With the soaring prices of everything imported in Lebanon, especially in the F&B segment, the search for not-so-hidden Lebanese gems has become a must. I know that we live in times where a lot of people are barely surviving, but so are small businesses that are still trying to make it despite it all, and that desperately need our help. When we help a small business, we are keeping a shop open, a person still employed, or a family fed. It reaches an even higher level of commitment when that business makes incredible food and must be, by all means supported. And this is where I want to shed ..read more

It’s summertime! What better than to enjoy a good bottle of chilled white wine, paired with great food or with just some snacks? As you probably already know, I’m a huge fan of wine. There isn’t a single week that goes by where I don’t enjoy at least once a good bottle of wine, with my husband, my family or my friends. I have been meaning to write about my favourite list of Lebanese white wines for a while now, but I’m glad I didn’t because I recently had the pleasure of discovering new white wines that are an absolute delight. So now my list is more complete and I feel I can give really good ..read more

I have a student who is totally passionate about cooking. She left her previous studies so she could enroll in Culinary Arts at USJ, and this is how I came to know her. She has an incredible Instagram account where she posts the recipes she creates or prepares. One day, I saw a picture of the Homemade Basque Burnt Cheesecake that she had prepared, so I asked her for the recipe and decided to give it a try. For the recipe, here it is, as sent by Mounia: Basque Burnt Cheesecake (for a 15cm cake) What you’ll need: 430g cream cheese, room temperature 120g caster sugar 3 large eggs, room temp (ap ..read more

Lokum, or ra7a in Lebanese, is a traditional Turkish delight that we inherited and make in Lebanon as well. It is based on starch and sugar, with aromas like musk and rose water. The Lebanese version is mostly eaten with plain biscuits, where you add a layer of lokum inside 2 layers of biscuits. A combination of COVID-19 confinement and economic crisis has led me to go back to the roots and focus more on Lebanese products, especially products with a longer shelf life. It had been a long time since we ate biscuits and ra7a and home, so bringing this back was a real delight for the entire famil ..read more

Spoiler alert: this is not an influencer picture. Meaning this is not a picture aimed at showing you how perfect my life with my kids has been during this confinement. Because it is not. The only reason this picture looks almost perfect is because we took it to send it to Lynn’s teacher, and it is exactly the same reason we made strawberry jam in the first place. We got an assignment to make strawberry jam as part of “Fruity Friday”. So we got a strawberry pack, washed the strawberries, cut them, and added half a cup of brown sugar and a dash of lemon juice. We stirred at low heat until the s ..read more

I have been a raving fan of Kaak Zaman ever since I discovered this brand a couple of years ago. My friend (who is a foodie just like me), brought me few boxes and insisted I tried them, and it was a love story ever since. Every Kaak Zaman product is oat-based. They make sweet and savory kaak that are out of this world. Their savory kaak range from oat crackers with thyme, to oat crackers with thyme & black olives, and multi-cereal kaak with chia seeds. Their sweet kaak selection is equally interesting, with carob molasses oat-based kaak, orange kaak, dark chocolate kaak and dates paste k ..read more

Rez 3a djej (Oriental rice with chicken) is a famous Lebanese dish that is made mostly in occasions or for the Sunday family lunch. It generally comes topped with roasted pine nuts, but some people add other kernels like cashews or almonds as well. With the economic crisis that has hit Lebanon, prices have soared everywhere and the KG of pine nuts has ridiculously increased to 200,000 LBP and sometimes even more. But the truth is, regardless of whether you can afford to add pine nuts to rez 3a djej or not, it has no value whatsoever and doesn’t add anything in terms of taste or texture t ..read more

I haven’t blogged for the past two years. The main reason was that I got pregnant so I could not smell food, then I delivered twins so I had no time to think about food. Then time passed by and I started thinking that maybe people were no longer interested in traditional blogs, so I quit the idea altogether. But then last night I decided to go back and read my blog posts. I don’t know why I did this, maybe because I had earlier asked my husband to take down my blog and he showed me that it’s still getting visits until today, then advised me to keep it just in case. While checking the differen ..read more

I just love discovering new food experiences that randomly come across me and that are a true revelation. It is not often that this happens, so when it does, I have to write about it because people who make great food deserve to be heard of. I’ve recently had this experience when my dear Priscilla told me that her mom’s friend makes olive bread, if we ever wanted to try it. And then one day, for some celebration, Priscilla brought some to the office with her. It comes in the shape of a crown, it’s soft and moist, and it smells like heaven with notes of thyme, olives and vanilla. And then you ..read more

This blog post has been on my mind for some time, but I didn’t quite know how to express what I wanted to say in a proper way. I’m still not sure I can, but it is very important that I get it out of my system :). I have been very disappointed by my overall restaurants experience lately. There is no specific restaurant I am talking about and I am in no way reviewing any, but I would like to address restaurants in general, especially those new places that scream modernism in every aspect from décor to comfort, service and especially the food. You get the menu and just marvel at the names of the ..read more