Above Kobuleti

I spend a wonderful day in Tina Mikeladze and Lia Zoidze’s house watching and learning from three generations of women in their family. They don’t usually cook for guests, but as friends of friends, they generously agreed to open their kitchen for me. Tina is Lia’s mother. Lana Nikolashvili is Lia’s daughter-in-law and has just given birth to a baby boy when we visit. Four generations live in this spacious wooden Adjarian-style house in the low hills above Kobuleti, in an exotically perfumed garden with a distant view of the Black Sea. We’re surrounded by tall ferns, citrus and loquat trees, zinnias and black-eyed Susans. A cat snoozes on a woodpile. The ground floor is reserved for agricultural and pantry purposes; the upper floor is for living. A wooden porch covers two sides of the house.