KONIALIAN'S KITCHEN: SUSTAINABLE MEALS FOR YOUR WALLET AND THE PLANET
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
My name is Margo Beck and I am the author of Konialian's Kitchen: Sustainable Meals for your Wallet and the Planet. A few of my greatest passions are the environment, food, and my culture. Compiling some of my family recipes and analyzing their environmental components allowed me to combine all of my passions into one.
Inspiration
I have always loved food, but it took some time for my diverse palate to develop. Thankfully my mother, Arda Konialian-Beck, exposed me to a large variety of Mediterranean foods throughout my childhood. As a proud Armenian and amazing cook, she used her skills in the kitchen to show me how significant food is in our cultural traditions and identity.
Recipe History
While the recipes I am presenting are generally Mediteranean in origin, they are predominantly Armenian, Greek, and Lebanese. Most of the recipes were passed down through generations of my family. My mom was taught how to cook many of these dishes by her late mother, Margo Konialian, and late aunt, Hasmig Berberian. Sisters, Margo and Hasmig, were born and raised in Beirut, Lebanon to Armenian Genocide survivors. This is what caused the large Lebanese influence in my family recipes. As my mother learned how to cook these dishes, she added her own flare to them. Slightly changing the recipes made them specific to my immediate family and our taste, which also means that you cannot find these exact recipes in a published cookbook. Since the directions for cooking a lot of the food I love have either been passed down orally or are written in Armenian, I felt it was time to have a record of these recipes in English.
