“I like the idea that my books nourish and that food heals”

All my life, I have been tossed between countries, languages ​​and wars, from Syria to Lebanon, from Lebanon to Switzerland and France, returning to Lebanon as soon as we could… From a Swiss mother and from Lebanese father, I was born in Aleppo, Syria, I was raised with the Franciscan nuns, in French. The house in which I lived my first years still exists, miraculously, because the State had requisitioned it to make it a house of culture and youth.

After the Six-Day War, we left for Beirut and I discovered Arabic. I fell in love with this language, I immersed myself in it. Learning another language is like obtaining the key to a civilization, a culture, a world. I studied Arabic poetry, it cradled me, enveloped me. And then, soon, there was war in Lebanon. My far-sighted father had bought an apartment in Paris, Cité Vaneau, in the 7^ewhere he had met my mother a few years earlier.

On the eve of the war, we were in the mountains, near Jezzine, in southern Lebanon, still carefree, in a house that looked a bit like our house in Aleppo. We had a lady who made the bread, another the braided cheese, another the rose jam. They were women who had extraordinary culinary know-how, who possessed the nafas, blade. With them, I understood to what extent cooking could be a balm, a cure for all ills. Food is our first medicine, I firmly believe in it.

On April 13, 1975, I was 12, we were waiting for the school bus, the gunshots and the bombs started. In half a day, Beirut caught fire, no one was prepared for such violence. We took our suitcases and fled. We were on the last plane to Geneva, to join my mother’s family. Shortly after, we moved to Paris, in the apartment my father had bought. I continued my studies in France. My teachers said I had to write, but I wanted to do medicine, to fix the world. I trained in pediatrics at the Necker-Enfants Malades hospital. I still work there today, they call me the “Mediterranean Mama”. The rest of the time, I write and I cook.

In 2009, I completed the university diploma in advanced studies in taste and gastronomy in Reims. My thesis subject: the transmission of taste to children. Twenty-five years ago, I also created an association, Les Petits Soleils, to help sick children in Lebanon, to which the profits from my books are donated. I like the idea that my books nourish and that food heals. Like meghli, a traditional Lebanese dessert made from rice flour and spices, which is offered to celebrate births. It’s symbolic, but also curative: rice, caraway, anise, cinnamon, through breast milk, can help soothe babies’ colic. It is a dessert that also represents rebirth, wealth and fertility – the strength of life, against all odds.