My passion for cooking comes from a lifelong love affair with global cuisine, home cooking and the absolute wonder and beauty of real food. I was born and grew up in Ohio, spent much of my adult years in Chicago, and traveled the world in between, eventually settling in Southern California. Now I cook, write and teach about all things culinary. If you’re interested in one of my classes, please check out my Classes page. For my recipes and travel stories, go to my Food & Travel page, and to find out more about my Oil of Anatolia extra virgin Turkish olive oil and how you can get it, too, check out my Olive Oil page. For all other inquiries, please send a message through my Contact page.
My work has been acknowledge or featured in various international organizations and institutions such as the Obama White House, U.S. Health & Human Services, U.S. Department of State, World Bank, Cornell University, Yale University, NYU, University of Seattle, Mediterranean Diet Roundtable and more.
You can read more about my culinary work history, or for more information on how to hire me for Halal food business consulting, please find more information below.
My Halal Story
After adopting a Halal diet in my late 20s, it was quite challenging for me to enjoy the traditional recipes I grew up on without a deep dive into from-scratch cooking in order to ensure I was following a Halal diet. In 2008, I decided to share my experiences online and started My Halal Kitchen, the world’s first Halal cooking website, from my tiny Chicago kitchen. Cooking by day and writing by night, my recipes and culinary insight began to be recognized by large food brands (Crescent Foods, Saffron Road, Whole Foods, General Mills), and important media outlets (CBS, The New York Times, CNN, NPR, Forbes, Epicurious and Chicago Tribune, The Kitchn). Since then, this project has gained over 2 million followers across all social media platforms.
HALAL is a growing culinary niche in the U.S.A., and is one that I helped to pioneer through my website and advocacy work straddling both the Halal and culinary industries as a whole. I gained my hands-on experience through so many important grassroot means: menu consulting (Aramark for NYU’s first Halal dining hall), marketing work (Epic Burger) culinary demonstrations (Chicago Gourmet, I Heart Halal, Halal Expo Canada), teaching classes (UMMAH Center), advocacy work (Cornell University, U.S. Health and Human Services) and important presentations (Yale University, University of Seattle) about the deeper meaning of Halal as an ethical, sustainable, conscious, and healthy way of eating that is rooted in Islamic principles adhered to by over 2 billion Muslims worldwide.
You can still visit MyHalalKitchen.com for recipes, information on the Halal industry and so much more.
To sign up for a private virtual or in-person cooking class or personal chef services, please inquire within here.
To try my newest product, Oil of Anatolia: Extra Virgin Olive Oil from Turkiye’s Aegean Coast, you can purchase a bottle here (U.S. only).
For information about my Corporate Chef Training Programs, please contact me here.
Culinary Travel Writing
If there’s one thing I love as much as food and cooking, it’s the adventure of exploration: traversing new places, cultures, and cuisines through interesting and off-the-beaten-path travel experiences. I love to learn about traditional foodways and ingredients and am particularly enamored with the Southern Mediterranean and Aegean regions of France, Italy, Greece and Türkiye, due to my own Sicilian heritage having such interesting and delicious similarities with these cuisines. That said, I’m open to exploring all cultures and cuisines and the less I know about it, the more intrigued I am to learn something new. You can find my writing on culinary travel experiences and GastroTourism projects (i.e. Bosnia, Jordan, Türkiye, Uzbekistan) near and far on the Food & Travel page of this site.
Research
Academic Papers
Food & Water Security Programs
Mediterranean Diet Roundtable- World Bank, Washington, DC
Positive Nutrition- Italian Embassy, Washington, DC
White House Event on Food & Nutrition- Tufts University, Boston
World Food Day by Food Tank. Vancouver, BC Canada
Camel Milk Products as a Vehicle for Innovative Business Opportunities in the Global Halal Economy.
Eid Celebrations - for Cornell University Language of Food Conference, published in the Food Studies Journal
Why the World Needs Halal. World Halal Summit. Istanbul, Turkiye
Marketing to Halal Consumers. World Halal Summit, Istanbul, Turkiye
