About Shelly

It feels much more comfortable to hide behind a camera #notaselfie #photograpy in action

Shalom, my name is Shelly. I hold a few titles: mom, nomad, food photographer & videographer and a cook. A cook with bad karma, or, maybe, a subconscious fatal attraction to small kitchens. In the last decade, I’ve lived in fifteen homes in three different countries. Nine out of those fifteen apartments or houses had kitchens the size of closets. The rest were a bit bigger, but none of them was big as Martha’s. Size doesn’t matter. What matters is intention, desire, family, and health. For my family and friends, I’ll cook in a utility closet if I have to.

Do you know what is the best thing about living in many places? You always get to try new food, explore new food markets and restaurants, and, even better, meet new friends from different parts of the world. Then you invite each other for home cooked dinners, and share family recipes. And the worst thing? (Life is perfect and rosy only on social media.) Packing a whole house, storing most of it, shipping your personal belongings, looking at dozens of ugly homes until you find a place to live, starting the kids at new schools, and buying kitchen tools that you’d already bought on the previous move from New York to Los Angeles, but which are now the wrong voltage.

It would sound more convincing to say I started to eat healthy after having a serious health crisis, but that is not true in my case. I was raised in a family, community, and country that respect vegetables. Fortunately – now I say fortunately, but there were times in my life that it was unfortunately –  I was born in Israel in the mid-seventies, in a small, sleepy town in the middle of a desert, where no one had heard of microwaves, pizza, or frozen meals. EVERYONE in my town, including my big Moroccan family, cooked and ate all their meals at home.

So when I had my boys, naturally I wanted to do the same for them.

I’ve cooked every day since my first son was born. I don’t cook anything fancy. I love simple, home-cooked meals. I make whatever I can from scratch, including bagels, granola bars and harissa. I like to preserve lemons, pickle cucumbers and cure olives. More than I love to cook traditional recipes I love to give them a healthy twist.

I hope you enjoy my stories, recipes, pictures and videos.

Please forgive my English, it’s my second language.  

LET’S COLLABORATE

I’m always looking to work with people on various projects whether it’s sponsored posts, recipe development, photography, guest posts, or other related collaborations. Please feel free to reach out, you can contact me here.

PHOTOGRAPHY

All photography and videography on this site is taken by me. I edit my pictures with Adobe Photoshop and my videos at Adobe Premiere. I shoot still with a Canon Rebel and generally use a 50mm T1.4 zeiss lens. I shoot recipe videos with Sony Alfa 6300 with 35mm and with 16-50mm zoom.

Organizing my humble kitchen #kitchen #produce #shellyshumblekitchen
My humble kitchen in Mallorca
IMG_9036
My hometown, Yerucham, Israel.

 

Eema (mother) in her kitchen
My mother in her kitchen

 

2014-07-09 17.50.44 (1)
Exploring the beautiful streets of Pollença, Mallorca, Spain.

28 Comments

  3. Amazing…..inspiring and makes you feel like spending more and more time in the kitchen. Your approach with the children is also very positive. The more involved they get the better they eat :).
    Good luck

  10. Love Love Love the blog! very charming.. friendly and makes you want to make what you see.. I specially LOVE the recipes that are prepared by the kids.. make more of those.. if they can do it even i can do it (maybe..) Perhaps Alex prepare something?

  12. Hi Shelly
    Just came across your interesting blog when searching for chocolate covered dates in Israel.
    Would you perhaps know where in Israel one could find this product?
    Thanks and keep blogging!
    Sharon

    • Hi Sharon,
      You can find them in any health food store or in the markets (shuk hacarmel). Thank you for the encouragement :))

  15. What’s joy to find your site! Our family also blends Israeli and world-inspired ingredients, plant-based for the most part. I’ll admit, I never follow recipes, I create my own. But I find inspiration in reading recipes. Yours are a delight. יישר כוחך

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