Dash Cafe - Like Mama Used To Make It

Like Mama Used to Make It - Post Soviet Food and Family relations

This event replaces the formerly advertised The Bear Next Door.

Welcome Ukrainian chef Olia Hercules and Food Anthropologist Katrina Kollegaeva to the kitchen table to share their favourite family recipes and, along with artist Yuldosh Juraboev and Dash Arts Artistic Director Josephine Burton, will be sharing stories and discussing how family recipes have evolved since the fall of the Soviet Union.

With cooking demonstrations from Olia and Katrina and some rousing and nostalgic tunes from DJ Sasha, this cafe will transport you with smells and sounds to a very different time and place.

About Olia Hercules
Olia Hercules is a Leith’s-trained chef, recipe writer and food stylist. Her recipes are regularly featured in the ‘10 Best’ column of the Guardian’s Cook supplement and she has written for various publications including Sainsbury’s Magazine and Jamie Magazine.

Olia was born in 1984 in Kakhovka, Ukraine, only two hours’ drive from the Crimean border. Just an hour’s flight from Turkey, the south of Ukraine enjoys a mild climate and Olia’s childhood was filled with long, hot summers and food a cornucopia of colour and flavour. She spent her formative years in Cyprus and studied in Italy before moving to England where she trained at Leith’s and then went on to hone her cooking skills in the fiery kitchens of Ottolenghi.

Her culinary repertoire is vast and constantly expanding with cherished Uzbeki, Moldovan and Russian recipes inherited from her grandmothers, Armenian dishes she borrowed from her aunt Nina and the vast pool of Thai and Laos food she regularly cooks at home.

About Katrina Kollegeava
Katrina is a food anthropologist with roots in Soviet Estonia. She has a healthy appreciation of all things fat-related; lardo, bone marrow, beef dripping and a love for a story, with and in your food.

She is a freelance food writer, having written for Gastronomica, Olive, Time Out, Easyjet, etc, and works for the Soil Association. Katrina started an underground Russian restaurant in her North London home in early 2011. Now inflicting the joys on the wider audiences through Russian Revels.

About the Dash Cafe

Since May 2010, monthly free Dash Cafes have been hoested featuring live music, film, performance, readings and discussion at venues across London. Dash Cafes are intimate and informal; a chance to encounter new ideas, surprising perspectives and unusual artists who shed new light on the regions in which we work.

The Dash Cafe is currently to be found at Rich Mix on the first Wednesday of every month but future Cafes will travel wherever these main performances go as well as popping up in new and surprising locations whenever occasion demands.