Ehem ehem...
I seriously have no idea if anyone will read this blog, but since few of my friends were nagging me for long time now I decided to humiliate myself and make a food blog that no one going to read, next to my old unreadable blog ... not that I love to insult myself because I think I write well enough but I truly don't know how to invest in a blog or make it popular but here we go no pain no gain ... and you guys; the few who going to read this enjoy my misery :)
My name is Manal and I am from Yemen, I am as my friends call me one of the best cooks they ever met,(not sure they met the right people but .. thanks) I didn't graduate from Le Cordon Blu or anything but I think I cook effortlessly and since I ADORE food I really enjoy making it, so usually the results are impressive even when I don't invest much time or ingredients because cooking for me is a spiritual thing, I cook when I am angry and when I am happy, when I am with others or all by myself, it is one of the things that make me feel relaxed.
My story with food is quite weird as almost everything in my life, I am not the typical Arab that you might imagine, not with my look nor my attitude and behaviors, but aside from that nobody believe me when I tell them that I was a lousy cook, like really really lousy; and my poor Mom and Sisters can confirm that. When I used to cook I used to mess something up all the time; food were either too dry or too soft, too much salt or no salt at all and my dear family had to eat whatever I cook and say yummy because they didn't want to discourage me, but I knew the truth because I have taste buds and really strong ones so I knew that I cook horribly but I did want to cook ... honestly not because I love my family and want to make good food for them but because back then I fell in love and I wanted to impress my boyfriend who was really into food, so I was asking my mom for recipes all the time and since I am from Yemen the concept of recipe is simply "didn't exist" and my mom used to give me these instructions; a handful of this and a handful of that and a pinch of salt and when I insist on more accurate directions she would snap at me and tell me to measure it and have my own recipe; not bad advise until she comes to the kitchen and start to modify everything and want me to cook her way -_- seriously that frustrated me and I stopped cooking because eventually I was discouraged, add to that I started college and I had no time for this but always had my lovely simple cake that was out of my mom's realm of expertise so whenever I want to impress anyone I would make them my awesome simple cake, which I realize now was not that awesome but it did the purpose of keeping me in touch with cooking.
The real magic happened during my second year of college when I got married to my food loving boyfriend; yeah I was married when I was 19 what I surprise, in Yemen girls get married early and that a sign how awesome they are :P Anyways when I got married I started as well to work in a college that teach Arabic to foreigners so I started to know more about food from the students coming from all over the world and hosting them plus cooking for my husband made me really love food more and more but still I was cooking the Arab way without precise recipe but once when I made a cake for my friend B'day I knew the difference between cooking and good cooking; My friend Tone tasted my cake that melted and looked horrible and her comment took me to the second level of cooking, she made a remark that my cake is moist not like Yemeni cake, that comment made me want to know the difference and why and what and how everything can change the structure of food, so I started to follow recipes in Food Network and Martha Stewart and watch their shows all the time.
Who knew that I only needed guidance and knowledge to improve my talent in cooking, soon enough everybody including my mom and sisters started to praise my cooking and I felt so smug because of all of that, but since I am not a person who like to follow the rules after enough time and when I felt that I know enough about cooking, I started to experiment with food and manipulate recipes and even come up with my own recipes and the result was impressive and I grow more confident by that and started to make things without recipe at all, now I basically know almost all the recipe I like by heart and can change them to whatever I like without losing the flavor because I worked hard enough to know the basics very well and what is used and why and how and I think this was my greatest gift.
Far from that, I always was healthy, I like to exercise and eat well and be active, though being in Yemen wasn't the best thing to be healthy, I think despite the general environment that encourage laziness and unhealthy life style, growing up as my father's daughter helped me to be a healthy person; my father was a general in the army so physical activity was crucial part of his day, I remember my little brother and I were doing push ups for fun to impress my father and that was something I held as part of my life until now, though I still suck big time in push ups and pull ups. In the other hand, my mom was always against me working out because according to her standards and the Yemeni standards I was too skinny and she used to tell me that I look like a stick and with working out I will disappear .. I didn't care about her comments and I continued working out and learning more about healthy lifestyle and nutrition specially after my father died of stroke, I wanted to take that further by going to the gym but I was kicked out of there because I was too skinny and I made the over weight people there uncomfortable! I lived with that and was determine to be healthy no matter what, my friends told me I will not keep that and one day I will be like all other women in Yemen specially after I have a baby and all that made me even more determined, I got pregnant at my last year in college and I was so fit to the limit that a lot of my class mates didn't noticed that I was pregnant until my graduation when I was almost in my eighth month, I graduated had my exams and gave birth after 2 days from my last exam to beautiful healthy little girl and I was super health though I had difficult situation and had a C- Section and despite that I was totally fit after exactly 30 days and started my work immediately which is something I am totally proud of specially that I was living in Yemen.
The real change happened when I moved to Poland, at the beginning with the move and everything I wasn't really cooking well and soon enough after few months I had belly fat and that was one of the NO NO NO for me, so I started working out hard at home and cooking healthy again, usually I cook healthy to gain weight because I am always under weight that was the first time in my life I was cooking and working out to loss fat, so I did it a little intense and with the right motivation and friends I started to get more and more into the world of real fitness and the results were amazing so I decided to make it my life style, not that I looked good in the outside but I felt good as well, after 3 months of moderate healthy eating and exercising I was looking at the mirror to somebody new, though I already said I was always skinny but I didn't feel good about my look, I was always conscious about everything and unhappy about myself but after that 3 months I was happy looking at the mirror because I saw a healthy person that does not need make up to cover the exhaustion in their face or cover their body with clothes to hide unhealthy silhouette.
Since then and that was two years ago; working out and eating healthy is irreplaceable part of my daily life and started to encourage my close friends to do the same and for a while before I move to Krakow we had our boot camp that was quite good for all of us. Soon enough as it happened with cooking I started to mix routines and workouts to get the best of it and now I have my own routines that make me fit all the time even when I have no time at all.
So now as a natural development for my love for food and health, I started to take nutrition classes to improve my understanding from a scientific point of view and this blog will be my tool to share my ideas about healthy eating and delicious food because I am pretty sure my facebook friends got really bored of me posting food pictures everyday so I will keep my food addiction and fitness passion in the right place, and I really hope it will make a difference in the life of even one person.
Ciao and soon coming with some recipes ;)
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