Hello! My name is Yael. Irina is my oldest daughter, and we happily run this blog together.

My younger daughter Michelle is a teenager. She is also an amazing and creative cook, but for now, she decided to not be involved in our blog due to her busy schedule. We are hoping she will reconsider soon. 

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My History:
I was born in Moldova, at the time when it was still part of the USSR. My childhood was happy, with a lot of friends, a good school, and many fun creative classes. In our family all the women were doctors, and all the men were engineers. My family kept a lot of literature on traditional and non-traditional medicine, such as books on medicinal herbs and health. In our kitchen we always spoke about the usefulness of the products, and about how to cook any meal while keeping all the vitamins from destroying through the cooking process, and keeping the taste quality. I have learned and retained this information by ear, because it was discussed in the kitchen daily.
 
I started cooking when I was around 10 years old, my favorite creations were cakes. After school, I would bring half the class to my house to experiment with food, and enjoy each other’s company. Because of that, mom says that our refrigerator was emptied with incredible speed, and she had to visit the store almost daily. 

My favourite childhood recipe book was the “Romanian kitchen”. I do not know where I found it, or how it appeared in our house, but for me it was a world of taste sensations, unexplored with unknown spices. I turned over the pages and imagined how  the delicious recipes must have tasted. 

Outside our home, the soviet shops were very poor and did not offer much diversity, so housekeepers had to use their imagination to create culinary masterpieces at home. The housekeepers would compete with each other over the best food and most creative ideas, and their homes smelled like the best bakeries in Paris.

In the neighborhood where I lived, there was a mixture of Moldovan, Ukrainian, Russian, Jewish, and Turkish cuisine. During that time period, the good recipes were passed on from generation to generation, and were copied in thick notebooks and stored with the utmost care. 

In the summertime, all the families harvested fruits and vegetables, and prepared pickles, jams, and compotes for the wintertime. On average, we canned about 300 cans of food a year, as vegetables did not appear in the stores in the winter. My dad was also responsible for the production of wine and liqueurs, from the grapes and fruits we harvested during the summer. We had a summer home with a garden outside the city, where we grew our own tomatoes, cucumbers, various greens, grapes, apricots and walnuts, amongst other things.
    
Time flew. I grew up, got married, and graduated from University.  I was blessed with a daughter, and after two years, we moved to Israel. That’s where I plunged into Mediterranean cuisine for the first time, where food came in great abundance, with a large variety of sweets and spices, unlike anything I have experienced before. Food in Israel is both very tasty and healthy. In fact, some doctors claim, that the Mediterranean cuisine, is one of the healthiest in the world. From there, my taste changed, and so did my home menu. I have added new recipes, which now include: Moroccan, Arabic, and Mediterranean dishes to my everyday life. In Israel I was blessed with another daughter.
Now we all live in Canada, where we fell in love with other types of cuisines, such of Asian cuisine: Chinese, Vietnamese, Japanese, etc. 

We now cook a variety of worldly cuisines, with our own spin. Both my daughters have been vegetarian since childhood, by their own choice, and because of that, I have to cook two meals at home, as the older generation cannot give up meat.

Our family loves to travel around the world and discover different countries, cultures, and specialties. I invite you on a journey with me, and will share with you what I was particularly impressed to see and try, through our journey around the world. 

I will be sharing my most delicious recipes, and recipes from our antique recipe book, and we will discuss any topic that we are interested in:  healthy lifestyle, proper diet, the secret of youth, etc. through this website.

All of the recipes are tested and approved by my family. All of the photography is done by my daughter or myself. 

Join us – on our amazing adventure through life!