 | Before I tell
you a little bit about myself, may I take this opportunity to welcome you to
Gourmandises, it stands for delicacies. My passion for cooking comes from my childwood. I was born in the island of Réunion, a small French colony off the coast of Madagascar. When I was one year old, my parents moved to France. Although Réunion is French, the culture and the food is very different. being a tropical island our food is extremely spicy. So, my parents, as many expats, missed the island and the best way to deal with this was to cook creole. While my friends had gratins and quiche Lorraine for tea, I was welcomed with the smell of "cari" when I got back from school. My mother cooked everything fresh, she never really taught me how to cook, but I remember spending hours in the kitchen watching her. At the time, supermarkets did not sell all the spices nor the tropical fruits they sell today, and I didn't realise either how lucky I was to be exposed to so many of them, garam massala, curcuma, vanilla, mango just to name a few. Cooking from scratch is a value that I strongly believe in. I have two lovely daughters and I make a point of cooking something fresh for them every day. Creating a cake or a meal from the very begining is what I enjoy most. After my A-levels I went to University to study English and Spanish. I was lucky to be part of the newly created "Erasmus European exchange program" and I had the chance to spend one year in Cordoba and one year in Liverpool. After Uni I went on and had an international career in marketing. Although, none of this is directly linked to this new venture, those years are actually essential to who I am today. I spent a lot of my free time then cooking for my friends, inventing new deserts and meals, making the most of my numerous journeys across the world into my creations. I always had it in the back of my mind "one day I will cook for cash", but I was never brave enough to make the jump. Until............, a few months ago, life is too short I thought, in life you have to do what enjoy most. Cooking is what I love and Gourmandises is my way of sharing this. Corinne |