You made me salivate for the food and the flowers, Rachel. I have the Mamushka cookbook, which I ordered shortly after the war against Ukraine began. I have mostly been reading the recipes and text and haven’t cooked much from it yet, but the recipe for the fermented tomatoes caught my interest as something I’d never heard of but that sounds delicious. Thanks also for the comments on your Ukrainian background, which touched home for me too. My roots aren’t Ukrainian, though my husband’s are, but, as you say, if not for circumstances, we would be speaking a different language and living a different life. And the weekend events sadly remind us of our vulnerability and how quickly the world can change.
Funnily I've tried fermenting cherry tomatoes before from another book - super complicated recipe, and it was a total disaster - Olia's method is so simple and logical I'm gutted I've got none left this year because I feel that is the way forward, rather than something trying to make it hard.
And I think it is why I feel such a connection reading and cooking through Jewish cookbooks that are from a part of a world where I have no connection and where my ancestors did not end up because we all have one thing in common: they came for us, if we were lucky enough we fled, and started new lives elsewhere. Something like this is a reminder that as you said, the world does change, and we may not always feel as safe as we do now say in England, or America.
You just summed up my own motivation for reading and cooking from Jewish and other cookbooks like Olia’s--the connection with cuisines that grew out of lives and experiences far from what we know but somehow familiar and often connected with necessity--to preserve, to use the little you have, to celebrate the brief bounty of a season or a life under threat. Some of the best recipes and dishes--and cookbooks--seem to come from that.
Magnificent food and images captured so poignantly. Nice work, Rachel.
Thank you!
You made me salivate for the food and the flowers, Rachel. I have the Mamushka cookbook, which I ordered shortly after the war against Ukraine began. I have mostly been reading the recipes and text and haven’t cooked much from it yet, but the recipe for the fermented tomatoes caught my interest as something I’d never heard of but that sounds delicious. Thanks also for the comments on your Ukrainian background, which touched home for me too. My roots aren’t Ukrainian, though my husband’s are, but, as you say, if not for circumstances, we would be speaking a different language and living a different life. And the weekend events sadly remind us of our vulnerability and how quickly the world can change.
Funnily I've tried fermenting cherry tomatoes before from another book - super complicated recipe, and it was a total disaster - Olia's method is so simple and logical I'm gutted I've got none left this year because I feel that is the way forward, rather than something trying to make it hard.
And I think it is why I feel such a connection reading and cooking through Jewish cookbooks that are from a part of a world where I have no connection and where my ancestors did not end up because we all have one thing in common: they came for us, if we were lucky enough we fled, and started new lives elsewhere. Something like this is a reminder that as you said, the world does change, and we may not always feel as safe as we do now say in England, or America.
You just summed up my own motivation for reading and cooking from Jewish and other cookbooks like Olia’s--the connection with cuisines that grew out of lives and experiences far from what we know but somehow familiar and often connected with necessity--to preserve, to use the little you have, to celebrate the brief bounty of a season or a life under threat. Some of the best recipes and dishes--and cookbooks--seem to come from that.