About

About Dill & Garlic and Masha

Hi, my name is Maryia, but you are more than welcome to call me Masha—this is a short version of Maryia in my home country of Belarus and this is what my friends and family call me.

Dill & Garlic is about food, love, life, and everything in between. I started this blog for my English internship project, but it has quickly become much more than that. My intention is to create a comfortable space on the web, where I can share my thoughts, struggles, and successes with the world. I named this blog after my favorite ingredients that I believe can make just about any food taste like home. And although I am really cautious about putting dill or garlic in my dessert, I am open to suggestions.

I live on a tiny island in the Pacific Northwest with my husband R., my four-year-old son Nika, and my miniature schnauzer Stoli. I also have a 12-year-old stepdaughter Matia who visits us throughout the year and lives with us during summer.  Life in the woods could be fun and rewarding, but it could also be very isolating and challenging. If you are adventurous enough, a two-hour drive from Seattle and an hour-long ferry ride (if you are lucky enough, because, you see, ferry schedule is based on a very vague sense of time) will take you to the place where city noise and traffic are replaced by deer roaming freely in your back yard, bald eagles soaring in the sky, and raccoons trying to get into your garbage.

I am a Belarusian native, so you might be naturally curious about how I ended up here, on the West Coast, on an island… Well, it is a long story born out of my love to travel, my zeal for adventure, and my unexpected infatuation with the person who has changed my life forever and eventually became my husband. In a way, this blog is an extension of my life story spoken through the meals I cook and savor.

I firmly believe that food is much more that what we consume for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.  Food is a vehicle for our thoughts, emotions, and memories. Food can be therapeutic and restorative. It can also be incredibly tasty, especially when you share it with the people you love.  For these reasons, I treat a recipe as a canvas where my thoughts and ideas can be freely expressed. I always add, modify, and improve as I cook. I hardly follow a recipe to a tee unless I bake. Baking is a whole different world where “a little bit of this, a little bit of that” strategy might not work as well as with any other dishes. With this exception, many recipes on my site are merely guides for exploration. 
So I invite you to try, taste, savor, and come back for more.