Sister Anastazja, Polish nun and author whose cookbooks sold four million copies, dies at 75

Death of a culinary author

Sister Anastazja Pustelnik, born Krystyna Pustelnik, died early on the morning of 4 October 2026, aged 75 or 76 depending on the reporting source. The Congregation of the Daughters of Divine Charity announced her death on social media on Sunday morning. Born in 1950 in the village of Dylagowa in the Podkarpacie region, her early life was marked by hardship. Her family home burned down during an attack by Ukrainian Insurgent Army units, her father died when she was six months old, and she lost her mother during her teenage years. At age twenty, she moved to Czechoslovakia to work in a glass factory before deciding to enter religious life in 1973.

Recalling her decision to enter the convent, Sister Anastazja described how her roommate's letters from a religious sister influenced her path.

As a young girl, I went to work in Czechoslovakia; I was twenty years old at the time. I worked there in a glassworks, which was very hard work. The sister of a friend with whom I lived in the workers' hostel was a religious sister in the Congregation of the Daughters of Divine Charity. My roommate talked a lot about her sister and read the letters she received from her. I wanted to live in a similar way, to serve God and people.

From convent kitchens to national recognition

Following her entry into the convent, Sister Anastazja cooked for children with disabilities within the congregation. She later moved to Krakow to oversee the kitchen of the Jesuit community on Kopernika Street. In that kitchen, she developed recipes using accessible household ingredients, focusing on cakes, cheesecakes, everyday dinners, and home preserves. Her cooking followed a structured routine, treating meal preparation as a daily devotional service rather than a commercial enterprise.

She later articulated the standard that guided her daily work in convent kitchens.

We deal with cooking from the heart when we put as much love as possible into what we do and love the people who benefit from the fruits of our work. Throughout all these years when I cooked, I tried to be guided by one principle: cook as if you were cooking for Jesus himself.

Publishing career and retirement

Her career as a published author began in 2001, when Wydawnictwo WAM released her first book, "103 Cakes of Sister Anastasia" ("103 ciasta siostry Anastazji"). While the publisher initially planned a modest print run of 2,000 copies, demand prompted rapid reprints, pushing the total print run of that single title to 400,000 copies. Over the following two decades, she authored a total of 17 recipe books. Her publications were distributed widely across Poland, including through post offices, reaching cumulative sales of more than four million copies.

In 2018, Sister Anastazja retired from active culinary duties and moved to a convent in the Wola Justowska district of Krakow. Her contribution to domestic cooking received institutional recognition in 2019, when she was awarded the Feniks Specjalny prize for her work in the culinary education of Polish families.