The Underwater Pub

We also enjoyed a few expertly made cocktails at tiny Bar Boca in the hip Grünerløkka neighborhood and enjoyed shooting the breeze with the manager, who was behind the bar mixing drinks and making a fresh batch of raspberry syrup from scratch. I liked that place.

Making fresh raspberry syrup at Bar Boca

We also enjoyed a few pints at a bar and jazz joint we just happened upon called Herr Nilsen at C.J. Hambros Plass 5, right in the center. It was a warm and welcoming place and seems like a fantastic club to see some live music.

Our best meal of the trip was at a restaurant called Von Porat in the Mathallen indoor food hall, which I'd read about on a blog called the Nordic Nibbler. The Nibbler described it as a restaurant that "serves no nonsense modern Norwegian food made from local ingredients. It's the sort of restaurant that Oslo has needed for a long time – simple, honest, and above all tasty food that won't break the bank."

We weren't disappointed.

(UPDATE: I just received an e-mail from Von Porat that reads: "We regret to inform you that von Porat restaurant will be closing its doors due to the imposibilty to bear future economical challenges." Achhhh!)

Ivan Zednik of Von Porat (the place is named after a Norwegian heavyweight boxer from the 1920s) told me that the restaurant tries its best to use only locally grown produce and present the possibilities that are hiding behind the Nordic climate, which is quite challenging due to the long and cold winters. The restaurant also prides itself on its vegetarian options.

"Our vision and goal could be formulated as new Nordic gastronomy where season, simplicity, and clean taste stand in the center of our focus," Zednik says. "We like to add that our modus operandi is to buy from local and small producers and show that Norway and the entire north has much more to offer than snow, darkness, and oil."

The Mathallen food hall

Our meal started with flat bread with creme fraiche, dill and salmon roe, followed by a salad of beef cured with fennel seeds and sugar and served with pickled vegetables, raw beet root and smoked butternut squash puree. Then it was a dish of cod served with kale cooked with apple vinegar, and served with potato and steamed mussels, and then another course of turkey breast poached in milk and turkey leg confit, served with sauteed parsley root and pickled and sauteed Jerusalem artichokes. Dessert was exquisite: coffee ice cream with toasted salted almonds, accompanied by a meringue with a biscuit crumble and frozen dried black currant powder.

We liked the atmosphere of the place, looking down as it does from the mezzanine on the bustling market. And for what you get, it's a reasonable price. Our meal, including drinks, came to about $250 (although I was shocked to see that the bottle of Saison beer from the Nøgne microbrewery that I ordered with my main course and which was recommended by the waiter ended up costing me $22.50).

Yes, $250 for two is a reasonable price for a nice dinner in Oslo.

Let me just say that Oslo is the most expensive place we've ever visited. A pint of regular old beer is around $13. I had a regular old hamburger at an outdoor cafe in Grünerløkka that cost me $30. A cocktail at Bar Boca is around $20. You just have to laugh and hand over your cash if you're traveling to Oslo.

The best bargain of the trip may have been our double at the Radisson Blu Scandinavian Hotel. Our top-floor room had a panoramic view of Oslo, including the distant Holmenkollen ski jump, and was around $150 per night, which included a magnificent breakfast. The hotel was also, conveniently, the last stop for the bus we took into town from the airport.

Oslo has a great vibe. Lots of young people sitting outside at fashionable cafes in the sunshine, even when it was below freezing; a nice city park; a developing waterfront; great culture (including a magnificent new opera house); and good food and drink.

I'd like to go back in the summer, when it must be a different place. For now, we've tasted Oslo, and it tasted good. Just be expected to pay through the nose for a bite of it.

