Smolyansky - The kefir cookbook: an ancient healing superfood for modern life: recipes from my family table and around the world

Contents

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Contents

JULIE SMOLYANSKY is CEO and president of Lifeway Foods Inc., the company her parents founded to introduce kefir to the U.S. Named the nations youngest female CEO of a publicly held firm in 2002, she was recently named to Fortunes 40 under 40 and Fast Companys Most Creative People in Business 1000. Julie lives in Chicago, Illinois.

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Starter culture is tricky to find in stores, but more easily available online. You can find it at kefir.com

Okroshka is being grandfathered in, because its tied to such beloved childhood memories, but even that only calls for a single boiled potato, ultimately divided among four bowls of soup.

Crema catalana is a Spanish take on the classic French dessert, crme brle.

This book contains advice and information relating to health care. It should be used to supplement rather than replace the advice of your doctor or another trained health professional. If you know or suspect you have a health problem, it is recommended that you seek your physicians advice before embarking on any medical program or treatment. All efforts have been made to assure the accuracy of the information contained in this book as of the date of publication. This publisher and the author disclaim liability for any medical outcomes that may occur as a result of applying the methods suggested in this book.

THE KEFIR COOKBOOK . Copyright 2018 by Julie Smolyansky. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

FIRST EDITION

All photos by Jennifer Davick unless otherwise credited.

Smolyansky family photos courtesy of Julie Smolyansky

Cover design: The Book Designers

Cover photograph: Jennifer Davick

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.

Digital Edition MARCH 2018 ISBN: 978-0-06-265132-7

Version 01042018

Print ISBN: 978-0-06-265130-3

FOR MY FAMILY, HERES TO ALL OF THE MEALS

WEVE SHARED, AND THE ONES WE HAVE YET TO ENJOY

Michael and Ludmila, Leah, Misha, Jason, and Eddie

I am incapable of conceiving infinity, and yet I do not accept finity.

I want this adventure that is the context of my life to go on without end.

SIMONE DE BEAUVOIR, LA VIEILLESSE

With my two favorite sous-chefs, Leah and Misha.

Photo by Lena Yaremenko

I was ten years old when I tasted kefir for the very first time. My parents and I had immigrated to America as refugees from the former Soviet Union nine years earlier, in 1976, when I was just a baby and they had nothing in their pockets but $116 and an American dream. They worked feverishly to build our life here; my mother, Ludmila Smolyansky, bootstrapped her way up from a hair washer at a salon to nail technician to, in less than two years, owner of Chicagos first Russian delicatessen. My father, Michael Smolyansky, was a mechanical engineer with years of operations experience, but took what was essentially a demotion to work as a draftsman at a local engineering firm. But they were free.

Still, both of my parents felt one thing was missing: Kefir. The cool, tart and tangy probiotic drink so beloved by Eastern Europeans had yet to make its way overseas. American grocery store shelves were lined with cups of sugary flavored yogurts in cloying flavors like Cherries Jubilee and Key Lime Pie, but you needed a spoon and a sweet tooth to enjoy them. Kefir was a totally different ball game. For one thing, it had billions more probioticsliving, helpful bacteria that reside within all of us, governing our immune system, our gastrointestinal health, and morethan yogurt, which explains why every European person we knew relied on it to keep themselves healthy. It was drinkable, so no spoon was required. It wasnt sweet; the taste was pleasantly sour and slightly effervescent. Given its novel yet addictive taste and array of health properties, Michael and Ludmila knew it would be a hit in the States... but it was nowhere to be found.

My father at work, in the Soviet Union, inspecting a machine he designed.

Fast-forward nearly a decade to 1985, when my family, which now included ten-year-old me and my younger brother, Eddie, lived in a townhouse on Carol Street in the Chicago suburbs. Our basement had morphed into an edible laboratory, filled with jars and funnels, single-burner stoves and pots of bubbling fermented milk. My dad disappeared down there, spending hours a day tinkering with ingredients until the recipe was perfected. Eddie and I became official testers, and from the instant that tart, cool kefir hit my lips, it was love at first taste. In May of 1986, Lifeway Foods was incorporated; two years later, it became the first US company ever to be taken public by a Soviet immigrant.

WHAT IS KEFIR, ANYWAY?

First things first: You can pronounce it any way you like. Russians tend to say, keh-FEAR while the Americanizedbut still totally appropriate pronunciationis KEE-ferr. Kefir is a cultured milk with the texture of a drinkable yogurt, brimming with protein, calcium, and vitamin D. But where it diverges from yogurt and into magical elixir territory is its probiotics. Youll often hear probiotics referred to as friendly bacteria, and kefir is queen when it comes to these great-for-you bugs.