A subterranean homecoming -- Winter. 1. Winter melons -- Watermelon, feta and mint salad -- 2. Russian railway pies -- Russian hand pies -- 3. Snow falls on Sultanahmet -- Fragrant apricot and prune hoşaf -- Spring. 4. Better a dinner of herbs -- Springtime soup with bulgar, tomatoes and herbs -- 5. Baltic symphonies -- Dark beer and rye bread pudding -- 6. Journey food -- hillside pasties -- Summer. 7. Carried away by a cloudberry -- Blueberry or bilberry jam -- 8. Soup and a sparrow -- Myth-status chłodnik -- 9. Cheap thrills -- Apricot cookies with barberries -- Autumn. 10. Smashed -- Teahouse brittle with nuts and cherries -- 11. Clover dumplings -- Duck and barberry plov -- 12. Night cooking -- Apple, blueberry and rum strudel

"'With its union of practicality and magic, a kitchen is a portal offering extended range and providing unlikely paths out of the ordinary. Offering opportunities to cook, imagine and create ways back into other times, other lives and other territories. Central Asia, Turkey, Ukraine, the South Caucasus, Russia, the Baltics and Poland. Places that have eased into my marrow over the years shaping my life, writing and thinking. They are here, these lands I return to, in this kitchen.' A welcoming refuge with its tempting pantry, shelves of books and inquisitive dog, Caroline Eden finds comfort away from the road in her basement Edinburgh kitchen. Join her as she cooks recipes from her travels, reflects on past adventures and contemplates the kitchen's unique ability to tell human stories. This is a hauntingly honest, and at times heartbreaking, memoir with the smell, taste and preparation of food at its heart. From late night baking as a route back to Ukraine to capturing the beauty of Uzbek porcelain, and from the troublesome nature of food and art in Poland to the magic of cloudberries, Cold Kitchen celebrates the importance of curiosity and of feeling at home in the world"--Provided by publisher