Welcome to my substack! 🍽

Whether you know me and indulge my obsession with edible things, or somehow stumbled upon my page, welcome 🍍.

Upon popular demand of folks who for some reason want to hear my thoughts on food, recipes, hosting, random stuff… here we go!

A little about me. I’ve been in the kitchen since ‘04.

Coming together with friends and family to eat a meal is such a perfectly important piece of my life. Dinner time at home was always important - no matter what, my mom would set the table every night. We’d eat and chat.

Being an only child of divorced parents, I was often playing the role of their little sidekick to their individual dinner adventures. During these excursions, I was afforded the opportunity to try many different cuisines which was so exciting to me. I remember trying Indian food for the first time and I was completely obsessed. I remember my mom making me try coq au vin. I remember trying watered-down red wine at the ripe age of 9 – it was gross but I loved it at the same time (mind you, my favorite meal at the same was a boiled hot dog, no bun, with baby carrots and ketchup on the side so take whatever I say with a grain of fine maldon sea salt).

I’m half Lebanese.

Lebanese cuisine has been such an integral part of my love story with food. If I think about it hard enough I can literally still taste my favorite childhood snack - warm fresh pita with sliced cucumber, feta and olive oil. The culture of robust spices and the freshest herbs put my taste buds into overdrive (you’ll soon learn about sumac, one of my favorite spices of all time).

A big puzzle piece of my love for hosting comes from my culture and background. I absolutely love finding the freshest ingredients to serve my friends food with integrity, which to me, is quintessential to Lebanese cuisine. Not to mention, I’ve learned the art of professional force-feeding (Italians, you know how it rolls too).

Fast forward.

My palette is decently better (I graduated from the boiled hot dog although I’ll NEVER turn down a good glizzy) and I have (I think) some taste.

I’ve lived in LA for almost 2 years and my obsession with food grew tenfold. While I’m an East Coaster at heart, the food scene in LA is ripe with creativity, quality and variety. I now host monthly supper clubs (pictured below) and it’s my favorite thing I’ve ever done: developing my own recipes and feeding my friends and other cool people… the dream!

If you’ve made it this far, I’m here to tell you that I’m going to start sharing recipes, tips, favorites, my stream of consciousness and more… so if that sounds at all interesting, please subscribe!

I’ll wrap this up with my current “death row” meal.

Filet mignon, cooked medium rare, drowned in béarnaise sauce + a side of super crunchy asparagus + little skinny French fries. Dessert, a chocolate cake of some sort with a dollop of vanilla bean ice cream, and of course, an ice cold dirty martini.

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