Cold Kitchen

A Year of Culinary Journeys

By: Caroline Eden

Narrated by: Caroline Eden

Bloomsbury presents Cold Kitchen written and read by Caroline Eden.

A Financial Times and Observer "best summer read"
A Times Literary Supplement Book of the Year

‘With its union of practicality and magic, a kitchen is a portal, offering extended range and providing unlikely paths out of the ordinary … longed-for places are suddenly not so far away. Not unreachable, but present. Held again in the hand and heart.’

In her Edinburgh basement kitchen, Caroline Eden recounts travels across Central Asia, Turkey, the Baltics and beyond using recipes, souvenirs, ingredients and imagination to provide routes back to distant lands and past adventures.

From late-night baking as a way to Ukraine, to the magic of Uzbekistan’s wintertime melons, once gifts fit for emperors and tsars, this is a hauntingly honest memoir with the smell, taste and preparation of food at its heart. Cold Kitchen is an ode to the kitchen’s extraordinary ability to tell human stories and transport us to faraway places and different times.©2024 Caroline Eden (P)2024 Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

PDF?

I love this book—the text, the recipes, the author’s narration—so where’s the pdf for the recipes? Come on!

Loved this!

The narrative and the performance are exceptional. Listening to this made me want to travel to these faraway places just to taste the food she describes.

The history lessons of faraway land

Loved the descriptions of people and places, the descriptions of the feel of places, the interesting foods. Recipes and friends she made along the way. Excellent book

Totally my kind of book - travel and food

I love the book, I love the stories and especially how the history of the countries is juxtaposed with the present day. But I wish there was a PDF so I could easily start on making things such as pasties. The recipes for some really obscure to me, but common to the countries she visits, are clearly delineated in the chapters so it won't be impossible, still...Anyway, I really enjoyed the way Darwin the dog is intermixed into the stories, great name, great dog. The author is very brave to go the places she (and her husband) traveled to, and many times by herself! At my age I have to be an armchair traveler but I can still cook and re-listen as I am cooking as the book conjures up images of the restaurants, museums, cafes, friends, her kitchen, walking trails and cloudberries she experienced.

Worth the Effort

I enjoyed the travel stories mingled with life back home in Edinburgh. A pdf with a map of the places visited and a link to the recipes would enhance comprehension. Between my hearing, the author’s accent and unfamiliar locations I found myself revisiting a number of passages. They were worth revisiting. Given a choice I would recommend the book over the audio version.