Nun Becomes Top-Selling Polish Cookbook Writer

SFChronicle ^ | July 18th 2009

[Steelfish]

Nun becomes top-selling Polish cookbook writer

By VANESSA GERA, Associated Press Writer

Saturday, July 18, 2009

Emerging from the quiet of her convent, Sister Anastazja Pustelnik was confronted by a jarring image — her smiling face on posters plastered around town to hawk the cookbooks that have made the 59-year-old nun one of Poland's best-selling authors.

It's fame Sister Anastazja never bargained for when she left the material world as a young woman, expecting to toil in obscurity for God. But her ability to create easy-to-follow recipes for delectable cakes and traditional home cooking has resulted in five cookbooks since 2001 that have sold a combined 1.1 million copies in this country of 38 million.

Today, her cookbooks are found in shops and online, their glossy covers showing Pustelnik with an apron over her black nun's habit and a mixing bowl or serving platter in hand, generating the unwelcome fame thrust upon her.

"Once when I was walking through town and there were advertisements for one of my books, I felt like tearing them down," she confessed. "But I was afraid of paying a fine."

[ottbmare]

I wish these cookbooks were available in English.

[thecodont]

http://www.edenpolishbookstore.com/istar.asp?a=6&id=9788375050141!ole

Cookbook: 100 nowych ciast. Przepisy siostry Anastazji

[A knight without armor]

So do I. I don’t know why but I like just about anything Polish.

[ottbmare]

I’m not really into cakes, but I’d like to cook some of the other Polish specialties. I have the notes and recipes of my late grandmother, who was born about a hundred years ago in Eastern Europe, and I enjoy trying to cook these ethnic dishes with modern measurements and under modern kitchen conditions. But where I live there is no access to Eastern European food so I have nothing to which I can compare my efforts.