I recently bought Irina Georgescu’s (no, we’re not related - at least to my knowledge) Tava Romanian dessert cookbook, which won a James Beard award in 2023, to learn more about Romanian cooking – but baking in particular, as our baked goods are really quite different from what you find in the US. The book also discusses various cultural influences in Romanian cooking, which are also pretty interesting – and gave me some ideas on how to make my coffee in the morning based on how Armenian-Romanians prepared it.
Here is the result of the first thing I cooked from the book: fursecuri (Romanian cookies) in two colors; here cocoa and vanilla. The recipe also called for cardamom, which I didn’t have, so I used some cinnamon instead. 11/10, would recommend.