My highest intention in life is connecting people together, where we naturally open up and become most joyful. I believe the best way to connect is through food and music. 

I came from a culturally diverse background. My Food is comforting and nourishing North African and modern Mediterranean cuisine.

Our dining table is our kingdom. Gathering around the table in festivity, with colorful and delicious food, is the peak of the mountain!

HOW DID I GET HERE?

I worked as a documentary director in Israel, on dozens of cooking shows, such as, ”Food for Thoughts”, with Chef Eyal Shani, and “Food and Ethnicities”, exploring various cultural approaches to food preparation.

12 years ago I moved to Los Angeles with my partner and four children. 

For the first 9 years in town, whenever people asked me who I am, or what I do, usually the answer was: “I am a mother”.

In those early years of transitioning into a new country, I was asked to write for a women's online magazine. It was there that I realized the passion of turning thoughts into words. This became the most read personal blog in the women's online magazine "Saloona". I exposed my pain and happiness, the light and darkness. The writing allowed me and the readers to accept ourselves through my stories. At the end of each column, I posted a recipe.

The stories revolved around my life, and the food I was cooking to my family.

America was so huge to me. I came from a small place, where almost everyone is outside, where people talk on the phone loudly, where everyone is so close and compressed that they seem to reach inside of your soul. 

Here in America, the common ground of culture is the magnitude. The freeway, with its entrances and exits, in and out, law and order. A nation of beautiful vast nature, where everything is distanced by a large interval. 

I didn’t know anyone. I didn’t know where to start, how to put myself out there and how to reinvent myself in the enormous Los Angeles film industry. Who do I talk with? How do I sell my talent?

So I went home, into myself, my family, and my natural place: The kitchen, where I connect, invent a world out of the familiar, in freedom and creativity.

I took the responsibility of being the nourishing and protective mother, a role that was a natural for me. The choice to enter back home made me notice and specialize in this role. It is a delicate task that has to be practiced, to understand the manual of enjoying life. 

In the early years it felt frustrating, as if I was not fulfilling myself.

I envied all the successful people, who had a busy career in movies, and were defined by recognition from the outside world. And what am I? Ima (Mother)? Just Ima?!?

But I had someone to take care of, someone to feed, someone to be a role model for. Life is a process of accepting ourselves and the other.

During this time, self-acceptance directly affected my environment as I became more softer and calm.

I developed and grew naturally. What seemed to me then like a meaningless waste of time, became the purpose of my life, a mission. I realized what the connection to cooking and the conversation around the dining table can contribute to our life.

How can we do good to each other? Through a simple, human, social encounter that is filled with food and good spirit. 

I'm trying to present here the world I know, the reality I've experienced along those years, and it is full of great tastes. I am delighted to share it with you through the simple act of cooking.