Two generations of home cooks come together, to bring you beautiful and delicious traditional cooking.
We want to inspire and build on your foundations in the kitchen. From hearty family dinners to moreish, crowd-pleasing weekend lunches, Sunday Kitchen is a tribute to traditional Lebanese recipes and family rituals - an insight into what foods feed our soul.
2019
Sunday Kitchen was born out of a love for cooking, delighting, and the desire to share that joy with others. It is a tribute to the heartwarming lunches mum would prepare on the weekend when we were young. The kitchen was a peaceful place in our home growing up, a place to dance, share and unwind, a place to cook from your heart and prepare dishes, laced with heritage and tradition.
Watching mum cooking was never stressful, there was a process, a method, and a wonderful sense of control. It was our remedy and our cure, our connection to our history and her legacy for the future. Sunday Kitchen invites you into our kitchen, to share in our recipes and stories, and inspire you to cook from your heart for your family and friends a menu that can all be confidently prepared ahead of time.
“My fondest memories growing up revolve around food, cooking and preparing with my mother or gathering around and eating with my siblings.”
Coming from quite a large family, I grew up cooking closely with my mother, mostly because I was the youngest and had to help. Cooking was my mothers’ way of communicating with all my siblings and I, it was the only way she knew. My fondest memories growing up revolve around food, cooking and preparing with my mother or gathering around and eating with my siblings. This evolved into cooking for my children, it was my way of sharing with them a part of my family and our heritage, introducing them to Lebanese spices and the dishes I grew up eating. More than just recipes and methods I learnt about my mother and fathers life listening to stories as we cooked together.
It was important I kept this going with my children and so the kitchen was always open for them to help and be a part of. My children would often ask, “Who is coming for lunch Mum?” To which I would respond, “You three, you are my guests” We would experiment with recipes, substitute ingredients to create new dishes, and loved sharing the food with our guests for Sunday lunch. We learnt to love and respect the ingredients, and the process but most of all one another.
“Sunday mornings became my cherished memories growing up, and mum’s graceful movements around the kitchen instilled a strong sense of confidence in me.”
Sunday Kitchen may have begun in 2018, but somehow it began in my mothers kitchen many years ago, watching her prepare the most beautiful and delicious spreads for Sunday lunch. She would start early, Fairuz playing from the Sanyo stereo as she prepared each dish so effortlessly, calling for help in the kitchen when my sisters and I woke up. When anyone would complain, she would tell stories of cooking with my grandmother for her large family and the kilos of vegetables and meat she had to prepare, just so she could go out with her friends.
She was such a wonderful teacher and would think out loud and explain what she was doing in the hope we were learning. Sunday mornings became my cherished memories growing up, and mums graceful movements around the kitchen instilled a strong sense of confidence in me. Traditional recipes passed down from my grandmother to my mother and then to me. Fast forward twenty years and still my most cherished moments are cooking with my mum.