About us

We’re a family of four, transplanted from southern Slovakia to the San Francisco Bay Area.

Valerian is from Slovakia and is in charge of authenticity and photography. His father is Hungarian, his mother is Czech, so he’s perfectly qualified to write about culinary cross-pollination. Katy hails from the USA, and sees to it that the recipes here are workable in the non-metric world. She’s also vegetarian, so we’ll do our best to accommodate readers who don’t share the Austro-Hungarian love of all that is meaty. In case you’re wondering, we met while we were working in the Balkans ten years ago, so from time to time we might mix in a favorite from another old empire, the Ottoman. Now we have two tasters, a picky first-grader and a preschooler who makes up for her brother’s finicky palate by eating everything.

We started this blog because we wanted to bring a little bit of European life here with us. After a year in the States, we’ve branched out to include more of the foods we’re making day-to-day. We like to cook, we like to eat, and we hope you’ll enjoy this blog and the recipes. Let us know what you think.