Hi! I’m Polina Chesnakova, author of Hot Cheese, Everyday Cake, and a forthcoming cookbook exploring post-Soviet cuisine through my family’s immigrant story and recipes. I live in Seattle and up until last year, was the culinary director at Book Larder. My work has been featured in The Washington Post, Saveur, Food 52, The Kitchn, culture magazine, The Seattle Times, among other publications.

What is Chesnok?

I often joke that I am (for better or for worse) a byproduct of the Soviet Union. My mother is Russian and was born in Georgia, my father is Armenian and was born in Azerbaijan. They both were raised in Tbilisi, and I was born in Ukraine - where a large part of my family still lives. We immigrated from Tbilisi to Rhode Island in 1992 and joined a community that comprised of refugees from all over the Soviet Union. Ukrainian varenyky and Uzbek plov were as much a part of our table as were Russian piroshky and Georgian khachapuri.

Chesnok is the Russian word for “garlic,” and is the root of my last name, Chesnakova. It also happens to be a most beloved ingredient in Georgian kitchens. I originally started Chesnok as a blog in 2015, as a tribute to my Russian and Georgian roots that at the same time tapped into the myriad other cultures that influenced me as a kid growing up in the post-Soviet diaspora.

With the war in Ukraine, I’ve been thinking a lot about my upbringing and how to reconcile this idea of collective identity with ethnic, and even national, identity. In my opinion, how we choose to navigate and grapple with this complex legacy makes all the difference.

Why subscribe?

My aim in turning Chesnok into a newsletter is to shed light on food and culture from this part of the world, while also speaking to the complexity and the nuance of the post-Soviet immigrant experience. How? Through recipes, stories, interviews, and more.

I hope that my words and my food will resonate with the millions that share a similar, messy background, as well as the many who have traveled to or have studied the region. And for those who have only recently tuned into that part of the world due to the war in Ukraine: I hope I can give you deeper insight and appreciation for the cultural hodgepodge and nuance that is the post-Soviet diaspora.

And of course, on a personal level, I’ll also be using this space to keep you up to date on happenings (classes, pop-ups, book-signings, etc!), current musings, personal recs, and the like :)

Thank you to everyone who has found their way here. Welcome!
Polina