After the Russian Revolution of 1917, millions of people poured into Moscow from the countryside, many living crammed together in the appropriated grand apartments of the wealthy — a single, communal kitchen shared by the ten or so families squeezed together under one roof. Spaces were crowded, food scarce, privacy nonexistent.After Stalin’s death in 1953, Nikita Khrushchev came to power. His new Soviet government built hundreds of huge standardized apartment buildings with single family units, each with their own kitchen. These new, private kitchens became hotbeds of politics, forbidden music, literature – “dissident kitchens” where the seeds of ending the Soviet Union were sewn.

On April 12, 2024, Eleanor Coppola, artist, filmmaker, mother and wife of director Francis Ford Coppola, died at her home in the Napa Valley surrounded by family. She was 87 years old and had lived a most remarkable life.

Route 66—The Main Street of America— the first continuously paved highway linking east and west was the most traveled and well known road in the US for almost fifty years. From Chicago, through the Ozarks, across Oklahoma, the Texas Panhandle, up the mesas of New Mexico and Arizona, and down into California to the Pacific Ocean. The first road of its kind, it came to represent America’s mobility and freedom—inspiring countless stories, songs, and even a TV show.

Deep thanks to all of you who support the work of The Kitchen Sisters. Without your collaboration and contributions, our stories, internship, and mentoring program would not be possible.