From KCRW, I'm Evan Klyman. You're listening to Good Food.

A few weeks ago, the Good Food team attended the James Beard Media Awards in Chicago.

You know, every time that I go to this ceremony, I get so excited to see so much

talent in one room. And I always leave with an immense feeling of gratitude for what I

get to do here on the show. So this week we're

highlighting some of our favorite conversations with authors and journalists who

took home Beard Awards this year. Up first is one of my favorite cookbooks of the past year,

Tava. Tava is a Rina Jorgescu's love song to Romanian breads, pastries and sweets.

She manages to pack an entire culinary landscape into her books. The effect

kind of makes you feel like you're traveling through the countryside with her as your guide.

Hi, Arena. Hi, I'm so so happy you could join us now.

It is a pleasure to be here.

So you live in Wales, but you're from Romania.

Tell us where in the country you're from and how you decided to start documenting your culture through food?

Well, I live in Wales, UK, and I'm from Bucharest, the capital of Romania,

but my mother's parents, my grandparents, my grandmother was from Transylvania, my grandfather

from southern Romania called Oltenia.

So I have a bit of both regions in Transylvania

across the Carpathian Mountains and in the South as well.

And I decided to write about Romanian cuisine

after I moved to the UK and after I started to miss the food my mom used to cook and my grandmothers and the food we

actually used to cook together. I started to miss the traditional food, Easter and Christmas.

...