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Nakládaný Hermelin is a type of cheese preparation that's eaten in the Czech Republic. I won't sit here and tell you that it's a national dish, because it's not. It's something that's eaten in bars most commonly. You order a beer and a round of cheese that's been soaking in a jar of oil, peppers, and spices. It's quite tasty and it also happens to be something that's easily made here in the US to enjoy with just about everything you can think of.       The Hermelin bit of it refers to the cheese, which isn't really something you can get here. But, you can easily substitute in any kind of softish cheese with a bit of a soft, edible rind to it like Camembert. Everything else can be easily gotten round these parts though and following is the closest approximation to the recipe we put together from this forum:       - 3-4 rounds of the cheese       - onion rings, garlic cloves, sweet red and green peppers       - olive oil, black peppercorns, paprika, red pepper flakes, and salt       Preparation:       - Peel the onions and cut them into rings       - Cut half of the garlic into slices/rings, leave the rest as whole clove       - Cut the cheese horizontally into 2 halves       - Sprinkle the inside of both cheese halves with red pepper flakes and paprika. Put on each half some of the onion rings, 3 slices of garlic, and - according to your own liking - also some grains of pepper       - Fold the halves back together again and pierce them with 3 tooth sticks to fix them       - After having prepared all the cheese halves like this, put them into the glass, adjusting them evenly in layers. While doing so, add garlic, onion rings, bay leaves, grains of pepper, grains of pimento and green pepper, and always cover with some oil.       After all cheese is finished, add oil up to the brim of the glass. Close it.       Ripening:       The pickled cheese has to "ripen" at room temperature. The duration is up to your liking, but the onions should become soft. In general, it may taste good even up to one week in the jar. As a rule, if you like the cheese less "ripe", 14 days will do. If you like it a bit "riper" (i.e. also spicier]), give it at least 3 weeks' time. If everything is starting to get kinda mushy in there, eat it as soon as you can.

Czech Dream. At the very least it sounds like really bad porn, but for people living in Prague, in 2003, it was the name of a new, and super-duper-mega incredible hypermart that was coming their way. The only catch is that it never came. Two fellows by the name of Vít Klusák and Filip Remunda created this whole charade as a film project to show how capitalism has the former Communist countries of Eastern Europe firmly in its grasp.       This film was released quite some time ago, but it has only recently been released on video in the US by Morgan Spurlock from Super Size Me and soon to be released, Where in the World is Osama Bin Laden?. Yet, despite the time lapse of five years, the move is still poignant and probably even more so today as we in the Western World buy ourselves in to madness.       The parts that document the marketing process won't be the groundbreaking to those of us in the US who are the least bit familiar with the process, but it's always interesting to see how cocky people in advertising and marketing are. At one point the firm that is helping the filmmakers promote their fake store boasts, "We make people want products that don't even exist." Obviously, we don't need anymore of these people plying their trade these days, but it keeps working, so they keep marketing and they're scary bastards to watch as they play out what are essentially God Complexes.       It's a good movie though and overall it's sad to see how people all walk to the altar of the Almighty Cheap Price no matter what. For those looking to laugh at people doing exactly what Americans do who don't happen to be American, check it out. I think that people looking to see a commentary on the current direction and decline of the 21st century citizen might get a bit more out of it though.