Dirty Kitchen Secrets

I’m a Lebanese-American with a heart-felt love for Lebanese cuisine. From my early childhood I have spent hard-time watching and learning via osmosis the art of food preparation, cooking and preserving from my perfectionist Teta (Nan), my vivacious dad and colorful aunties. I grew up during the Lebanese civil war, in the mid eighties, and even during these darker days of Lebanon’s history my family created luscious food and Lebanese mezza spreads, all cooked ensemble, bringing us together and helping to create a fun, nurturing environment. This influenced and encouraged me to learn and understand more about the culture and history behind these processes. From the tender age of fourteen, I began to regularly use family and friends as forced test subjects. In an effort to manage my failing memory and remember what I “just did”, I started documenting my trials and tribulations in the domestic kitchen in a word document, with the hope of one day publishing my own cookbook.

I am lucky to have traveled extensively, having the opportunity to live in such places as Beirut, Miami, Maui, Montreal, Houston, London and most recently Brighton. Along the way, I’ve eaten raw sheep’s liver, sold Real Estate and Mortgages in Miami, escaped a few deadly bombs, managed the operations of an award-winning restaurant on Maui, Hawaii, represented my beautiful country Lebanon in the Miss World pageant and worse of all, been subjected to the awful taste of Marmite.

My blog ‘Dirty Kitchen Secrets’ launched in 2008, upon my arrival to the U.K. DKS has worked to bring together my childhood memories of Lebanese dishes while fusing it with a fresh, modern approach.

Through my blog, I have met thousands of people online; it has been truly inspiring. In October 2009, several food bloggers and I, founded the first international food blogging conference Food Blogger Connect. FBC is a conference bringing together bloggers from the U.K, Europe, Canada and India as well as other food industry folks while offering workshops by award-winning speakers on topics like photography, social media, blog monetization, and networking.

I create, I photograph, I eat, I expand. And the vicious cycle continues.

Go on, have a bite…

Contact me

Follow me on Twitter

Email me: bethany@dirtykitchensecrets.com

Hire me

I am available for recipe development, food photography and styling, food related articles or commentary, culinary related reviews as well as catering in the Brighton area. For more information you can email me.

Credits:

Banner: The design and illustration is done by Lama Khatib Daniel. She is an extremely talented artist, illustrator and designer. It’s very hard to come across an individual that grasps your vision and makes it a reality. Lama is that person for me and I have worked with her now on several projects. You can see more of her work on her website. Below is her contact information.

Website design- Jason Lee comes highly recommended. He can be reached at jason.p.lee [at] gmail [dot] com.

Legal

The contents of this website are protected under a creative commons license. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without my permission. If you want to use any of the photography or recipes, get in contact with me and always be sure to link back. Please NO SPAM! If you wanna be a jerk then you leave me no other option but to send Freddy from Lebanon after you.

The most important thing I think I can take away from this blog is to connect with you, my readers. Please feel free to leave your comments, suggestions or thoughts. I really appreciate all the feedback.

I am extremely blessed to have an amazing support system; my family. Now, if you’ll excuse me I’m going to smack my husband across the head with a heavy bottomed pan!

Love,

Bethx