A BALTIC FEAST
What inspired you to focus on the food of the Baltic states for your new book, Amber & Rye?
I spent the first eight years of my life in Poland, but my grandma, Halinka, came from Vilnius, Lithuania, and she talked about it so much that even as a child it was somewhere I wanted to explore. After the success of my first book [Polska: New Polish Cooking], it felt like the time had come for Eastern European food to have its moment. I started reading up on the Baltic States, and the cuisine seemed a natural progression from Polish cooking. I saw that, just as in Poland, there was a food renaissance going on in the region. I find it so life-affirming that, after all the hardships of communism and the wilderness of the following years, we now have this blossoming of culture and cuisine.
How did you research the book?
I took a trip through the Baltic states with my partner, Yasin, who did the travel photography, and our three-year-old daughter. We spent a month driving across the region — something I’d recommend as
