Welcome!

My name is Eva, I’m a 27 year old biologist working in academia. I have always had a love for cooking but over the last few years I’ve become more and more interested and after reading many blogs decided to start my own. Dutch by origin, I grew up in France for the first eight years of my life before moving back to Holland. Then during my studies, came to Dundee in Scotland for a project and have stayed here ever since.

Cooking started very early in my family and it was often done together. We used to help my mother out in the kitchen and I guess with growing up in France you get an appreciation for all that tasted wonderful. The name “The Golden Shrimp” comes from our “family restaurant”. On special occasions this would open, after much deliberation, the menu would be decided and written out to then be prepared “en famille”. It reminds me of the many hours my Mum and I spent cooking with the help of my brother and father, where she passed on lots of her information and started my love for food.


During the last year I’ve gotten more and more interested in food, one of the big reasons was that after finishing my PhD in November 2004 I went traveling for five months through Thailand, Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia and India. Apart from seeing wonderful cultures and places, meeting lots of inspirational people, we also tasted so much beautiful food. We tried to take a cooking class in every country we went to just to learn more about the culture and spent hours exploring local markets. I also spent many hours on busses dreaming about swapping life in academia for my own little café/art gallery, but these remain dreams so far.


After coming back to the UK for a month, I then went and worked in Tokyo for 4 months. The food in Japan was totally amazing; I loved the freshness, seasonality and presentation of it all. I was very fortunate to meet two lovely Japanese girls who really included me in their daily life and taught me lots about the customs. After looking around, I also found a place where you could learn Japanese cooking, so I took some classes with Elizabeth Andoh who was truly inspirational. Having lived in Japan for the last forty years she is an authority on Japanese customs and food (and has just published it all in her new book, Washoku).


All of this made me realise that I want food to play a greater role in my life, I love cooking for people and see this blog as an opportunity to share this with more people. So here I hope to share some of my culinary concoctions with you, but also share some of the other interests in my life like the beautiful Scottish scenery, which has inspired my other hobby, photography. I am also making lots of felt at the moment after following a course. Enjoy the reading!
Eva

Ps…I would like to thank Sharon and Tobias for sharing some of their pictures and allowing me to post them