Welcome to A Global Kitchen!
I have set up this website to provide you with the resources to learn about new ingredients, cooking techniques and dishes. To help you prepare comforting classics when not based in your home country. To be a place where you can find out more about how and where to explore markets and kitchens while on your travels.
A rustic Ethiopian restaurant kitchen in Lalibela
A Global Kitchen originated from the challenges I have encountered as I live, work and travel around the world. As a chef I am always interested in learning more about the variety of local products and cooking techniques where I am living. As a father, and expat, I am concerned about the origins and how healthful the food is that I serve my family. As a traveller I seek out the cultural culinary history of the place where I am visiting or living. As an eater I am eager to regularly try (and make) new foods from around the world, even if I have not been able to travel there and taste the dish produced in its kitchens.
No matter where I am I love exploring food markets and food stalls. My body feels a gravitational pull towards a market, much the same as when I enter a bookstore and find it hard to resist the allure of the treats that await me in the cookbook section. Whenever I come across an unfamiliar ingredient I try to find out as much as I can about it. It’s the same when I sample a dish. I am interested in the various techniques a cook uses to make the dish their own. Sometimes this requires me to sit and watch a cook on the street repeatedly make a dish or attend a cooking class from someone who can share their knowledge about the local cuisine and culinary customs.
Over the last decade my family has moved in between Canada and Asia, living in Hong Kong, Delhi and Hanoi. As we settle into our new home we are always excited about exploring the culinary landscape of an unfamiliar city and country. At the same time, like most immigrants to new communities, we find it a challenge to eat the foods from a new culture, at each meal, every day. So, as a security blanket we turn to food that nourishes our soul and provides us with the comfort of “home”. For my family, this is a variety of dishes from countries and cultures from around the world.
At times it is a challenge to make these soul-comforting dishes, primarily due to the lack of availability of ingredients. I have to rely on my chef skills and training to come up with substitutions for various ingredients which normally would be pantry staples when living in North America. Similarly, food safety and kitchen sanitation, the traceability of food and the knowledge of knowing where your food comes from are much more of a challenge when living abroad.
It is my hope that A Global Kitchen will provide you with the resources to learn about new ingredients, cooking techniques and dishes. To help you prepare comforting classics when not based in your home country. To be a place where you can find out more about how and where to help explore markets and kitchens while on your travels.
If you have any culinary questions you are trying to figure out do connect with me on twitter, Google Plus or Facebook.
Happy cooking and exploring!
Cameron