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SHARON HUDGINS
Author

“The Other Side of Russia:
A Slice of Life in Siberia and the Russian Far East”

Sharon Hudgins is an award-winning cookbook author and food writer who has lived in 10 countries on 3 continents and traveled in more than 40 countries around the world. Her previous residences have ranged from Munich, Athens, Paris, London, Madrid, and Tokyo, to a shepherd's cottage in the Scottish Highlands, a German winery on the Mosel River, a mountain village in southern Spain, and a high-rise apartment building in Siberia.

She is the author of a new travel and culinary memoir, The Other Side of Russia: A Slice of Life in Siberia and the Russian Far East (Texas A & M University Press, 2003, 2004), which has won two national writing awards. Her first book, on the regional cuisines of Spain, was published in Germany (1991) where it also received a national literary award. More than 600 of her food and travel articles have appeared in magazines, newspapers, and on the Web, including Gastronomica, German Life, Russian Life, Dallas Morning News, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Hartford Courant, Oregonian, and Fiery Foods & Barbecue. For seven years she was the food columnist for The Stars and Stripes newspaper in Europe, and later she worked as the editor of Chile Pepper magazine in the United States. Currently she is the food columnist for German Life magazine in the USA.

Sharon has appeared on several television and radio shows and has been a featured speaker at conferences of the International Association of Culinary Professionals. She has also presented six papers at the Oxford Symposium on Food & Cookery, in England, where she won a Sophie Coe Subsidiary Prize in Food History for her research on Siberian foods. She is a contributor to The Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America and the forthcoming Oxford International Encyclopedia of Cheese, and her culinary research has been cited in The Oxford Companion to Food. In addition to working as a writer and editor, Sharon Hudgins taught for the University of Maryland's programs in Europe and Asia for 18 years and served as an administrator for two university programs in Russia.

For more information about Sharon's book “The Other Side of Russia”, visit: http://www.tamu.edu/upress/BOOKS/2003/hudgins.htm

SHARON HUDGINS’ GARLIC CHEESE

Called pikantny syr (spicy cheese) in Russian, this is a popular appetizer in Siberia and the Russian Far East. In restaurants it is usually served as a stuffing for ripe red tomatoes, or as a spread for chewy-textured Russian bread. The combination of cheeses used in this recipe approximates the taste of the cheese used in Asian Russia. Plenty of garlic provides the kick; you can also add some cayenne pepper to make the cheese even hotter. Russians make this dish by putting all the ingredients through a meat grinder--but you can also shred the cheese by hand or even use a food processor.

1/2 pound (8 ounces) medium-sharp white cheddar cheese, finely shredded
1/2 pound (8 ounces) Emmentaler cheese, finely shredded
1/4 cup pure sour cream (with no additives)
1/4 cup full-fat mayonnaise
8 to 10 large garlic cloves, put through a garlic press
1/2 teaspoon ground cayenne pepper or hot paprika (optional)
1/4 teaspoon salt

Toss the shredded cheeses by hand in a large bowl. Mix together the sour cream, mayonnaise, pressed garlic, hot pepper (optional), and salt in a small bowl, then add to the cheese, stirring to mix well. Cover and refrigerate at least 4 hours (and preferably overnight) to let the flavors meld. Let come to room temperature before serving. Use as a stuffing for small firm ripe tomatoes or cherry tomatoes, as a topping for baked potatoes, or as a spread for dark bread.

Makes approximately 3 cups.