Anna Voloshyna’s family is currently hiding in a makeshift bomb shelter in her childhood village in southern Ukraine. The San Francisco chef and food blogger talks to them three times a day.
“They’re fearing for their lives,” says Voloshyna, adding that the bomb shelter used to be her grandmother’s cellar, where she stored pickles and preserves. “They are very afraid that this war will never end.”
To help her parents and other Ukrainians during the ongoing Russian invasion, Voloshyna has joined the global food movement to #CookforUkraine with a March 13 fundraising dinner in San Francisco. Held at The Archery at 498 Alabama St. with support from 18 Reasons, a food-centric nonprofit, and the San Francisco Cooking School, the dinner will feature traditional Ukrainian dishes, a slideshow about Ukraine and recipes from Voloshyna’s forthcoming cookbook.
Tickets for the dinner, which costs $75 and starts at 5 p.m., can be purchased through Tastemade. All proceeds go to World Central Kitchen, which is currently feeding refugees fleeing the violence on both the Ukrainian and Polish sides of the border.
“They were one of the first organizations to respond to this crisis, and I think they can get the food to people who need it the fastest,” Voloshyna says.
In addition to golubzi, meat-filled cabbage rolls simmered in tomatoes, the family-style menu includes appetizers such as eggplant rolls with herby cheese, beet and walnut spread, and whipped garlic salo or salted pork; honey cake, or medovyk, with sour cream frosting; and vodkas infused with sea buckhorn and horseradish.
Voloshyna says she is very grateful to her Bay Area food community, which started reaching out late last week, asking how to help. “Seeing unity from so far away cheering for my culture, this is very amazing and very empowering,” she says.
Voloshyna moved to the United States with her husband in 2011, but their families are still back home in southern Ukraine. Their village is roughly an hour from Kershon, the port city taken over by Russian forces earlier this week.
“Since then it has been very quiet, and they’re just waiting for something to happen,” she says. “I tell them we will win and then we will rebuild Ukraine. I know that my country will never be the same after this war. But we’ll be better.”
Source: www.mercurynews.com