What is Food Polka? The word “Polka”, as some of you may or may not know, is the Polish word for a Polish woman. I am Polish, I am a woman, and I love to cook, so I am the Food Polka.

How did it all start? Well, in February of 2013 I started a culinary blog in Polish: JemWiecJestem.com. It got a really good response from friends and family. When I would tell my American friends about it, they said I should start a blog in English as well. I really wanted to do it, so that my friends wouldn’t feel unfairly discriminated against, but I was resistant to take on the task by myself. Frankly, I was procrastinating because of my English, which of course, is not my native language. Sadly, I thought that my translations would never equal the Polish originals.

I needed help, desperately. One night I was hanging out with my neighbor, drinking wine on my terrace. I told him about my blog and about wanting to do translations of my Polish food stories into English. Out of nowhere, he said he would give it a whirl. Now, this was after a bottle of wine so to be honest, I didn’t have any expectations. I’ve tried to work with friends and usually things don’t work out as much as you would like. To my surprise, the first rewrite made me so happy. As I was reading it I couldn’t help but smile, because I knew I had found the perfect guy for the job.

While we were working on more columns, my neighbor became very interested in my stories of communist Poland, which I often use in reference to Polish cuisine and culinary culture. I really didn’t think much of the stories, because they are just a part of my life.  The poor guy was shocked learning about the absolute absurdity of that time. The more he became interested in the stories the more I became interested in telling them. It was a cathartic and truly entertaining experience for me to share them. It sent memories whirling around in my head. I realized that I could use my blog to talk about that time.

So this is foodpolka.com. Here, I will be sharing my personal stories of communist Poland, as well as my experience of immigrating to the US, and of course my deep passion for food. The stories will be quite ridiculous and silly. Hopefully they will keep you entertained.