About me

I adore conversation and people, and I love food because it brings people together. I focus on in-season, local ingredients, and home-baked comfort foods, from my garden if I can. I read recipe books like novels and follow chefs as if they were politicians or movie stars. I bake, cook, and garden with and for friends and family. My recipes are a product of my upbringing in a Spanish and Egyptian household and being stationed in Japan. The majority of my recipes are fusion. I live in Old Towne Alexandria just outside of DC which has an increasngly exciting restaurant scene. My mother and my good friend Maureen were my inspiration to nuture and love with food. If I could be friends with any chef it would be Nigella Lawson, because her recipes are never low-fat, always exquisitely delicious, and she has triumphed over every sadness and heartache the world could throw at her.