Hello

I am Hisham Assaad and I harvest phrases like “I hate you” “You are making me hungry” “Stop torturing us with those delicious photos”

I have started this blog after spending so much time in the kitchen, playing with ingredients to cook something that can be eaten, and sharing cellphone photos on my personal social media profile. After some support and convincing, Cookin5m2 was created to take my kitchen passion to the next level. Work on the blog is mostly done solo. I am the cook, baker, stylist, photographer, writer, editor, publisher and social media manager. I am learning to make things better.
Photos are taken either in the kitchen or in my made-up studio on our balcony Olly, the cat, makes a cameo without my permission.

My love for food is acquired by food experiences. In the early stages, I was influenced by my family’s passion for food, particularly my mom who, by the word of others who tasted her food, is an amazing cook (in traditional Levantine recipes, if I may specify) and my dad who comes from a family of butchers who is excellent when it comes to meats. It is ironic I rarely have recipes with meat.

I work behind the screen as a graphic designer by day, and behind the apron the rest of the time. I quit my office job in June 2015 and have been freelancing my way around as a guest chef in restaurants in Beirut, hosting at a restaurant, cooking at festivals, private events and private dinner, all while still working as a designer, my original trade, and clowning on the side for fun.
Being in the kitchen gives me a distraction from the outer world. I use the kitchen sometimes as a method of procrastination. But that yields wonderful results, doesn’t it? My kitchen experiments are both sweet and savory, with ingredients I can easily fetch from a supermarket. Nothing too expensive or impossible to get, in most cases.

I took a virtual oath to post nothing but recipes on this blog.
Let me rephrase, I will work on making sure every post published here to contain a recipe. All recipes are tried, tested and guaranteed to work, unless stated that they failed.
Recipes posted here are either my creation, adaptation, or documentation of a traditional recipe mom (or someone else) prepared in front of me.

Ask me any question you have about any recipe and I will make sure to answer to the best of my knowledge.

Apart from food, I like outdoor walks in nature, be it on the beach, seaside, next to vineyards, in the woods, or on the sidewalks of the urban concrete jungle. Check out the Rural Picnic events we did last year. One of my time-wasting pleasures is watching series – I am a MAJOR GLEEK – and movies. Not a day would pass without music; no specific genre but whatever appeals to my weird unexpected taste. I love to read when I have the time or just browse the internet for a daily dose of foodporn.

Aside from freelancing, I am working currently with TasteLebanon.co.uk as a guide. I’d be happy to take you around to taste the best foods in the city!

For any inquiries, requests, post sponsoring requests, collaborations, or if you would like to send me free stuff, find me on the Social Media links below, or shoot me an email at mail@cookin5m2.com

Keep up with my updates on social media links below