From a Polish Country House Kitchen
Recipes from Anne Applebaum
Some of my earliest childhood memories are of playdates with my friend Annie (as she was called at the time), when we were kids growing up in DC. We used to meet at the swimming pool over the Key Bridge at the Marriott Hotel, which is now (according to Google Maps), permanently closed. I can still feel the hot pavement under my toes after I kicked off my flip flops to jump over the hot pavement to the pool, and the joy of cooling off there from hot DC summer days.
Annie and I had several games — like the “sneeze” game which would propel us gradually down the steps of the pool into deeper water, with each “sneeze” causing us to jump down a step. And then once fully in the pool, we had underwater tea parties, sitting on the floor of the pool and pouring each other imaginary cups of delicious tea from a no doubt English teapot. After the pool, we always had an obligatory stop at Baskin Robbins, which was a marvel of the time — Rocky Road was the flavor we always asked for.
I also remember play dates at her house, where her basement was populated by umpteen plastic horses in various poses. But most of all, we entertained ourselves on the lawn around the house, which was the location of our “Peanuts” games, where we inevitably fought over who would get to be Peppermint Patty (I’m sure she won those battles)!
I also have very clear memories of grilled cheese sandwiches with American cheese puffing up like a pillow in the toaster oven, while Campbell’s Tomato Soup heated on the stove. Such was the culture of my early years.
Annie had dimples I was very envious of.
By the time we were about 10, our playdates subsided as we went to different schools, and life took us our separate ways.
In the mid 90’s I found myself living in the UK, in Brighton, and one evening we had a guest for dinner who was Editor in Chief at the time of Macmillan, Picador and Pan. Just as I was calling him to the table, and suggested we turn off the news — he interjected “just a moment, it’s Anne Applebaum on the telly”, whose book they had published. Anne Applebaum?? I stared at the TV screen intently, and behind the intense gaze of this political commentator, I could see the childhood dimples of my Peppermint Patty and underwater tea party playmate. Indeed, it was her! I stared, fascinated, at my childhood friend, now a grown woman, and intense historian and commentator. After that, we met up in London, where she was living at the time, for tea (real life not pretend!), and that was the last time I saw her.
Meanwhile, she has won a Pulitzer Prize for her epic history of the Gulag, penned various other historical works, and written for just about every publication under the sun. Married to a Polish politician she has a unique perspective on the history and politics of Eastern Europe, and more recently (in the context of the war in Ukraine), barely a day goes by where I don’t get a call from my mom saying to switch on this or that channel cause “Annie Applebaum” is on TV again (she still calls her Annie, though I know Anne likes to be called Anne now!). Again and again. I often feel like quite the under-achiever by comparison.
Apart from her historical and political works, in 2012 Anne also published a wonderful Polish Cookbook called From a Polish Country House Kitchen: 90 Recipes for the Ultimate Comfort Food, in collaboration with Danielle Crittenden. It was at this time that we first created a mealplan based on this cookbook, and every single year, my company would run this as our last box of the year — including the recipes and everything you needed to cook them, as it is filled with the coziest and most festive recipes imaginable — from Pierogis to Latkes, Wild Mushrooms and Borscht…
This preface to the box (and the intros to the recipes linked to below) was penned by Anne:
We admit: We are unlikely cookbook writers. I’m a columnist and a historian, born in Washington, but now living in London; my friend Danielle is also a journalist, based in Washington. We’ve also picked an unlikely topic.
While writing From a Polish Country House Kitchen, we were often teased: “How many recipes can you get out of boiled potatoes?” Unfortunately for many of us, including even the millions of North Americans with Polish ancestry, the very term “Polish cooking” conjures up a vision of heavy, greasy dishes, the food of exile and poverty.
But as I’ve known for a long time – ever since my husband and I restored an old house in the Polish countryside, twenty years ago – Polish cuisine is long overdue for a reputational revival. Traditional cooking has always been based on fresh vegetables and meat which is organic because it has been raised in someone’s garden – and it has always included aromatic soups, flavorsome game, and crisp chopped salads. In recent years, creative chefs have also begun to experiment with new versions of traditional dishes, from herring tartare to pierogi as exotic as the dim sum of Hong Kong. Our cookbook is meant to impart the flavors of the traditional cooking and the taste of the more exotic innovations – with, of course, an American twist that we bring ourselves. We hope you come to enjoy these dishes as much as we do.
Anne Applebaum
So here is the meal plan and links to the recipes that we returned to time and time again. Even now when I don’t have an entire food delivery company devoted to pulling together all the ingredients to cook and share my whims and fancies, this is truly what I feel like eating around the holidays. Let me know if you try any of these!