A cook, a country house, a camera.

I have launched my bilingual blog Taste of Memories in 2016 with the slogan above, which was meant to be a spacious virtual kitchen inviting readers from all over the world for chatting, cooking
and baking. My name is Judit Neubauer, I am a cook, food photographer, former globetrotter and author of the cookbook Taste of Memories.

I graduated as an economist, but the world of marketing communication could fascinate me only for a short time. My days were spent at the office desk, but in the evening and at night I dreamed of cooking. In 2007 my life had profoundly changed on a holiday in Provence due to an encounter with an extraordinary person, Christine Chapot, our host at the B&B where we stayed for a week. Her passion for cooking, her way of thinking, the essence of the so called “joie de vivre” (the joy of life) and her unshakable belief that anything is possible changed my life completely. After Provence, I apparently continued my usual life, but inside, something radically changed in me and there was no going back. Although my days were still stressful and exhausting, the phone constantly ringing and emails pouring into my inbox, at night I dreamed of cooking, recipes, a kitchen garden and a peaceful life. Wherever I went, I always put a cookbook in my bag as a kind of talisman, reminding me that there is something in this world that really makes me happy.

The gap between my real life and my desired life became bigger and bigger, and I finally decided to follow my dreams, wherever they lead me.

I went back to school, completed my chef training, and then btained a diploma at the Lenôtre Academy. I immersed myself in the topic of artisanal breads at the French Culinary Institute in New York and hesitated for a long time about choosing the profession of baker. After my internship at the restaurant Les 5 Sens in Avignon I opened my own bistro, Bistro 181 in the heart of Budapest in 2011, where the world met every single day, only to part as friends while the scent of lavender wafted around us.

The bistro quickly became one of the best in Budapest. For weeks, it topped Tripadvisor’s Budapest list, was included in Lonely Planet’s guidebook, was written about by many magazines, I could say that it was a dream come true. I received a lot of love, recognition, and encouragement, but after two years I felt that I had to see more of the world, explore new tastes, and collect memories. So with a sore but adventurous heart, I closed the bistro and moved to Spain, where I found a new home in Malaga, Andalusia. I was enchanted by the Spanish flavors, the orange trees, the markets and the sea, the warmth of Maria and Borja’s artisanal bakery, where I worked as a pastry chef and baker’s assistant. I spent 2.5 years in this amazing city, met a lot of wonderful people, collected many tastes, memories, life stories and helped me to get to a deeper understanding of my life purpose.

At home, however, something has been waiting for me for years, patiently, perhaps knowing that everything has its time. A country house in a small village in Bakony, with an orchard of 1,500 square meters, the same amount of arable land and nearly 70-80 years—old fruit trees, which, if they had heard of spraying, have now forgotten it. The stream flows peacefully at the end of the lot, horses are roaming freely on the opposite hillside. A place where there is time for the small joys of life, where you can see a thousand stars in the sky and where it is still customary to greet
strangers.
So in 2015, we packed all my kitchen utensils and half of my life into a van, and with Áron, who is now my husband, and our dog, Beeper, we crossed Europe to arrive in Bánd, this small Swabian village of 670 people, where my grandmother was born and grew up.
I started looking for old recipes, while we brought new life into the old house and started learning step by step to this day what it means to live, cook and, of course, eat in harmony with the earth
and nature.
The Taste of Memories blog is about this life. About the countryside, forgotten and rediscovered traditions, food and flavours that evoke and recreate memories.

Flavours have magical powers. They can recall long-forgotten memories, sounds, smells, connect families, regions, countries, and even unknown ones. Many of us are lucky enough to be able to keep the yellowed, stained, handwritten recipe books of our mothers and grandmothers. These recipes usually have one thing in common: descriptions are short, ingredient list is often incomplete, because they only served as a reminder to prepare the recipe in the usual way.

Everyone knew how to stretch the raisin and fold puff pastry, so there was no need to describe these dishes. Our grandmothers and mothers cooked for taste, but their cooking contained everything that we are still looking for today.

When I started the blog, my original goal was to preserve my own family’s recipes, but in the meantime, the project has grown into much more than a simple collection of family recipes. The family recipes slowly expanded with other people’s family favourites, from handwritten notebooks received as gifts, and with recipes found in hundred-year-old books, adapted and clarified to meet the requirements of today. Over the past three years, since I’ve been regularly sharing new content, more than 120 recipes and stories have been collected, and it quickly became apparent that Taste of Memories conveys values that are more relevant than ever. Even though the world has sped up, we are longing for the warmth of home, peace, the scents that fill the kitchen, and life in harmony with the rhythm of nature. Taste of Memories guides the reader into this world. It is like a link between the past and the present through a language that is close to all of us and can be easily interpreted by anyone: through the visual impressions that evoke tastes, smells and emotions.
In 2022, a book entitled Taste of Memories was published based on the blog, which was published in Germany by Hölker Verlag.

The idea of Taste of Memories Cottage was born in my mind during that particular vacation in Provence. Almost 20 years have passed since then, but I haven’t given up on the fact that one day the place can really come true, where I can host friends and strangers, where I can surround everyone who comes to us with the same love and care as our grandmothers would have done.

Taste of Memories is finally leaving the world of the internet, it will no longer be just a virtual dining table, but a real place where we can meet, where memories are created with tastes and smells and where, I hope, you will feel the same as we do: as if you have arrived home.

I am looking forward to meeting you soon!

With love

Judit Neubauer & family