PORT ANGELES — The customers enjoying slices of apple babka, drinking kvass and sipping borscht could be in a cafe in Odesa on the Black Sea or any Eastern European city.
But they’re sitting under umbrellas in a small outdoor area on the upper level of The Wharf located next to Sunflower Tastes, a new bakery and deli Kate Orzikh opened to bring the flavors of her Ukrainian homeland to the area and send support back to those who are fighting for it.
Rich, layered pastry with apple or chocolate (babka). Refreshing, yeasty brews (kvass). Hearty beet and cabbage soup (borscht).
Piroshki. Challah bread. Cabbage rolls.
Orzikh makes the food she grew up with before she arrived in New York City in 1994 at 18 with her mother and grandmother, Jewish refugees from Ukraine fleeing antisemitism. She lived in the city for 11 years before relocating with her two sons to Florida, where she met her wife, Laura Schneider. The family then spent 10 years in California.
Orzikh and Schneider found the Olympic Peninsula when visiting her elder son, who lives in Seattle. They found their forever home in Sequim three years ago.
The impetus behind Orzikh’s business came when she volunteered at a kitchen on the Polish side of the border with the Ukrainian border in April and May 2022, a month after the Russian invasion. What she saw convinced her she needed to do something to help her country and those fighting for it.
She held fundraisers in Sequim and Port Angeles to purchase supplies like thermal underwear, vitamins, and hand and foot warmers for the soldiers in an army unit that uses drones for air reconnaissance. None of the money raised goes toward arms or weapons.
For a huge, two-day garage sale fundraiser last summer at the home she shares with Schneider, Orzikh baked traditional Ukrainian bread. On day one, she sold out. On day two, a line started to form early in the morning — not for the garage sale, but to buy her bread.
It was a sign that perhaps she could turn her love of cooking and baking into a business.
“I wanted to do this, but I was scared,” Orzikh said.
She was a retired project manager for a business solutions and services company, not a professional cook.
But she had something else, a passion for food and a cause.
“I learned from my grandma, and I took classes here and there,” she said. “I am an enthusiastic foodie.”
Orzikh secured a cottage food permit, then turned her and Schneider’s kitchen into a Ukrainian cuisine laboratory.
“My friends were my guinea pigs,” she said.
Her first event at the Pumpkin Patch in August 2024 turned out to be rainy, miserable weather, but she sold everything she had brought.
“I was absolutely floored,” she said.
She said she practically didn’t sleep in the three weeks leading up to October’s Dungeness Crab Festival, cooking, baking and preparing more food than she thought she’d be able to sell.
She sold out every day anyway.
“I don’t know what I was thinking, it was crazy,” she said this week.
Moving to a permanent space where she could operate a deli and expand her offerings made sense.
“I wanted to cook more, and the only way to do it would be to convert the garage, and even then, we’d still be limited,” she said.
Besides, “The whole house was covered in flour.”
Orzikh originally had her eye on a space in Sequim that didn’t work out. The owner of The Wharf was willing to work with her to create the space she needed.
Besides, the location reminded her of her hometown of Odesa, with the smell of salt air and the sunrises she gets to watch after she arrives at 3 a.m.
‘Old-school way’
At Sunflower Tastes, sourdough bread is made the “the old-school way,” that takes almost three days to make from start to finish and which produces a chewy crust and a dense loaf that isn’t pocked with air bubbles. The effort it takes to make sandwich loaves, Ukrainian rye, and plain, cranberry walnut and chocolate chip boules is worth it, Orzikh said.
Not only does it taste better, but it’s suitable to eat for people like herself who are gluten-sensitive (but is not recommended for those who are gluten intolerant).
Sourdough also is used to make bagels, banana bread, brownies, scones, cookies and bagels.
The most popular item so far is a very un-Ukrainian jalapeno cheddar bagel.
This fall, however, there will be baklava, blini, latkes and other traditional Jewish foods for the High Holy Days.
The Sunshine Tastes makes is own gravlax and pastrami that can be purchased by the pound, put on a bagel or made into a sandwich.
There are weekly specials, like pasta Fridays with pierogi, pelmeni and Ukrainian noodles. Breakfast with with eggs, potatoes and bacon also is available.
Even the shelves of Sunflower Tastes’ small grocery section are like a quick visit to Eastern Europe.
A beer case contains labels from the Czech Republic (Lev Lion Lager), Ukraine (Obolon Kyivske) and Poland (Perla Chmielowa). The wine selection includes reds and whites from Georgia and a cabernet sauvignon from Moldova.
You can pick up a container of milk from Ukraine, a grape Natakhtari soda from Georgia, a bar of Pergalė chocolate from Lithuania, as well as a wide range of condiments, baby food, candy and ice cream treats.
Orzikh is especially proud of selling and serving Kavka Coffee, which is produced by a Ukrainian coffee roaster in Maine whose business — like hers — helps raise funds for his home country. (All of the proceeds from Sunflower Tastes’ Ukrainian rye is donated to the Ukrainian army reconnaissance group.)
Orzikh said she had been overwhelmed by the positive response to Sunflower Tastes, which she emphasized was not her accomplishment alone.
She credited the “Sunflower Tastes family” — her wife, employees, friends and others — as essential to her success.
“It was this amazing community that has encouraged me and supported me and pushed me in a good way,” she said. “I could not do this without their help.”
Sunflower Tastes
• Address: 115 East Railroad Ave.
• Phone: 360-777-4330
• Hours: Open daily from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.
• Online: sunflowertastes.com
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Reporter Paula Hunt can be reached by email at paula.hunt@peninsuladailynews.com
