Sister Anastazja Pustelnik died early on Sunday morning, 4 October 2026. She was 76. The news was reported by the DEON.pl portal, with which she had worked for years. She was a nun of the Congregation of the Daughters of Divine Love and one of the most recognisable cookbook authors in Poland.
Her books sold more than 4 million copies. Foreign media called her the “Polish Nigella Lawson”.
From Notebook to Bestseller
Her real name was Krystyna Pustelnik. She was born in 1950 in Dylągowa in Podkarpacie, the youngest of five children. The family home burned down during an attack by UPA units, and her father died when she was six months old. Before joining the convent, she worked, among other places, at a glassworks in Czechoslovakia.
In 1999 she took over the kitchen of the Jesuit monastery at ul. Kopernika in Kraków. She cooked for the community. Her cheesecakes and cakes quickly gained a reputation among the clergy. She collected her recipes in an ordinary notebook.
In November 2001, the WAM Publishing House released “103 Cakes of Sister Anastazja”. The pilot print run of 2,000 copies sold out within a week. That title alone sold about 400,000 copies. Over time came 17 books and 85 editions covering cakes, main dishes, preserves and holidays. They were also sold at post offices. WAM calculates that 4 million copies, placed spine to spine, would form a line 88 kilometres long.
Beyond the Kitchen
In 2018 Sister Anastazja retired and moved to the convent in Kraków’s Wola Justowska district. She read, walked in the garden and prayed for her readers.
Jesuit Fr. Łukasz Sośniak wrote that she was an excellent cook and a warm person who, despite a difficult life, kept her smile. For millions of Poles she will remain the woman whose cheesecake recipe was taken from home kitchens, and who reminded us that a celebration begins at the table.
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