About Yulinka Cooks

What: Yulinka Cooks is a blog that's mostly about food from Russia and the former Soviet republics. I blog recipes, foodie news, Soviet kitsch and more.
 

Who: I've been dabbling in cooking since I was 14, and began this blog in 2006. My family immigrated to the U.S. from St. Petersburg, Russia, in the early 1990s, and I grew up with Russian home cooking.

Why Yulinka? It's a nickname and the diminutive version of my Russian name, Yuliya (Юлия). When I was growing up, "Yulinka is cooking" was a family punchline because my kitchen efforts would usually go awry.

Why Russian Food? A) Russian food is under-appreciated and yummy and B) I'm kind of sentimental about maintaining and archiving my family's cooking traditions.

I also like to explore food from the former Soviet republics, especially Uzbekistan, Armenia and Georgia. My unofficial goal is to cook my way through Anya von Bremzen's excellent Russian/Soviet cookbook Please to the Table.

Also blogging: Soviet stuff, Milwaukee-area shops, restaurants, farmers' markets and farms, product reviews, food news and odds and ends.

A note on the recipes: As an amateur cook, I rarely measure ingredients and improvise like crazy. I do try to estimate ingredient amounts and cooking times; however, I can't guarantee they're absolutely accurate. Please contact me with questions (yulinkacooks@yahoo.com), and I'll do my best to help.

Greatest Hits: A Russia and Estonia travelogue. How to make tvorog (Russian farmer's cheese). On borsch. A Russian New Year's and herring in a fur coat.

Questions/Comments?  E-mail me at yulinkacooks@yahoo.com or leave a comment. Thanks for reading!