Summer is here.  Suddenly we notice the change in our taste — we crave lighter dishes, we see more vegetables in our fridge and on our plate, we sip iced drinks, and I don’t know about you, but I am just not in the mood for elaborate dinner cooking marathons. Summer laziness sets in. To […]

Finally, a batch of sauerkraut I can get behind. I think I finally figured out the perfect salt to cabbage ratio, and the air insulation in my pickling crock helped develop that amazing zest. No spices needed — cabbage has its own perfect punch…

Am I the only one constantly finding myself with a surplus of sauerkraut? Yeah, that’s how I know I am a crazy person. I love sauerkraut and make it at home all the time. Ever since I started reading on benefits of lacto-fermented (naturally pickled) foods and found out that sauerkraut stands a cut above […]

When I think of vegetables, I  think of a side dish or a salad. The vegetable could certainly play an important part of the main dish, but usually in a form of a wrap or a container for delicious stuffing, or a backdrop to fragrant meat.  To put it into an American way of thinking — vegetables are […]

Growing up, among my favorite books one could find a collection of poetry for children by Polish authors.  It was wonderfully translated into Russian by various talented Russian writers.  I loved many of the poems and you could hear me reciting some of them quite frequently.

If I had to name one dish that immediately recalls childhood for me, it would be this one.  Stuffed cabbage rolls called Holubtzi in Russian, Ukrainian, Polish, and possibly other Slavic languages, invariably bring back memories of my Kindergarten.  You see, in our Kindergarten they fed us breakfast, lunch, snack and dinner, all cooked on […]

End of work week dinners are tricky.  There aren’t that many things left in a fridge.  In addition, I feel particularly lazy on Friday nights, looking for any excuse to get out of laboring in the kitchen.  As a result, more often than not we end up waiting in line at some restaurant to get […]