There’s something to national stereotypes.You know — Germans mean potatoes, Poles mean onions. And Italians? Pasta. One of our teachers is Italian. And whenever he visits, I serve pasta. Most often it’s spinach pasta — a recipe approved and loved by a real Italian (not the kind you see in tourist brochures). Ingredients 1 tsp coriander 1 tsp cumin … Read more
For about fifteen hundred years, borscht has been one of the foundations of Polish and, more broadly, East Slavic cuisine. Originally made from fermented leaves of Heracleum sphondylium (which gave the dish its name), it later came to mean soups prepared on various types of sour starters — that is, fermented vegetables. Today the most … Read more
Is it possible to host a vegan Christmas Eve? Absolutely — and it can be fully in line with Polish holiday tradition. Much more so than the Western-inspired habit of serving roasted poultry for Christmas Eve dinner. If we look deeper into history — and also deeper into society — we see a culinary reality that is very different from what … Read more
Stuffed vegetables are my personal comfort food — not just for the taste itself, but for the memories they bring back of the best thing from my INGREDIENTS 50 g TVP (soy protein granules)Marinade for the TVP: 2 tbsp soy sauce 1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce 1 tbsp Crema di Balsamico Filling: 100 g millet … Read more
It’s amazing how context changes everything. Take, for example, the phrase: “I got a mushroom from a friend.” Sounds very different coming from a chef than from someone into swingers parties, doesn’t it? In my case, the “friend” was my Translator Friend (from my work), and the “mushroom” was a kombucha SCOBY (not Candida). Since … Read more
The subject of pâté is fascinating — surely worthy of a treatise… That’s how it might begin. Imagine a cookbook penned by Czesław Miłosz. If “The Year of the Hunter” had a culinary appendix. What cuisine would he have described? Most likely Lithuanian, naturally — perhaps specifically the dishes from the manor in Šeteniai, where he grew up. A … Read more
The Easter Menu is part of my project “The Ritual Year,” dedicated to food and culinary customs connected to the traditional ceremonial yearly cycle. Designing a Christmas Eve menu has been great fun for me for years. Christmas Eve is a fasting meal, and a properly strict one, at least in the most orthodox version—meaning … Read more
Who’s tempted? What would you say to a delicacy like this? An exclusive, high-quality, and very expensive chocolate. With a distinct moldy note. And no, it’s not about some new product using camembert mold in chocolate. It’s about the latest hype in the food world — Dubai chocolate, which, in practice, turns out to be more moldy … Read more
TVP: texture vegetable protein. Until recently, only TSP, or “textured soy protein,” was available on the market. These are all those products like dry soy cutlets (affectionately called “sawdust cutlets”), pieces, granules, steaks — large, rectangular cutlets with a fibrous texture. TSP products had their time, at least in Poland, in the 1990s, when they were pretty … Read more
Have you ever cooked a classic dish you had no idea how it was supposed to taste? Recently, I was tasked with exactly that. We were expecting a visit, postponed since the pandemic, from a high-ranking teacher. You’re not required to know what kind of teacher, so let me explain. I cook at a Tibetan … Read more
