After Inna Khitrik immigrated to the United States from the former Soviet Union in 1990, she found her first job as a cashier at the Waban Market in Newton.

She worried about not being able to answer customers’ questions. “I didn’t speak a word of English,” she recalls.

Her opportunity came when the store managers found out she liked to cook and transferred her into the deli. “It gave me a different way to show people what I was capable of,” she says. “I learned that people like my cooking.”

Khitrik has been cooking professionally ever since. Newtonians most likely recognize her as the namesake of Inna’s Kitchen on Commonwealth Avenue in Newton Centre, now managed by her son, Alex. 

In 2022, she took on a new challenge as executive chef at Women’s Lunch Place (WLP) in Boston. A shelter for women experiencing hunger, homelessness and poverty, WLP serves 500 to 600 meals a day, all planned by Khitrik. Her background as an immigrant, restaurant owner and mother who raised three children in Newton has prepared her well. 

Inna Khitrik at Women’s Lunch Place. Photo by Nancy Schieffelin

Combining flexibility about recipes with enthusiasm and management skills, Khitrik has found rewards in feeding people who might otherwise go hungry.

“It’s like I’m on ‘Chopped’ every day,” she says, referring to the TV show that gives contestants baskets of ingredients that they then turn into finished dishes. 

WLP receives donations of food from agencies such as  the Greater Boston Food Bank and Spoonfuls, which is based in Newton. If she receives an unexpected delivery of summer squash and red peppers, she might add it right to a roasted vegetable lasagna.

“What I have to work with changes at the last minute, but that means I can be as creative as I want,” Khitrik says. “I like finding a way to use everything. If I don’t, it will end up in a landfill.” 

Inna in the kitchen at WLP. Photo by Nancy Schieffelin.

Wearing a dark gray WLP shirt, an apron and a hairnet, Khitrik easily navigates the warren of small spaces that make up the shelter’s kitchen and food storage areas.

Staff and volunteers help her prepare each meal. In one corner, a worker sprinkles tilapia with a corn flake topping. Another tosses cubes of tofu with pea pods and carrots. In another area of the kitchen, volunteers cut bread for sandwiches. To flavor everything, Khitrik draws on an international assortment of spices kept on the shelves overhead: curry powder, sazon, smoked paprika, star anise, Old Bay seasoning.

WLP serves a hot breakfast and lunch each weekday. Many women also leave with to-go bags of food to eat for dinner. Other dinners are delivered to an overnight shelter. WLP is the primary source of nutrition for 64 percent of its clientele.

Mindful of the needs of her guests, Khitrik tries to pack nutrition into everything she makes. She uses as many fresh vegetables as possible, including in soups, which she makes each day. 

“Some people may push the vegetables aside on their plates, but they’re hidden in the soup so they eat them,” she says, drawing on her experience as a mother. She even tries to make healthy desserts, such as zucchini bread or carrot cake made with whole wheat flour.

On a recent morning, breakfast included bagels, chia pudding, sauteed apples, cut fruit and milk. A typical lunch might be stir-fried orange chicken with soba noodles and Asian salad made with Napa cabbage.

Khitrik often serves the food herself, warmly greeting guests who come up to the serving line and receive dishes, not paper plates.

Inna with WLP staff and friends. Photo by Nancy Schieffelin

“Hi, beautiful lady,” one woman answers. 

Another guest, Eileen O., says, “If I didn’t have any help, I would only have $9 for breakfast, lunch and dinner. So, this place is a total lifesaver. I don’t know what I would do without them, because they serve very, very healthy, balanced, well-prepared meals. Very tasteful, very creative in their cuisine.”

WLP started in 1982 by serving lunch only, then expanded to breakfast and providing other services, such as health care and help navigating access to housing, education and jobs. More than 2,300 women visited the shelter last year.

Khitrik’s son, Alex, now runs daily operations at Inna’s Kitchen Culinaria on Commonwealth Avenue, but in 2011 the two opened the business together on Pelham Street in Newton Centre. They operated a second location at Boston Public Market from 2015 to 2021. 

At this point in her career, Khitrik smiles when she recalls the advice her parents once gave her. “They talked me out of culinary school,” she says. “I was little and skinny. They thought it was not a good job for me.” 

Now, as she surveys the kitchen at WLP, she says, “I love feeding people. It gives me a lot of joy.”