Stone cook, Oksana Harris, will be bringing a taste of Ukrainian cuisine to Staffordshire and beyond at the Live Streamed LET’S COOK! Ukraine event happening on Tuesday May 3rd, in support of Ukrainian refugees, raising funds for a Mobile Catering Trailer to showcase Ukrainian food and culture.
LET’S COOK! Ukraine is a food experience with a difference and Oksana is lending more than a helping hand to put the event together. She teamed up with event organiser and presenter, Ingrid Wagner, after the two women met on line. Ingrid saw immediately how much Oksana loved food and cooking and invited her to be a major part of LET’S COOK! Ukraine.
Oksana, whose family come from the region around Odessa, has lived in Stone for 5 years and is married to an Englishman who shares her love of her homeland.
“When I came here 5 years ago,” Oksana says, “I felt at home and I can’t imagine another country where I would be as comfortable. Stone is a beautiful town where I feel as much at peace as I can be when the terrible war is still happening in Ukraine.”
She does, however, draw the line at what she calls ‘heavy food’ – the full English breakfast and she is very particular about where she buys her ingredients.
“For example, mushrooms,” she says, “should only taste of mushrooms. If I propose something, it has to be good – that means no chemicals. It is better to cook tasty and healthy than add these and lose the real taste of the food.”
Oksana tells how she liked to sit and see how her mother cooked when she was young and of learning in the summer when she went to her grandmother’s.
“My grandmother,” she goes on, “always said that you must be calm and in a good mood because pastry likes quietness and happiness. It is important to be happy inside so when you cook, you can share your positive thoughts and feelings.”
Many chefs talk about the importance of loving what you do and Oksana’s busy fingers echo this when she is in her kitchen or cooking for friends.
“When the present war started, I couldn’t cook,” she adds. “But then I found it helped me. Most of all, I love to share with my friends. It’s the way to show love, from my heart to yours.”
Any visitor to her home, as Ingrid found, meets the Ukrainian tradition of feeding a guest.
“I always had two breakfasts,” Ingrid says. “One at home and one at Oksana’s. It is apparently not polite to have no food and drink when a visitor arrives. Whoever heard of having Borsch for elevenses! I certainly wasn’t complaining. Her food was absolutely delicious.”
Ingrid herself spent 5 years living and working as an English Language teacher in the former Eastern Bloc after the fall of the Berlin Wall, and her experience has fed strongly into the idea for LET’S COOK! Ukraine. Like many others during lockdown, Ingrid learned to grow her own vegetables and is now a keen cook. She will be chatting to Oksana about the connection between food and language during the event.
Raising funds for a Mobile Catering Trailer to showcase food like Oksana’s, Ingrid goes on to say, is tangible and also long term with the aim of giving support, training and providing employment for Ukrainians for the benefit of the whole community.
“We’re aiming to make a difference to the lives of people whose own have been torn apart in the current conflict,” she says. “They may have arrived in the UK clutching just a carrier bag in one hand and a child in the other, but they bring with them their own cultural riches which no falling masonry can ever destroy. Oksana has shown me this and I know that we both look forward to the opportunity of sharing both her love of cooking and her culture at this event in support of Ukraine.”
Follow the project on FB, Insta & Twitter @letscookukraine – Live Streaming by PH Production Services Ltd of Newcastle under Lyme.
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