Born to a Jewish mother and Ukrainian father during the final years of the Soviet Union, Yuliya Patsay grew up believing bread lines were a fun way to spend an afternoon, drafts caused pneumonia, and that Lenin was everyone’s benevolent grandpa.

After trading pickled herring and Soviet winters for San Francisco fog and year-round produce (the real American dream!) she found herself occupying two parallel universes: the first grounded in her Soviet roots and the second in her burgeoning ‘Amerikanskiye’ beliefs.

Irreverent, nostalgic and vulnerable, Until the Last Pickle, is a memoir replete with remembrances, anecdotes, and exactly 18 recipes. It’s an exploration of identity and belonging — at once, deeply personal and broadly relatable — told through the lens of one family’s “totally average” immigration journey.