Join MOFAD for an enlightening and lively conversation with acclaimed food writers Anna Ansari and Polina Chesnakova as they explore the ways in which diasporic identity, memory, and migration shape modern cooking and kitchens. Drawing on shared dishes like dumplings, kebab, chicken tabaka, scrambled eggs with tomato, kompot, and Salad Olivier, Polina and Anna will discuss how their culinary traditions have overlapped, diverged, and reinvented themselves across time and geography. From immigrant kitchens brimming with both inherited recipes and distinctly American foods—think Capri Suns, hot dogs, Hamburger Helper and Shirley Temples—to questions of authenticity and nostalgia, the conversation will explore what these blended tables reveal about modern American food culture and writing. Together, Ansari and Chesnakova reflect on why these stories are especially compelling now, not just for them as food writers, but in the context of the cultural currents shaping the present moment.
Program Hosts
Anna Ansari is an Iranian-American food writer and former international trade attorney whose writing explores the intersections of food, history, migration, and the everyday act of cooking. Her acclaimed debut cookbook, Silk Roads: A Flavor Odyssey from Baku to Beijing, blends recipes with travel, family stories, and cultural history, exploring how ingredients move, settle, and transform across borders. With academic training in Asian and Middle Eastern studies, Anna lives in London, England with her husband and son, and believes deeply in the power of the home kitchen to tell global as well as personal stories.
Polina Chesnakova was born in Ukraine to Russian and Armenian parents from the country of Georgia. She was raised in a tight-knit Rhode Island community of refugees from all over the former Soviet Union, and has cooked and baked in a handful of professional kitchens. She’s had her blog (now newsletter) Chesnok since 2015, and her work has been published in Saveur, Bloomberg, The Washington Post, and more. She has written two cookbooks—Hot Cheese and Everyday Cake— in addition to her latest, Chesnok: Cooking from My Corner of the Diaspora: Recipes from Eastern Europe, the Caucasus, and Central Asia. She lives in Providence with her husband, Lee, and two children.
General admission $25
General admission + Silk Roads Book Bundle $53
General admission + Chesnok Book Bundle $53
General admission + Silk Roads + Chesnok Book Bundle $81