✦ THE WOMAN BEHIND THE SPOON ✦
Hi, I’m The Lady Chef
Known as Sweetie — and this is my story.
Hi, I’m The Lady Chef — and I believe the best meals are the ones made with a full heart and zero shortcuts.
There’s a moment I think about often. I was in my kitchen in Kouba, Algiers, surrounded by the smell of cinnamon and warm dough, watching my little brothers’ faces light up as I pulled a fresh tray out of the oven. Three boys — loud, hungry, and completely impossible — and yet that moment was the quietest, most certain I have ever felt about anything.
This is what I was made to do.
Not pastry school. Not the teaching career that came before. Just this — feeding people I love and making them feel like the most important people in the world for exactly the time it takes to finish a plate.
— WHO I AM —
From the Classroom to the Kitchen
I spent years as an English teacher — a job I genuinely loved — before following a different kind of calling. Because as much as I loved language, I kept finding myself more excited about what was happening in the kitchen than what was happening in the classroom.
I trained as a pastry chef and cake designer, and for a long time that was my world: custom wedding cakes, sculpted birthday creations, multi-tier fondant pieces. I built a reputation, one cake at a time, right here in Kouba.
But eventually I realized I wanted to share more than just cakes. I wanted to share the whole table — the harira, the msemen, the Ramadan spreads that take all day to prepare and disappear in twenty minutes.
So I started Cooking With Sweetie. And I have never looked back.
“My biggest flaw is that I’m impatient. But in the kitchen? Every recipe teaches me to wait. Maybe that’s exactly why I love it.”
— WHAT THIS BLOG IS —
What Cooking With Sweetie Is Really About
Cooking With Sweetie is a recipe blog built around one simple truth: good food does not need to be complicated, but it does need to be made with intention.
Everything I post here has been made in my own kitchen — tested on real people (usually my three brothers, who are brutally honest). Adjusted, retested, and only shared when I’m genuinely proud of it.
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Cake Design & Custom Cakes
From character cakes to elegant multi-tier creations — everything I learned as a professional cake designer, shared with you.
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Algerian Cuisine
Authentic recipes passed down through generations. Harira, couscous, grilled lamb — the food that makes Algeria home.
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Ramadan & Aïd Recipes
The holy month deserves the most beautiful table. Qatayef, baklawa, chbakia — every recipe perfected over the years.
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Oriental Pastry
Msemen, makroud, kalb el louz — the sweet side of Algeria that I grew up with and will never stop making.
— MY PHILOSOPHY —
Food Is My Love Language
I am generous by nature — it is genuinely my best quality, the one I’m most proud of. And food is the most generous thing I know how to give. You cannot rush a proper Algerian stew. You cannot fake the time it takes to hand-roll msemen. The care is built into the process, and the person eating it can feel that.
I don’t believe in shortcuts for the sake of shortcuts. I believe in understanding a recipe — knowing why the dough needs to rest, why the sugar needs to reach exactly that temperature. Once you understand it, you own it.
That is what I want to teach you here. Not just recipes, but the intuition behind them.
Let’s Cook Together
I share new recipes every day across Instagram and Snapchat — behind-the-scenes kitchen moments, Ramadan special series, and the occasional kitchen disaster. 😅
Here’s to authentic food, real moments, and a kitchen that always smells like something wonderful.
— The Lady Chef, Cooking With Sweetie