Hello! I’m yasmin (that’s me below)

Welcome to Cooking From a Fahr! I’m a cookbook author + regular recipe contributor to NYT Cooking. I live between Menorca, London and sometimes LA. My new book, Cook Simply, Live Fully, is out so soon!

What you’ll find here: A happy mix of recipes, restaurant + travel recommendations, thoughts about books, life, cooking and pretty much anything that falls under the category of making life a little bit better and a lot more fun. I hope you’ll join us to get all of this delivered quietly in your inbox.

A longer story if you have the time…

Here, you’ll find a variety of things noted above because I have pretty much upended my life, leaving NYC after 14 years (followed by a brief stint in Miami), to move to Menorca, an island in Spain that I fell in love with a little over two years ago. This newsletter has unintentionally become a travelog of this experience and will continue to be as I navigate this big life change and new chapter (in a fun way, I promise!).

Since I’ve been bouncing around various Airbnbs and rental homes in this process, the recipes have been shaped by that, so they are all simple, delicious and easy enough that you can make them in a poorly stocked rental home. Or, in your actual home, of course, with the low-effort and tech part being perfect for tired weeknights.

I’m doing a quite a bit of traveling this year, and I hope to continue once I’m Europe based, so there are things that I make and places that I go that I would love to share with the wonderful community of cooks and food lovers that I’ve been lucky enough to meet thus far.

I’m going to attempt to stick to a bi-monthly schedule, but there’s no set date of delivery–like every Tuesday morning, for example—as I’m not quite ready to commit to that. I’m going to be honest with you in that this entire thing might shift over time as we go through these topics and find what’s the most helpful, engaging and fun because there is so much content and so many distractions out there in the world that I want to make sure that what I’m creating is worth both your time and mine. And, if it stops being fun for both of us, well, then we will both move on with our lives and try something else.

A bit about me…

I’ll make a long story short and say that my path in food has been windy and topsy turvy. Here it goes quickly: After interning at Food & Wine magazine while finishing my graduate degree in Food Studies at NYU, I returned to the magazine to work on one of their cocktail books and continued to freelance until one of my editors found me my next job as a cooking and recipe editor at a new digital startup. After experiencing some burnout (and making great life-long friends!), I wanted to travel more without working in an office and found a job as an incognito luxury inspector for Forbes Travel Guide, which meant that I essentially traveled around the world reviewing five-star hotels, restaurants and spas undercover for four years (ridiculous job, I know, and incredibly fun in your late 20s/early 30s). My fake name was Isabella, and she had her own email address and credit card. I sometimes even wore glasses to disguise myself—it’s really shocking what a difference it makes. During that time I also wrote a weekly recipe column for Serious Eats, which led to my first cookbook, Keeping it Simple.

Since then, I’ve written Boards & Spreads and my new cookbook, Cook Simply, Live Fully, comes out very, very soon (!!). It’s a book from the heart, as I started writing it in Menorca, during the start of this life change/journey (transformation?), so it’s both very personal and also incredibly practical as I wrote it during another rental home/traveling period, so the recipes are flexible and meant to help you navigate everyday life. For example, recipes are set up in three sections based on your mood and energy level: Lap Dinners are for when you’re exhausted and don’t want to prep a thing; Coffee Table Dinners is the more the classic weeknight section and At The Dinner Table is for when you have a bit more energy and time to spend in the kitchen (but not too long!). Plus, lots of big bowl salads, a wine pairing chart and a cheat sheet for cooking vegetables. (I’m a bit obsessed with it, to be very honest.)

I’m also a regular contributor to NYT Cooking, and you can find my recipes there as well as Food52 and the Kitchn.

I’m currently living between places until I sort out my visa and can return to Menorca in the early spring, so you’ll find me there, London, LA and then TBD the rest of the time. You can find out more about me, my recipes and books at Yasminfahr.co or say hi online @yasminfahr!

wait, one more quick note!

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