Introduction
Dear readers, followers, old friends and new friends,
you don’t even know how embarassing and weird it feels to be writing to you. If you’re here it means you either want to posess my precious recipes or you’re just curious about what’s happening in my head and in my heart. Either way – thank you. There is no better feeling than the one of being heard and appreciated.
My name is Marta. I have my master thesis from polish studies, which I have finished at University of Warsaw, where I was researching a so called “haptic” poetry on textile. This included woven, knitted and embroidered words. Since I was 15 I was very fond of poetry. Mostly underlining solitary words I’ve found beautiful. When collected together, they were forming concrete poetry. I’ve always loved writing rhymed riddles and short love poems for my teenagehood sweethearts. I still haven’t published my poetry anywhere, but I feel that the right time will come soon.
A few years ago I’ve been running my autorship broadcast in Warsaw based Radio Kapitał. I was reading poetry out loud and playing ambient music and simple sounds. It was very meditative. I’ve had a pleasure to be invited to perform by important institutions like the National Gallery of Art in Warsaw or WBrzask – a series of experimental concerts at dawn in Królikarnia. Unfortunately I couldn’t be consistent in my practice and I’ve decided to let my broadcast go after two fruitful years. I hope it will be different here.
For now I am a knitter and a cook. In 2022 I’ve started a small studio called Celestina Mode. Named after my partner's grandmother’s own pasmanteria, a shop that flourished on via dei Gracchi in Rome during the 1960s until the early 2000s.
It’s a tribute not only towards a woman that worked with textile her whole life but also towards a woman who was feeding so well her grandchild and my partner Simone.
Now my practice is based around raw polish wool, working with hands, learning new ancient techniqes like wet felting. Everything I know about knitting is coming from a dear friend of mine, Paula Kozłowska (Kai Kotto), who in her knitting practice is showing utmost care for detail and color. Each one of her pieces is art. I’m forever grateful to her for sharing this love towards textile with me.
The love for cooking was something planted by my first boyfriend. He used to make pizza from scratch and some very complex Indian dishes. Until I’ve met him I didn’t even know how to make scrambled eggs. Now, after many years of practice, I am cooking semi-professionally. Perfecting my favourite childhood recipes, providing catering, creating food experiences, cooking private dinners, setting the tables and what’s most important – eating a lot of delicious things.
I’ve decided to give this newsletter a peculiar form. Every Monday I’ll publish in 6 different categories. A recipe, a poem, a movie, a song, a place and a… cheese. Yes, I’m eating so much cheese that it’s getting its own spot light.
It may appear trivial and simple, but the things I will share here are very personal, close to my heart and I hope it’ll help you discover new joys. Including the cheese category! This first one is a trial.
A Recipe
When I was a young girl, my parents were leaving me at my grandparent’s place in the village. There was a little garden where my grandma was growing all her herbs ans sugar peas, and right next to it was a little wooden house built by my grandfather for all his grandchildren to play in. I spent there most of my days. When I was getting tired and hungry I would come upstairs and have freshly made crepes. My grandfather was working his whole life in the dairy plant, so we often had milk based products. Today’s recipe is for the crepes with sweet cottage cheese filling, sour cream and sugar.
