Cookbook Courtyard presents their annual

Soup Swap with author Alissa Timoshkina

Soups, stews, and other things we eat with a spoon will be selected from her new cookbook

Lozhka

to be held at Solid State Books on H St. NE

Tickets with, AND without a book are available here!

Cookbook Courtyard's annual Soup Swap is back! This year we will pick recipes from Alissa Timoshkina's cookbook Lozhka and be joined by the author for conversation and much slurping!

Please pick one of the many soups, stews, or other things we eat with a stew, cook it at home, and bring it to the swap to share! We also encourage bringing jars or tupperware to take some soup home with you.

Abour Lozhka

In Lozhka, award-winning writer and co-founder of #CookforUkraine, Alissa Timoshkina, celebrates Eastern Europe through one of its most humble and powerful symbols: the spoon. Blending soulful recipes with rich storytelling, she brings together history, memory, and cooking in a portrait of the region that is both deeply comforting and strikingly contemporary.

From herb-scented soups and hearty grain stews to pillowy dumplings and custard-soaked desserts, each dish carries a sense of meaning, memory, and belonging. Drawing on a wide range of traditions, including Ukrainian, Jewish, Tatar, Hungarian, Polish, Slovak, and Roma, among others, Lozhka reveals a borderless cuisine shaped by resilience and generosity.

Vibrant, vegetable-forward, and full of smoky, tangy, and creamy flavors, these recipes are made for today’s kitchens while honoring centuries of tradition. More than a cookbook, Lozhka is a journey through kitchens, cultures, and shared histories—an invitation to slow down, gather around, and savor the stories carried in every spoonful.

Alissa Timoshkina is a London-based food writer, cookbook author and historian specializing in the culinary culture of Eastern Europe. Born in Siberia with Ashkenazi and Eastern Slavic roots, her family history is a defining ingredient in her cooking and writing. Alissa moved to the UK in the late 1990s to study, later completing a PhD in Soviet culture and Holocaust history. Ultimately, her love of cooking pulled her away from academia, and in 2015 she founded the supper club and catering company KinoVino, which she ran until 2020.

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