A vegetable Tagine was my family Birthday meal, my mum and sister would get every pot and pan out in the kitchen and spend a day cooking an epic traditional Lebanese Tagine inspired by our Lebanese family friend. Growing up in a family of 8, food was the center of all our family time, sitting at a very loud but happy table with everyone talking over each other and eating incredible meals that have been made with so much love. Now going on my 32nd birthday, a Tagine is still my birthday request with the beautiful flavors of cumin, lemon, and garlic, hearty vegetables and coriander. Now as an adult with my own house and family, food is still the center of our day, and you know when the Tagine makes an appearance its a special occasion.

FAVE MEMORY
At the bed & breakfast in Provence, our breakfast is served out on a large patio where Simba, the family dog, likes to hang out. She has a love of croissants and will lay her head on your lap in a gesture of love. But is that love for you or for the croissant?

My Fave Memory with food is the day my significant other and I traveled almost 300 miles to meet in New York City. With a long distance relationship we don’t see each other often, so we make it count when we do! A few hours before the concert we planned to attend that night, we both got hungry and decided to look at our delivery options, which were far and few in between unfortunately. Against my significant other’s will, who doesn’t like pizza, we took to the little pizza place across the way as a last resort. It wasn’t until after we ordered two slices that we realized they were bigger than our heads! The biggest slices of pizza I’ve ever seen - we definitely could have split one! But, being that we were headed straight to the concert after dinner, we had to finish both slices no matter how big they were or how much my significant other hated pizza! I, however, personally think it was a delicious slice of pizza, and a time I will never forget!

My Grandma Helen made the best date nut cookies and stirring that dough was not easy! I still have her handwritten recipe, unfortunately she left out one or two critical steps so ours don't taste nearly as good. She sure loved her African violets, lily of the valley and pink roses and I sure loved the flour sifter and cookie cutter!

My Fave Memory from my childhood years in South Africa is sitting under the Almond trees in my Gran’s garden drinking tea, chatting about our day and eating home made jam tarts. My favourite part of this tradition was after we’d all drunk our tea Gran would read our tea leaves! I thought she was magic!

The Funny Fruit Story: My Dad died 20 years ago, but he was such a wonderful man and always made us laugh. I can see his laughing face in my mind's eye when he told us this story - it will stay with me forever!

Fave Memory - Every year growing up and still to this day, my Mom makes butter cookies in the shape of Christmas Trees for the holidays. My sister and I loved helping to make these cookies, from adding the food coloring to toping them with colorful sprinkles. And of course, getting to twist and press out the dough onto the baking sheets. I decided to let the cookie press take center stage since it's such a fun old kitchen gadget :)

A visual depiction of the food I ate growing up. Indian food! These different dishes from all over India, always bring a fond smile to my face.

Fave memory. Another food memory from Spain. In 2002 i lived in La Herradura for almost a year. I had the best time with lots of wine, sangria, fish and prawns.

Fave memory - childhood days with my Suzy Homemaker oven that baked with a light bulb. It is my first memories of baking and I loved the tiny Jiffy boxes of mixes. I still have Suzy too!

Fave Memory

I grow up in the countriside.
We had an orange tree, and his oranges where so fresh and delicious.
In the winter we used a vintage wood stove, and allways put the orange peel to have the smell of the oil.
I remember my father peeling the oranges all at once (without breaking the skin).
And I use to make the orange smile.

This is a pattern that I created in response to my Fave Memory....
Picture this, a warm summers day in my garden and the bees were buzzing. The sweet scent of tomatoes freshly picked from the greenhouse, beetroots dug up and peas popping out of their jackets. The colours were truly amazing. We were set for lunch, we just needed to add lettuce and Feta cheese! We laid the table, and added the daisy chains that we had been making across the centre.
It was delicious.... until I noticed that I had half a caterpillar on my plate! We did laugh until our bellies hurt and I did join in after a while. Sorry caterpillar ....

(Fave Memory) When I was small, my mom would make angel food cake. I remember the delightful smell of it baking, and I definitely enjoyed sneaking tastes of batter and whipped cream. I'm not sure I helped at all, as I was probably too busy drawing with crayons!

Fave Memory- 'La Flottille' is an illustration of the cutest cafe i stumbled across, nestled in the park of Versailles. I ate tarte tatin and drunk warm chocolate poured by the most wonderfully flamboyant waiter. The cafe exhibited the 1920s in every corner with its electric lamps, coffee posters and dainty vases of freesias. I am longing to go back, not for the splendour of Versailles but for those caramelised apples!