While we are waiting to travel again for our big move to New Zealand, I have been pondering about the growth and direction of this blog. Family travel, overland journeys, wildlife and the greater outdoors has been the main focus of my writing, these are what we love and feel most passionate about. Photography is another one that has become a strong theme here as I have enjoyed taking part in different photography challenges and meeting other amazing talented photographers.
But I realize our other passion – food – is not coming through in my writing and the main reason for that is that I am the one doing all the writing. Even though I LOVE eating and trying different cuisines from around the world, anyone who knows us knows who the Chef is, the gourmet food lover, the person who spends hours watching cooking and baking shows, entertaining and feeding all our guests and filling our house with spices and food from around the world.
Have a look for yourself 🙂 Click on each image for details and description of the food item
This is just a taster of all the different dishes Ashique experiments with, the kids put in special requests for their birthdays and he aims to please 🙂 Both his kids and all their friends are very impressed, as am I!
Sonic for Shama’s 5th birthday
Skylander cake for Shahaar’s 8th birthday
So I am thinking that I may have found a way to have Ashique be more involved in the blog, perhaps posting recipes or sharing how he uses local fresh produce for most of the dishes he makes. Not to mention he makes everything from scratch, including grinding the spices, none of that packet stuff for him!
Perhaps it could even be a way to highlight Bengali cuisine and share with other food lovers. I do know from now on, I will pay more attention to taking food pictures during our travels as it is such a big part when we go anywhere and I haven’t really mentioned too much about all the amazing global cuisines we have tried on our journeys, simply because I didn’t take pictures. Everyone wants to see the dish, not just read about it!
Here is the man behind the food plans and his very own little helper – happy to see one of the kids has picked up his passion for cooking and baking 🙂
Lucky to have our own Chef when we go on group travel and stay in self catering cottage
The chef with his eager helper
Did I mention we (as in mostly he) also grows some of our own food? A great way to teach our kids about local food, gardening, growing our own and doing fun family activity together!
When we are not travelling, cooking, feasting and entertaining friends and family takes up lot of our time, and we absolutely LOVE it 🙂 I think it’s time I integrate this passion of ours into travels as well. Need to learn how to take good food pictures and get Ashique to provide the review, which shouldn’t be hard as that’s his speciality and passion!
I did one food review post from our Marrakech Food Tour back in November, have a look at some of the amazing dishes we sampled there. A few more tasters from our Selim Family Chef – What do you think? Would you want to have a meal with us? Do you think there would be interest from our readers on more food and travel posts?
Olaf Cake
Stumble It! 
Yes yes YES! This is very exciting, I always consider food to be an essential part of enjoying a place to visit, and if I hear negatives about a countries cuisine, it does make me question whether I should go somewhere else instead. Get Ashique back in his pinny and bring me some recipes to try!
We feel the same way! Cuisine goes a long way to placing countries in our top lists! Will get Ashique started on recipes 🙂
This is fantastic! But I’m hungry now 🙁
Luckily I’ve already eaten, they all look FANTASTIC! Those tiramisu cupcakes look super yummy! I love baking (cupcakes especially), could you share the recipe? 😉
Absolutely! Just need Selim Chef to get home from his day job being a psychiatrist and I will get on with getting recipe 🙂 Thanks for the compliments!
Sorry for the delay Vlad, keep meaning to write out the recipe for you, but Ashique said he used this recipe http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/mini-tiramisu_cakes_73687 and didn’t really make any alterations so figured I would just send you the link rather than type it out 🙂 Enjoy making and eating them!
hi Sam, I would absolutely love to have dinner with your family! Those food photos look so sumptous and inviting And ah, those cakes!! The creativity that went with them blew me away. It’s nice to have a chef in the family, plus a budding one (Love the father and daughter photo. So adorable.) Definitely definitely keep the food post coming!!
Thanks so much for the positive feedback! If you are around in Sheffield or in New Zealand after 2 weeks time, come our way and we can cook a lovely dinner for you guys 🙂
Food blogs do really well with readers. I think it’s a great idea to add some food ideas to your travels. The dishes look delicious and I’m sure taste the same way.
Thanks for the positive encouragement and kind words Carmen 🙂 I do plan to incorporate more food ideas into future posts now!
That Olaf the snowman is brilliant!
Thanks 🙂 Father and daughter had fun making it!