Flat bread with creme fraiche, dill and salmon roe

Salad of beef cured with fennel seeds and sugar and served with pickled vegetables, raw beet root and smoked butternut squash puree

Cod served with kale cooked with apple vinegar, and served with potato and steamed mussels

Turkey breast poached in milk and turkey leg confit, served with sauteed parsley root and pickled and sauteed Jerusalem artichokes

Coffee ice cream with toasted salted almonds, accompanied by a meringue with a biscuit crumble and frozen dried black currant powder

Bar Boca

 Restaurant Schrøder

Being serenaded at Underwater

A $30 hamburger in a cafe in Grünerløkka 

Oslo's impressive $700 million opera house on the waterfront

The Underwater Pub, one of Harry Hole's watering holes

At Herr Nilsen (that's about $25 worth of drinks there)

Inside Herr Nilsen

Country Of Cool Fonts (Continued)

More in my series of old Prague signs written in cool, seldom-seen (or never-seen) fonts. Somebody's got to document this stuff.

See more in this series here and here and here and here.

Let's Ride

My Honda Shadow 600 on a beautiful spring day.

That's The Thing

Cooking Classes With Chef Davide Lagomarsino

Artichoke heart and Reggiano salad on beef carpaccio.

Chef Davide Lagomarsino has cooked for former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev, as well as movie stars like Nicole Kidman, Robert DeNiro, and Russell Crowe. A few weeks ago, Daisy and I cooked for him.

Or rather, he taught us how to cook for him.

Lagomarsino is Italian but worked for many years in Australia, where he ran his own critically acclaimed restaurant, Zeffirelli. In 2008, he moved to Prague, where he was chef at La Bottega di Aromi before opening up his own restaurant in the most unlikeliest of places: in the wilds of Prague 6, on Horoměřická, near the village of Nebušice.

For those of us who live nearby, La Gastronomia Ligure is a godsend, a place where we can get a good cup of coffee, Italian meats and cheeses, pasta, and Italian specialty items, as well as breakfast, lunch, or dinner. Davide says he's expanding this summer to include a wood-fired oven out back with outdoor seating.

I gave Daisy a gift certificate for a cooking class at La Gastronomia for Christmas. It took us a few months to finally cash it in. We chose a menu that included grilled marinated vegetables, artichoke heart and Reggiano salad on beef carpaccio, beef filet tagliata grilled with rucola and Parmesan, and aubergine with chocolate and amaretti.

All in all, the four-hour class was great fun. What's not to like? We started with glasses of prosecco, and after each course was prepared, in La Gastronomia's gorgeous new kitchen, we retired to the dining room to eat our creations and drink some fantastic wine that had been specially paired to complement our dishes.

Davide is a great teacher, if a little hard to keep up with sometimes. He's a passionate guy, and he speaks pretty fast!

Our fellow classmates were also very cool. We'd never done anything like that before, and we enjoyed ourselves immensely. I hope Davide continues to do them. He's got a few more listed on his website: a beef and fish dinner on May 20 and a veal and pasta menu on June 1.

Beef filet tagliata grilled with rucola and Parmesan and marinated vegetables.

Enjoying the spoils of our labors.

Aubergine with chocolate.

Brown Bread & Irish Whiskey Ice Cream

Finally got a chance to make Brown Bread & Irish Whiskey Ice Cream. I'd fallen in love with the idea of that delightful combination after being alerted to the recipe on the food blog Farmette. It took me a few months, but with my birthday as sort of a belated excuse, I finally got around to putting a batch together last night.

This morning, I had ice cream for breakfast.

The carmelized brown sugar covering the bread crumbs is heavenly, and the whiskey is definitely a noticeable presence. My own quibble (other than the incredible number of calories a single serving likely has, what with 450 ml of double cream) is that the consistency was quite melty. It's not churned or stirred in an ice cream maker. The batter is simply frozen overnight. So the texture is quite delicate.

The recipe says to whisk the batter "until it holds its shape," before pouring it into a container. I'm not sure my batter ever really held its shape. I tried hand whisking and using an electric mixer. I will say that my version does look remarkably like the version in the photo that accompanies the blog entry.

Anyway, it's delicious. Try it yourself. Let me know how it turns out.

Before freezing.

The Cats Of Piran

We just came back from a trip to Slovenia, which included a couple of nights in Piran on the Adriatic coast. Seems like people aren't the only ones to appreciate life in this sunny, cobblestoned village.