Alenka Vrecek
Alenka Vrecek was born at the foot of the Alps in Slovenia, a part of former communist Yugoslavia. Born with a spirit for adventure, she came to America at twenty years old with a backpack, a pair of skis, and a pocket full of dreams. She was a ski coach and a director of Pedagogy for Squaw Valley and Alpine Meadows Ski Teams for thirty years. Alenka owns Tahoe Tea Company and lives in Lake Tahoe, California, with her second husband, Jim, their four children, three grandchildren, and a Golden Retriever named Monty. She continues to ride and write.
Instagram: @Mother_Len
Favorite non-reading activity?
I love any physical activity outdoors. Skiing has been my lifelong passion since the day my father strapped a pair of blue-color wooden Elan skis on my feet. I was three years old. My brother and I grew up ski racing, which opened up so many doors for me later in life. It allowed me to travel all over Europe and it ultimately brought me to Squaw Valley, California, to teach skiing for one season. That was in 1985. I fell in love with Lake Tahoe, its surrounding mountains and, most of all, adventurous, kind, and fun-loving people who became my extended family. I also like climbing mountains as I grew up at the foot of the Alps in Slovenia. Hiking and climbing the mountains is nations favorite pass time. I also love every activity related to water. Every summer my family went to the island on the Adriatic coast in Croatia, where I first learned to windsurf. The passion for water related sports led me to Baja Mexico, where I now spend my winters with my second husband. We are both passionate about mountain biking and wind related sports like kite surfing and wing foiling. But, to unwind after a long day at work, I love a quiet walk in the woods or along the sandy beaches with my dog, Monty.
What period of history do you wish you knew more about?
Lately I have been obsessed studying the period between WW1 and WW2 and the rise of Hitler, Fascism, Nazism and what fascinated millions of people to follow Hitler and his ideology. The events which led the whole of Europe and the rest of the world to such destruction and causing the most horrific human suffering, are impossible to comprehend. I always want to believe that every human being has an innate ability to be good and kind and loving. The atrocities committed before, during and after the war, shake the very foundation of that belief. Even though I grew up learning about all that in school, hearing first account stories from my grandparents and my parents who lived through the war and suffered the consequences of it, I now look at that period with different eyes. I am learning by reading books and watching documentaries. This past winter I read a very long and detailed The Rise and Fall of The Third Reich by William L. Shirer. We live in very dangerous times. In so many ways, the extreme politics parallel the period leading up to WW2. No one then believed the world would plunge into another catastrophic world war. It did. Many books have been written about the unimaginable suffering of millions of innocent people, and we should never forget nor take for granted that, under the wrong leadership, the catastrophic events can happen again. For the past three years I have been working on a story about a family against the backdrop of the events leading up to WW2 and what followed afterwards.
Do you speak a second language? Do you think differently in that language? Does it influence your writing?
English is my second language. I am always working on improving my English speaking and writing skills. The interesting thing is that I never really enjoyed writing in my native Slovenian language. School was very rigid. I was not a very good follower of the rules. In high school, I had a very strict teacher who didn’t encourage creativity much. My essays didn't receive high grades, which wasn't very motivating. However, having a strict and demanding teacher, provided me with a strong foundation in grammar and literature. Like many kids in high school, I wasn't fond of many books we "had" to read and write reports about. Later, when I read those same books again because I wanted to read them, I understood why the teacher made us read the classics. Because our country borders Austria and Italy, so German and Italian were important languages for us to speak. It came in handy when we were skiing in Austria, Italy or Germany, but I was never fond of the German language. I preferred Romantic languages like English, Italian and Spanish. For a long time when I was learning Spanish, I was mixing in Italian words. I am now working on my Spanish language skills, so I can read Pablo Neruda poems in his native language.
What brings you great joy?
One of my great joys is cooking. I love to bring people together around the table, feed them and make them happy. I also love cooking with my kids and grandkids. Cooking for me is a form of creativity. I follow recipes only as a suggestion, and I enjoy adding my own twists. I cook like my grandmother did, a little of this, a little of that, whatever is fresh and available. My husband is very easy to cook for. He likes anything I make for him, except fried chicken feet and liver with onions no matter how much love I put into it. However, when I cook traditional meals that I learned from my two grandmothers or from my mother, I don’t change them much, because I want to pass the flavors down to my own kids and grandkids for the sake of keeping tradition. Two of our oldest granddaughters are now at the age they like to help grandma in the kitchen. What a fun mess that is! Food connects us and grounds us. Also, if we cook our own food from scratch, we have better control over what we eat. To eat healthier doesn’t have to be complicated, and it doesn’t have to take a lot of time. I think I also like to cook because it makes me feel like I am the queen of my kingdom- my kitchen.
Do you collect anything? If so, what, why, and for how long?
I collect seashells and rocks on my walks. I bring them home and then I say: "What the heck am I going to do with all this stuff?" But I keep my favorite ones in my Zen garden in our Baja home. Many of them we collected when kids were still little. Some of them I find in various jackets and pant pockets. When I touch them, it makes me feel happy, as I remember exactly where I found them, or who I found them with. Three large rocks are placed in the sand garden in front of my palapa in Mexico. My parents and I found them when we were walking along the beach on the Pacific side of the Baja Peninsula. I look at them every morning when I drink coffee, read a book, and listen to the birds, and it makes me think of my parents. Often, I give rocks for presents to the people I love, so if you get a rock from me, you'll know where you stand.
