You might be wondering how we came to choose the Czech Republic for our international cook this year. We were sitting on a park bench ruminating about the meaning of life and why a midnight tweet can make our 401k drop by 50 points, when suddenly we said, “why not slavic this year?”
Now when you say slavic, and you do say it, it is a fairly wide geographic footprint spanning from Belarus to Russia to Bulgaria. Alas we picked the Czech Republic. Formerly Czechoslovakia. Former unhappy neighbor to a very naughty Germany. Now a beautiful and thriving culture combining history and innovation all at once.
We used painstaking research and immediately stopped when we saw, Syr Smazeny, or more precisely, fried cheese. Yes my friends, cheese dipped in egg-wash and coated with panko breadcrumbs and then fried. Are you kidding me? As we Czechs always say, Na zdraví !!! To be fair, we baked the cheese instead of frying it because that was sooooo much better for our arteries. And on the wrong side of 40 we do need to be mindful of those pesky life-giving coronary highways.
We found the Czech way of cooking to be simple and hearty. Lots of cream and dill, plenty of meat and potatoes, a surprising amount of lemon, and a fair bit of fat to get you through the long, cold winters.
Comrades! I give you, the Czech Republic!
Mise en place 
Some fine Czech beer to get us started 
The chop 
Dumplings on the boil 
Kraut simmering 
Floor
Inspector
Bramborový Salát (potato salad) 
Omáčka z fazolových lusků
(green beans with creamy dill and potato)
Syr Smazeny
(the aforementionedfriedbaked cheese)
Pstruh s citrónovou omáčkou
(Baked cod with lemon and cream sauce)
Vepřo-knedlo-zelo
(Beer braised pork with potato dumpling)
The plate 
The feast
International Cooking Holiday 