a little taste of prague

this is about something... yummy. i'm drooling just thinking about it. cheese. that's right, my favorite thing in this world, my nickname....what i dream about. when we were living in prague, we got introduced by our friend paul to something called nakladany hermelin. it is a type of marinated cheese that you eat on bread and drink with pint(s) of czech beer. i miss it terribly, you have no idea! when my mom came to visit she tried it and fell in love as well. as soon as we moved back to florida, my mom decided to try and recreate it here. she bought some camembert rounds and did it up. after a week or so, we tried it and it was just too difficult to eat. mistake. camembert cheese is disgusting, in my opinion. it smells awful and tastes just as awful, and i rarely don't like a cheese. i'd say the closest thing you can find here to hermelin cheese is brie. so months went by and with the failure of my mom's camembert recipe, i decided to try it out for myself. i only bought one round of french brie because i don't want to waste much in case it doesn't turn out well. it's the easiest thing to make. 

what you need:

• 1 round of french brie
• thin slices of part of a red chili pepper, red bell pepper, and sweet onion. 
• finely chopped up small clove of garlic, and 2 full garlic cloves. 
• red pepper flakes
• a couple sprigs of thyme
• 3 bay leaves
• whole peppercorns
• olive oil
• glass jar with lid(i used an empty pickle jar that was thoroughly cleaned)

all you do is:

1. cut the round of cheese in half(make sure it's just out of the fridge)
2. on the bottom half-spread the finely chopped clove of garlic, add some slices of the 2 kinds pepper and onion. grind some pepper and some red pepper flakes. 
3. close back up with the top half and cut the round into 4 wedges.
4. put a toothpick in each one to keep them together. 
5. get your glass jar, add a wedge of cheese to the bottom of it. add a bay leaf and layer with more of the sliced veggies. cover with olive oil. add the next wedge of cheese and keep layering with the veggies and oil until you've added all 4 of the cheese wedges. 
6. put in a few peppercorns, whole garlic cloves, and sprigs of thyme.
7. top off the cheese with oil and close with the lid.

i looked up a bunch of different recipes on line from local czech people and foreigners as well. i took a bit of this n that from different ones...  some of them said to leave the cheese out in room temperature for 4-7 days.... some said to keep in the fridge. i wasn't really sure what to do so i left the cheese out for 2 days and then put it in the fridge. it's been in the fridge now for 2 days. we're going to take it out tomorrow morning and let it thaw out.... the oil has gotten a bit thick and it's best to eat the cheese closer to room temperature than cold. we're going to go buy some czech brews from total wine tomorrow and really make the most of this experience. i REALLY hope that the recipe i personalized will turn out delicious. i'm nervous, not gunna lie.