Anastasiya Holoborodko

You don’t know, what’s so interesting about food stories? Are you serious? The brief answer is – everything. Food has been stopped being just a way to satisfy hunger long ago. This is our opportunity to combine meetings and meal, esthetic and physical pleasure. Now people are keen on trying different tastes and testing various restaurant formats, they want to know more about products and cooking methods. That is why I’m glad to share my knowledge and experience in this area.

I’m Anastasiya Holoborodko, food journalist, author of blog on healthy food spoon.com.ua,
food-editor at bit.ua, nogibogi.com.ua, student and host of culinary workshops, modern gastronomist and a very enthusiastic person.

My childhood was far from glamour everyday life of city ladies. Small Ismail town, where my family still lives, frozen in its semi-city development. Quiet and cozy as granny’s kitchen, it even used to play a significant role in history. I like Ismail for its diverse gastronomic melody. Just imagine: Turkish, Bulgarian and Romanian cuisine, endless curving vineyards and fluffy sheep-walks… I am so inspired by my native town that I can keep on talking and talking about it. But this is not the point.

I didn’t dream of becoming a cook or a gastronomist; I couldn’t imagine my future in the kitchen. And nevertheless these topics are the key elements in my life today. Moreover, I extremely enjoy this. But everything could have been different. After school, I entered faculty of international relations, then of psychology and only afterwards faculty of hotel and restaurant management. I started writing my food blog a bit later. It’s funny that in school I hated writing compositions most of all. Giving definitions and wordings to my thoughts, describing them in details was a real torture for me. But everything changes. I started writing, and at first it was about food only. It seems, those days few people worked on one narrow topic.

Gradually as my knowledge grew, my words in the field of gastro blogging gained authority. And now I write for print and online media. My confident live communication transferred to frequent workshops on healthy lifestyle and products. Unwittingly, I went beyond food. I write and speak more and more on relevant topic of dietetic and special nutrition, sport and style. Being true blogger and real writer, I call in question any observations without checks and facts. I try to cook everything I write about or my readers are interested in. My dedication and attention to details played a low-down trick: I don’t know what my favorite dish or cuisine is. My preferences are much wider – I stand for taste, colour, smell and mood they create.

I don’t remember when I cooked lasagna or risotto for the last time. But I used to devote my time to both Spanish paella and Asian tajin during winter nights.

I like Northern – Scandinavian – cuisines. They can teach how to cook fish. For example, let’s take gravlax: small amount of beet and fennel make a miracle with the salmon. British cuisine is a tradition of ceremonies and has a quite narrow range of products. At the same time these are the British who gave simple and very tasty desserts, pastry,
signature apple-pie or teacake.

I like “spicy” cuisines: Morocco, Mexico. As for me, they have the most tasty combinations of meat and condiment, beans and spices, nut sweets.

I like Thai cuisine very much for skillful combination of sour, hot, salty and sweet almost in every dish. This is nothing but perfect balance.

Recently, I’ve fallen in love with French cuisine. But I discover it gradually trying tastes of each region carefully.
And though my lifestyle seems to be all about food and its description, there’s always some place for activity. I jog and attend yoga classes. Yoga is not a sport even but a state of mind. I’ve been practicing it for 5 or 6 years. I started jogging not so long ago, but I’m very passionate about it and run for rather long distances. Round the city, along the streets, across the bridges, but if there is an opportunity to turn to muddy road in the forest I will choose this road.

I really think that we feel healthy and beautiful only when we have strong body. When there is a wish and possibility you should definitely move further. Get healthy habits gradually. Gradual and slow health improvement always gives better results. Some small daily changes are better than dramatic ones but only for three days of a month. And one more thing, take you time to cook. It’s great and tasty.