Welcome to The Sunday Kitchen Table!

My own story with food and cooking began twenty-four years ago, when my parents bought 10 acres of land in a small agricultural town in Northern California. This land would become the land that fed and nourished us.

Each season, with the toils of my father, who called it his “Garden of Eden,” the land provided us with different fruits and vegetables. My mother used whatever was in season in our orchard in her every day cooking. She made dolmas with our grape leaves; jam with our quince; salads with our lettuce; duck stuffed with our pomegranates; juice with our melons, and so much more. She made everything from scratch every day. My mom was a homemaker and what she made for her family was the most important thing to her, even a duty to her. I say this proudly as I think there is immense pride in nourishing one’s family.

My own penchant for cooking started when I was in college and lived in San Francisco. I was living on my own for the first time; no one else I knew lived in “the city;” I had just broken up with someone; and I needed a hobby to occupy my time. With classes two or three days a week, I spent the other days I wasn’t in class watching the Food Network. I decided I could make those recipes, and figured out that living on your own meant figuring out what to eat. Since I never grew up eating anything pre-made, I needed to learn how to make food the way I was used to, but with my mom far away, I started to learn by watching Ina Garden, Giada DeLaurentis, and Sandra Lee (if you’re an OG Food Network fan, you’ll know these people!). I loved it; it was my therapy; it was creative; and I never stopped wanting to cook.

In time, I developed my own way of cooking. I began working as a full-time lawyer and just could not spend two to three hours in the kitchen, and I don’t know anyone else that could either. But because of how I grew up eating, I had an aversion to eating out all the time or eating prepared or semi-prepared foods. Much later, under the spell of the city of Los Angeles I would eventually move to, I also developed an aversion to highly processed foods and became amazed at how difficult our country made it to eat real food – food that hadn’t been enhanced with artificial flavors, loaded with refined sugars, and processed to make their shelf-lives longer.

If I couldn’t live on a farm anymore, I would at least strive to make good, wholesome, healthy, real food from what I did have access to, in a way that didn’t take my entire time away from me.

So Sundays became the day of the week where I would look forward to turning down any social plans so I could plan out my meals for the week, grocery shop, bake, turn on some Billie Holiday, and cook all day. To me, it was a perfect Sunday. It was that Sunday Kind of Love.

I started this blog with the hope of inspiring and motivating others with the energy, beauty, and love that creating recipes can bring to a home. I believe in the health and wellness that food brings to life. I believe that food should be made with love – whether that’s love for what you put into your own body or love for those around you. I believe cooking shouldn’t be an activity you have to choose between others. I believe anyone can be a foodie in their own home.

With these musings in mind, I hope you enjoy The Sunday Kitchen Table and create alongside with me.

With love,

Yalda