Jenny Morris

South Africa’s ‘Giggling Gourmet’ returns to Abu Dhabi to show off her culinary skills at the Crate and Barrel Chefs’ Theatre and the Al Ain Farms and Kibsons Cooking Challenge. How would you describe the UAE food scene? Besides the delicious local cuisine, it’s a melting pot of fabulous global food. Sure, you can find the best food restaurants in any major cosmopolitan city but the UAE doesn’t only offer you a slice of the world in one city, it offers you the people and stories as well and I think as a chef we are always hungry to listen to people and their connection with food. Which is your favourite UAE restaurant?

I never leave Dubai without a visit to Special Ostadi in Bur Dubai; the food is delicious and simple and feeds my soul, I love it! Do you recall the first dish you ever cooked? How did it turn out?

Oh heavens, how could I forget? I spent a lot of time in the kitchen with my father making curries as a young child. My mother was away on a visit to her sick brother and I wanted to surprise my father with a curry for dinner, I was eight years old at the time. Between our housekeeper and myself we managed to put something together; the only problem was she put it into a pressure cooker and the contents landed up on the ceiling because it exploded. We enjoyed takeaway fish and chips that night. A food trend you simply cannot get your head around?

Molecular gastronomy... It’s beautiful to look at but doesn’t blow my hair back, I’m a girl that likes my food to be what it is.