Cold Kitchen

The book offers an amazing perspective of a much-overlooked part of the world, following a seasonal journey that is rooted in Edinburgh and opens in Uzbekistan with winter melon picking and ends in Lviv, Ukraine, eating strudel, visiting many other places in between.

Caroline Eden is a writer, book critic and multi-award winner. Before moving to journalism she completed an MA in Jewish Studies and Diaspora at SOAS (School of Oriental and African Studies), University of London. She has travelled extensively to countries such as Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Ukraine, Russia, Turkey and Bangladesh, documenting her experiences across multiple publications, as well as on BBC Radio 4's 'From Our Own Correspondent'. She has contributed to the Financial Times, the Guardian and the Times Literary Supplement. Her first book, Samarkand: Recipes and Stories from Central Asia & the Caucasus, was a Guardian Book of the Year in 2016 and won the Guild of Food Writers Food and Travel Award in 2017. Black Sea: Dispatches and Recipes - Through Darkness and Light, Caroline's second book, has won numerous awards, including the John Avery Award in 2018 and the Art of Eating Prize in 2020. Her most recent publication, Red Sands: Reportage and Recipes through Central Asia, from Hinterland to Heartland, was The New Yorker's Book of the Year and won the prestigious André Simon Award in 2020. Caroline has also written forewords and introductory essays to several books, including They Went To Portugal by Rose Macaulay and Through Khiva to Golden Samarkand by EllaChristie.

A Subterranean Homecoming WINTER1. Winter Melons2. Russian Railway Pies3. Sultanahmet in the SnowSPRING4. Better a Dinner of Herbs5. Baltic Symphonies6. Journey FoodSUMMER7. Carried Away by a Cloudberry 8. Soup and a Sparrow 9. Cheap ThrillsAUTUMN10. Clover Dumplings11. Smashed12. Night Cooking

A quiet and beautiful book, a unique blend of history, place, love, food and belonging. Eden writes so sincerely and so intimately you miss her as soon as you've read the last page.
Powerfully evocative and beautifully written Cold Kitchen will warm your heart. Curl up with this book and let it gently take you places near and far; you will find a sense of home, the hearthstone of our shared humanity.
A unique memoir to savour by an explorer of our time. Eden's cultural and culinary map takes us into a wonderfully rich world.