I have moved to London in August 2006, just after the Israeli war on Lebanon, to pursue my masters degree at the London School of Economics.
Being away from home, made me miss home cooked food, and this only includes the Lebanese traditional dishes we grew up with.; kebbeh b laban, koussa and warak 3enab just to mention a few. It was hard getting at restaurants the kebbeh or koussa the way our mums would make at home.
Cooking has never appealed to me as something I am able to do, I always thought of it as very difficult and time consuming. I have to say that I have never done any cooking in my life, I have only baked brownies when I was 15 which my school friends loved at the time.
Missing the taste of the Lebanese traditional food, I had to start making it myself. This has started in 2007 with my favourite dish ‘Koussa and Warak 3enab’, yes, one of the most difficult dishes to make, especially scooping inside of the courgettes out! I started calling my mum in Lebanon and getting the instructions over the phone, sometimes the dishes were a success and other times a disaster!
This morning, I woke up and finally decided to start a blog about cooking, and mainly about the Lebanese traditional dishes that I grew up with. I have always wanted to write about this, but I never have the time, as my job occupies most of my time these days.
I was out a couple of months ago to a friend’s leaving do in a bar in South Kensington, and there was a conversation going on between us about how nowadays girls my age do not know how to cook traditional Lebanese dishes. Knowing myself and my constant excited attitude, I was like “ I do, I do, I make koussa, I make bemyeh..” I make this I make that…Then I realised that it’s actually true, none of my friends know or want to cook these dishes. Don’t get me wrong, they do cook, but mainly western dishes, a lot of pasta, quiches etc.
I love western cuisine, and love going out to a nice restaurant and trying different things, but it’s not comfort food for me personally and it never ‘fulfils’ my stomach.
This blog will document my journey with traditional Lebanese cooking, and how the conception of its difficulty in our minds is actually false. This blog is also my determination of keeping alive our food heritage, my mother and my grandmother’s recipes.
