Pineapple Upside-Down Cake: it will turn your world upside-down

Pineapple Upside Down Cake

My parents visited me when I delivered my daughter Alya back in 2009. After the birth of Alya, my life changed upside-down. My sleeping schedule ceased to exist, taking a shower was a hard core wish and brushing my hair was an absolute impossible. It was a major event in my life and I had to adapt to this new reality but I still wanted to retain some of what is left of me..so one day, I decided to bake my parents a dessert. My original plan was to make something that I already tried as to refrain from embarrassing myself in front of my parents. I opted to make Tarte aux Fraises (strawberry tart). I made the crust and baked it and while I was trying to place it on the serving dish, it broke and shattered to many pieces on the serving dish.

Sfoof: A Lebanese Semolina Turmeric cake that tastes better than it sounds

Soof or Turmeric Semolina Cake

Soof is a Lebanese dessert that we used to eat when we were kids. My dad used to get it from the dessert shop and I was utterly fascinated by those yellow squares. I could not understand how these squares were so yellow, as if a painter colored them with a swift brush stroke from an Easter color palette. Getting older, I lost all my desire to eat them, I mean I was busy discovering other fancier and more complicated desert. Sfoof did not seem that intriguing anymore. After moving to the US, a strong nostalgia of everything middle eastern and homemade took over and I finally decided to make Sfoof.

Welcome to Reinventing Nadine

Hello and welcome to my blog and my life. Well you know by now that I am Nadine and I am reinventing myself or at least trying to. I am born and raised in Lebanon and moved to USA in 2007 to marry my fiance. I am now a mother which entails being a cook, driver, secretary, housekeeper, gardener, seamstress, clown, crafter , warm up artist and many many other professions. I realized the need to reinvent myself within 3 weeks of coming to the USA..it is a process that starts with Disbelief; as in "who am I and what I am doing here"...then Denial "noo...things will change...I am the same person", to Anger "What in the world was I thinking? " to Acceptance "well I have to cook anyway, might as well make something delicious and pretty"and finally Bargain "Ok..pretty will come later, let's start with edible and not burning the house down" (these stages are greatly inspired by the five stages of grief but in different order (Kübler-Ross model).

And thus my reinventing journey started. I always loved food, design, paper, calligraphy, arts and making things from scratch and by myself. This blog will allow me to document my journey and share it with my friends and family (who often ask for my recipes) and may be strangers who share their love for the above too. I must say that blogs in general helped me a lot to refine my skills and inspired me daily to translate my ideas to reality (sometimes convinced me that my ideas simply don't make sense and must remain in that busy brain of mine).

Welcome to Reinventing Nadine