Taste of Transylvania shares Romanian cuisine, family recipes with Happy Valley

For Carmen Miller, food is so much more than just a daily requirement.

Food has helped her connect with her young autistic daughter, Angela, with the two bonding through cooking as a means of therapy and communication. Food keeps Miller connected to her Romanian roots and her childhood memories of sharing meals at her grandmother’s table. And food has allowed Miller to make unexpected connections within the Happy Valley community, as she networks with other entrepreneurs and businesswomen throughout the area.

As such, it’s no surprise that, when you speak to Miller about her new business, Taste of Transylvania, which launched in September, her face lights up.

“I was always cooking and I developed a cooking program for [Angela] and … I shared my cooking with everyone in the community,“ she said, noting that her baklava was especially a hit. “I thought, why don’t I start a small business and do what I like, something I enjoy, and start making desserts?

“I was planning to do a bakery and was looking for a location. Other people came to me and said, ‘Would you like to cook for us? I want to experience Romanian food.’”

Accordingly, as Miller’s reputation for traditional Romanian cuisine grew, she decided to combine her original bakery business concept with catering. Now, she rents space in two local kitchens and shares her family favorites at various community events.

She also enjoys teaching people about homemade foods, noting the importance of using fresh ingredients and spices, with nothing pre-made or frozen.

“ Everything is made from scratch ... I’m so happy I’m sharing my culture with others,” Miller said.

For those who’ve never experienced Romanian cuisine, it’s definitely defined by its comfort food. Soups are a mainstay and range from savory to sweet to sour. Some are seasonal, incorporating foraged ingredients like nettles.

Other featured dishes include sarmale (cabbage rolls stuffed with pork or beef and rice, slow cooked in a tomato-based sauce — sometimes also called pigs in a blanket, though these are far from the Americanized canned biscuit and hot dog pigs in a blanket you might be more familiar with); goulash (beef and vegetable stew seasoned with paprika); and mămăligă (a polenta-like dish served with cheese, sour cream and bacon).

Miller explained that her home region of the country, near Transylvania, is a bit of a melting pot of cultures, taking culinary inspiration from Slovakia, Hungary, Turkey, Serbia, Poland, Germany, Greece and beyond. As for Miller herself, though, she finds personal inspiration through her mother and grandmother.

“[My mom] is the inspiration of [it] all. She was always cooking for us as children. My grandmother cooked before her,” said Miller. “I would always follow her in the kitchen when she was cooking and I was the one who tested the food. I would go to the markets with her. We’d buy fresh ingredients, or on ... my grandparents’ farm, we grew vegetables and they raised animals. Everything was fresh.”

Her grandmother cooked outside, and Miller remembers playing with other kids and smelling the bread and soup wafting through the air. Now, every time Miller makes her grandmother’s bread, it brings back memories and she feels like her grandmother’s spirit is there with her.

“ Her spirit is here because I make the same recipe she makes,” she said. “It’s never going to be the same because, of course, my grandmother was special … but her bread was the best and her food was the best.

“I remember we came in from playing and she set the table for us, outside, and we ate and went back to playing again. It was a beautiful memory, around my grandmother’s table, knowing she prepared everything fresh that day for us, and she made it with love.”

When Miller caters an event, she noted, she attempts to channel that feeling of a home-served Romanian meal. With capacity to serve events as large as 200 people, she makes everything the same day, from scratch, and offers a range of options, from appetizers to soups to the main courses.

“I enjoy people being happy about the food … [people] praising how good the food was makes my heart grow. I put their pleasure above my gaining money out of the business,” Miller said when asked what ultimately motivated her to start up Taste of Transylvania.

Miller has quite a number of other endeavors in the works; she’s also the founder of Adaptive Magic in Motion, is involved in autism advocacy and is an artist and writer. Taste of Transylvania is something that she can involve her parents and children in, she said.

“I want [them] to see that I’m not just a mommy who stays home and cooks for the family,” Miller said. “I want to be the mommy that came into an adventure and opened an entire business that’s well received, that’s doing something she enjoys, and then the profit will come.”

Learn more about Taste of Transylvania at sites.google.com/view/tasteoftransylvania.

Holly Riddle is a freelance food, travel and lifestyle writer. She can be reached at holly.ridd@gmail.com.