About us

We’re a family of four, living in southern Slovakia. No, not Slovenia. Right, right, used to be part of Czechoslovakia. You got it!

Valerian was born here, 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, the Crown Prince who is four and a picky eater, and the Archduchess, who is one and a half and makes up for her brother’s finicky palate by eating everything.

We started this blog because in about six months we’re moving to the San Francisco Bay Area, and we want to bring a little bit of our life here along with us. 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.