Winter in Lviv and Praise for Cold Kitchen
plus a recipe for apple, blueberry and rum strudel
This past fortnight my new memoir, Cold Kitchen, has received some unexpected but welcome acclaim.
Firstly, it was selected as a “book of the year” in The Times Literary Supplement, chosen by the writer, academic and novelist Sarah Moss. She wrote “…Caroline Eden’s Cold Kitchen thinks about food and appetite and cooking in all the right ways and none of the wrong ones… Like any good book about the domestic arts, Cold Kitchen is a sermon against despair, despite/because of the author’s familiarity with places of war.”
As the book will be released in the US in mid-January coverage is starting up there now too. Kirkus Reviews gave Cold Kitchen a starred review, calling it a collection of “delectable journeys” and a “lyrical, captivating memoir.” You can read the full magazine online here. I will be in New York City and Philadelphia for the launch, more on that soon.
All of this is wonderful indeed but it is the description that Sarah Moss used, “a sermon against despair”, that really struck me.
Throughout the book, I try to show how in order to keep going during difficult times, we ought to look to comforts that are closest, and most readily available, to us. What is at hand. Nothing too grand or ambitious. Witnessing the leaves tumbling down, the scent of herbs growing on a windowsill, noticing the waxy yellow skin of a lemon, seeing the bread rising in an oven or appreciating the warm welcome of a dog...
Given this, I wanted to take the opportunity to share an extract from the final chapter in Cold Kitchen, which is set in Lviv, western Ukraine, in mid-November 2021, just a couple of months before Russia’s diabolical manoeuvres. It was exactly three years ago, and the terrible attacks on Ukraine are as frightening and deadly today as they were at the start of the full-scale invasion.
Also, because it is ideal for this time of year, I am also including the ‘Apple, Blueberry and Rum Strudel’ recipe that comes at end of that chapter which is called Night Cooking. Please do consider buying a copy of Cold Kitchen, you can find it in all good bookshops in the UK, and online in marketplaces such as this one.
