It doesn’t take much for me to get lost and fall down the rabbit hole of Google looking for information about the most random of things. The other day I came across a group post of Bohemians of Nebraska which originally had me thinking of Bohemian lifestyle, or a type of clothing style. It is in fact a group for the large Czech population we have in Nebraska. One isn’t required to be in Nebraska to join, and I am assuming one wouldn’t have to be Czech to join, but it is geared towards the culture of that people.

I am not Czech, but I did snoop thru their group page a bit. Kolache are a big thing around here, with the popular pastry coming in various flavors. Different areas and factions have their own variations of those pastries, with prune, poppyseed, apricot as some of the more traditional flavors. Some Bohemians also make a topping or a type of streusel for the top, where others are staunch in their views on what makes a real kolache. There is even quite the discussion on the spelling and what constitutes a kolache and if it is actually called by something else.

Reading further on their group page, a lot of the main dishes echoed a lot of German type dishes with pork, schnitzel, sauerkraut being big game players in their daily menus. One dish that was mentioned and echoed with enthusiasm by many was “liver dumpling soup”. Which then sent me on a journey further down the rabbit hole to find a recipe and see if it sounded as unappealing as it sounded….(my apologies to any and all liver lovers.)

Yes, there are NUMEROUS recipes for the concoction and the pictures look like giant meatballs made of liver in a broth. Which sort of reminded me of matzo ball soup, or Italian wedding soup. Balls of meat, floating in broth seems to be very common in many cultures. However, it isn’t something I ever remember any of my older family members ever making.

But I went ahead and delved into Youtube and watched a few videos on how to make kolaches (they sounded better than the liver balls) and then I hopped over to watch a couple of videos on how to make Kringle which isn’t Czech but Danish. And from there, well…I really had no rhyme or reasoning to my video choices. I watched some video on bread making that had a filling of cottage cheese, sour cream and raisins that was formed into logs and then those logs were braided and by the time all of the intricate work was done, and it was sliced open, there really wasn’t a distinct filling center, but it was incorporated pretty much thru out the dough pastry. It might have been German? Maybe French? I’m not sure, all of the comments weren’t in English either.

But then I got distracted, there was a new video by Jolly, Xiaman (or however the guy Ari spells it), and a curious look at what Mr. Beast was up to lately and I had forgotten all about anything liver-ish. I watched a few “shorts” and then curiosity got the better of me, as I wanted to know a song or two used in the background of those short clips, and off I went with a few snippets of the song to find them.

I will warn you now, do NOT go to East Idaho News to watch their Secret Santa videos or you will be wanting to binge watch all of them to feel the Christmas magic and lift your spirits a bit. Basically, a secret Santa has them go to visit people who are nominated who could use a little help thru the holidays. They might give them gift cards for food and gas, they might give them new furniture, give them a check to pay for bills, gift them a new car, or pay for a headstone for a family member who recently died. It’s ridiculous how many I can watch when I don’t even know anyone or have ever been to Idaho. But evidently Santa lives there and not at the North Pole like we were originally told.

I watched a video the other day about old timey recipes and one recipe was “Ginger Drop Cakes”. Perfect, a cross between gingerbread and cookies. So I watched it, wrote down the recipe, then went googling for other recipes for the same thing which led me to other gingerbread type cookies, and well to make a long story short. I copied down or saved several recipes and still haven’t made them. It’s like my Pinterest page. Tons of stuff looked at, saved, and gathering dust with nary a chance of them seeing fruition.

Perhaps that should be my New Years resolution for next year? That is, if I go to all of the work to look or read up about something to actually try or do it in the end. That sounds like quite the challenge actually. No excuses just do it. Or maybe I should start off with something smaller, like limit my time on Google, Youtube, or wear some sort of blinders so I don’t see anything bright and shiny or have me itching to go look it up.

So my New Years resolution is to not do anything that would make me not do anything. So I would then do nothing to begin with?… Yeah, that sounds like me. Boy I am getting off to a good start for the upcoming new year, I can feel it!