ALISSA TIMOSHKINA: Lozhka

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Join us for an evening with award-winning food writer and historian Alissa Timoshkina, as we take a culinary journey through Eastern Europe. Alissa will be in conversation with fellow food writer Caroline Eden, and together they will explore the stories behind Alissa's beautiful third cookbook LOZHKA: Eastern European Soups, Stews & Other Things We Eat with a Spoon., the role of food in preserving cultural identity, and the traditions and histories that connect communities across Eastern Europe.

About the book:
More than a utensil, the spoon is a conduit for comfort, an extension of the nourishment in our bowl and a small, familiar object with the power to transport us back in time. In her latest cookbook, Lozhka, award-winning food writer and historian Alissa Timoshkina pens a love letter to Eastern European comfort food. The more than 80 seasonal recipes in Lozhka transform humble, everyday ingredients like beans, potatoes and cabbage into deeply flavourful and nourishing meals. Across chapters on soups and broths, stews and grains, dumplings and pasta and sweet dishes, Alissa blends familiar classics with lesser-known regional specialities to celebrate the varied spoonable meals of Eastern Europe.

Lozhka is both a practical cookbook and a cultural journey through a borderless cuisineshaped by migration, resilience and generosity. Alissa brings together her Eastern European heritage, years of historical research and intimate experience of feeding family and community to create a cookbook about nurture, memory and the foods that take care of us.

About our authors:
Alissa Timoshkina is a London-based food writer, cookbook author and historian specialising in the culinary culture of Eastern Europe. Born in Siberia with Ashkenazi and Eastern Slavic roots, her family history is adefining ingredient in her cooking and writing. Alissa moved to the UK in the late 1990s to study, later completing a PhD in Soviet culture and Holocaust history. Ultimately, her love of cooking pulled her away from academia, and in 2015 she founded the supper club and catering company KinoVino, which she ran until 2020.

She is the author Salt & Time  and Kapusta, which won the André Simon Special Commendation Award, and writes the Substack newsletter In Her Hands. In response to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Alissa co-founded the global fundraising campaign #CookForUkraine with her friend, chef and writer, Olia Hercules, raising over £2.5 million for humanitarian relief and receiving multiple international awards.

Caroline Eden is the author of five books focusing on Central Asia, the Caucasus and Eastern Europe. As a journalist she contributes to various publications including the Financial Times and the Guardian and over the years her books have won various awards including the André Simon Food Book award. She lives in Edinburgh.