Hi, my name is Helen, I am Lebanese and one of my greatest passions is cooking! I was born in a small village north of Lebanon called Memneh Akkar. I have many beautiful memories of my childhood in the village. I remember riding our beloved donkey to the spring to fill large terracotta urns with fresh water, and watching my grandfather using his bull to plow the land, and I constantly reminisce ab
out cooking heart-warming authentic meals over an open fire. I have been cooking Lebanese dishes since I was 4 years old. I would annoy my grandmother into letting me help her, and eventually she would give in and hand me some parsley to bunch or ask me to measure cups of grains for the meals she was cooking. As I became a teenager, I no longer wanted to cook with meat, as most teenage girls do! One day I told my grandmother that I didn’t want to learn to cook with meat anymore because I didn’t like it, therefore, why would I have to cook with it? Her response was, “just because you don’t like it, that doesn’t mean you don’t learn how to make it. Learn all you can so that one day if someone asks for a particular meal, you don’t say I don’t know how to make it. Knowledge is power.” Since that day, I continued to learn as much as I could from her (no matter the ingredients), and although she passed away many years ago, I am still learning with each dish I cook, and I gratefully owe her for everything I know today. Thanks to my upbringing, I have always shared the kitchen with my family and used it as an opportunity to bond and spend quality time together. I am a proud mother of 4, and a blessed grandmother to 4, and they are the absolute love and light of my life. Time and time again, we have cooked, experimented, learnt and laughed in the kitchen and I’m excited to now share our traditions with you! This is what Hilany’s is all about and I can’t wait for you to taste the passion and care that I dedicate to my cooking.
