"Budmo!" is a Ukrainian toast, a signal of celebration. To Anna Voloshyna, who was born and raised in Ukraine, it is fierce and vigorous, an embodiment of her native cuisine. Voloshyna's perspective on Ukrainian food is that it is sometimes hard to separate from that of its many neighbors because of common climate and geography, but that together they are complex and multilayered. Where she includes a recipe that is also strongly identified with another land, she happily acknowledges it, even if it is also common in Ukraine. Among the recipes Voloshyna offers are pickled mussels from the Black Sea, spice-rubbed boiled pork belly, fried chicken livers with pomegranate molasses, and a thick, fluffy pancake called oladky made with kefir than can be served with savory or sweet toppings. Recipe names are provided in Cyrillic alphabet as well as in English. Hardcover. Color photographs throughout.
