Tales of House

Svetlana the persona takes center stage, constantly zippy and self-delighted, and the food recedes. I like a story with my soup, but here the anecdotes crowd the pot.

The house-magic bits feel twee, and several recipes assume a pantry I do not keep or ask for a hunt. The trick for custardy eggs is neat, yet too many dishes lean on the same hot honey and chile profile, which blurs the voice into a single note.

Solid everyday cooking with a few friction points.

• Winsome headnotes with real tips
• Weeknight sheet-pan ideas that work
• Some ingredients hard to source locally
• Occasional ambiguity on pan size or oven rack

Net result is solid if you like bright, peppery flavors and do not mind a short shopping detour.

The throughline here is abundance shared, an insistence that cooking, appetite, home, and love are neighbors. It promises "share one sunlit room"; the book mostly delivers. Sometimes the atmospheric bits run long and the instructions read like an aside, but the sharp salads, dill borscht, and weeknight trays re-center the message.

Me recordó al calor de Diana Henry en Simple y a la nostalgia comestible de The Little Library Cookbook de Kate Young, pero con el giro balcánico de Svetlana. Las recetas suenan a mesa larga: panqueques a medianoche con mermelada de guinda, pelmeni, borsch con eneldo, y el pollo a la sartén de Lev con miel picante y zumaque.

Es un libro para cocinar entre semana y también para invitar vecinos. Algunas preparaciones son más largas de lo que el tono sugiere, pero los consejos claros (como huevos cremosos sin nata y chiles al lado del aceite de oliva) lo hacen muy utilizable.

Davis writes like a friend texting from the market, snapping you toward bright, peppery choices. Chapters are arranged by moments rather than courses, so pancakes at midnight sit comfortably near Lev's pan-fried chicken with hot honey and sumac, and the headnotes mostly earn their space with practical cues like why chiles belong beside olive oil and the trick to custardy eggs without cream.

Recipes cooked cleanly in my kitchen, with times and yields that held up. My only quibbles: the index leans a bit poetic, and a few ingredients (sour cherry jam, sumac) may require a hunt, though she offers swap ideas that keep dinner moving.

From a Shoreditch pop-up to a late train to Riga, this book builds a lived-in world of stove heat and open windows where toasting cinnamon scents the hall, cardamom coffee meets buttered toast, and balcony picnics bloom under a laundry line beside dill borscht, pelmeni, and that crackling hot-honey-sumac chicken.