About me
My name is Saffron, I’m a freelance photographer living in Amsterdam. I’m not a chef but a passionate cook and lover of all things food: eating it, cooking it, experiencing it, experimenting with it and also traveling for it. It helps me relax when I’m stressed, cheers me up when I’m down and excites me when I discover something new. For me there isn’t a single thing as readily available, nurturing or satisfying as food.
Why this site
My goal is to share my passion and knowledge and maybe even inspire you to go on an adventurous food journey as well. But where to start? Life is busy as it is, where can you find the time and skills to plan, buy and prepare food that makes you happy? The good news is: it doesn’t have to be complicated or time consuming at all. With my tips, tricks and recipes you can become a food lover in no time. I’ll show you where I get my inspiration from, what I learned and what I might have tweaked to make it easier or even better (in my opinion ;-).
How it started
I didn’t really start cooking until I was about twenty-five. Before that I would make spaghetti with prefab creamed spinach and dinner was served. I slowly started getting to know my spices. I learned a few basic fail-safe techniques, started experimenting with different ingredients and before I knew it the dishes I brought to pot-lucks were a hit! People were enjoying my food, that’s when I realized how much joy cooking (and eating) good and healthy food can bring.
About my recipes
When I’m looking for recipes online I don’t like long unrelated texts explaining what happened that day at work, or how the cat is doing. This is a website solely for recipes and inspiration about food. I aim for my recipes to be accessible, to the point and enticing. I will dive into simple techniques and recipes but also verge out and try some Michelin star dishes now and then, because, why not? Of course I will also let you know if something didn’t really work out and how I tried to fix it.
Apart from baking, I don’t believe cooking is an exact science. When you start getting comfortable with spices, ingredients and cooking techniques it gets easier to steer away from exact recipes and start experimenting. You don’t like coriander? Then don’t use it. If you don’t have buttermilk but you do have yoghurt, then use that instead for pancake batter. Do you prefer to fry in olive oil over butter? Then do it! Would you rather use vegetable stock instead of chicken stock? Not a problem, it’s up to you!
What can you expect?
- Easy to follow and fun to make recipes from all over the world
- My honest experience in creating them
- An introduction to some basic techniques
- Tips on how to substitute certain ingredients and how best to prepare them
- Pointers on your ideal pantry (yes, I cook from scratch, but I promise to help you get organized ánd flexible so you don’t have to run all over town to find ingredients)