She has dared to venture into a terrain that’s traditionally considered a man’s preserve. She is probably the first and only Kuwaiti female chef in the world. Danna Al-Tourah shares her thoughts about her chosen field and her journey prior and after donning the apron. Alongside, she also shares some of her other passions, namely serving special-needs children, and how she contributes to make life more livable for them through her area of expertise. Read on and get inspired.

Question: What are the challenges you face as a lady chef, because it’s considered to be a man’s job?
Answer: Personally I don’t think being a chef is a gender issue, it’s more of a character issue. The job of being a chef has attracted more men as an industry than it has women I think in the past. The challenges are not because I’m a woman but the challenges are what the job requires, which is the environment in the kitchen can be very difficult. To be in the kitchen for 10 to 12 hours is a physically demanding. It gets hot in the kitchen, it can get stressful in the kitchen, standing up on your feet all day, forgetting to eat or drink water and you have to keep your composure. It is not for everyone, being a chef is a very difficult and demanding job. I was an investment banker before I became a chef and this is definitely much more challenging. It is different according to me working a corporate 9 to 5 timing because at the end of the day you’re an employee.

So maybe my answer in terms of the challenges of being a chef may seem bias because I’m the executive chef at Tatami and this is my kitchen and my staff. I have partners with me in this restaurant, which is how I ended up here. For me the challenge is predominantly that I never get to turn my mind off from work since this is my own. So when I leave the restaurant I’m mentally still there. It’s just a continuous cycle for me, at night when I sleep till the next morning when I wake up; it’s the first thing on my mind since this needs my continuous care. My work is purely personal to me. In New York during vacation time, I was constantly trying to find inspiration and trying to take in as much as I could from everything around me. The different ideas as well as seeing what the new trends were in the culinary world. You never shut off, but its fine especially when its own thing. I believe that it shouldn’t shut off and if it does then you are not passionate enough about it.

Being a chef, it depends on your character whether or not you can handle a demanding and a stressful job. There are a lot of things that happen in kitchen that shouldn’t be taken personally. It is hard to put together a team that works well together and works well with you. For instance the staff that I have in the kitchen they know my style, so they know what I want and they know what I expect out of them. They know what I want, in terms of how I want them to execute the dishes. Communication is an absolute key in the kitchen. You have to be a manager, a chef, a mentor and you are setting an example for the rest of the kitchen, so you have to be there with them cutting, cleaning, organizing, cooking and sometimes you will also have to be leading them. So it’s not a man’s job or a woman’s job it is a job for someone that has a certain type of character to be in the kitchen.

Q: What made you choose this profession?
A: I always loved to cook. When I was in university pursuing my undergraduate degree in the US, I cooked for myself a lot in my apartment because I refused to eat ramen noodle and season it with a packet of MSG. I just started getting cook books and cooking at home. I would have dinners at my apartment once a week and invite friends over and I would spend the whole day cooking. I cooked throughout college and I taught myself how to cook. When I graduated from university and I came back to Kuwait I would always love cooking for friends and family. I love entertaining, having dinner parties and hosting. It is just fun and it always nice since you put so much of yourself into cooking, that it’s nice to see people eat your food and see how they react. It not always a good thing (laughs), it doesn’t always turn out as you hoped. Cooking is personal to me. To cook for someone is a personal thing. There is no better way to show someone that you care than to actually dedicate a lot of time cooking because cooking is very exhausting and time-consuming. You can spend two days in a kitchen preparing for a dinner party.
When I was in investment banking, I figured that this wasn’t a job to which I wanted to commit the rest of my career life and I wanted to do something that was personal to me. I feel that everyone should have a sense of respect for the way that they spend their time. With every moment of my time spent it should mean something to me at a personal level. Work should mean something to me and if it is not my own work that has a personal connection with me, then I feel like it’s a waste of time. Life is a blessing and you should spend your life doing things that you love to do rather than just to see the cheque at the end of the month. You spend half of your time at work so work should have a personal meaning to your own life. I wanted to be able to materialize my own ideas rather than materializing someone else’s ideas.
My family was confused when I made a decision to join a culinary school because I was doing really well at work, I had achieved a lot of success early on in my career and it was not like I ever hated my job. I was content but I wanted to be ecstatic, and I wasn’t ecstatic working as an investment banker. After I quit my job I moved to New York, I gave myself the time to learn, and took classes in everything that I was ever interested in. I took recreational classes, sowing classes, and cooking classes. I was doing bailey again. I gave myself the time to reconnect with myself and I had faith that it will work itself out. Most of the people in Kuwait are not certified chefs or don’t have a degree in culinary art. People that are coming from other industries are working these jobs in Kuwait and it is more of a labor market kind of a job. In New York to break into a higher end restaurant is difficult without a culinary degree, but there is a labor market that works in New York but they work at a different level and not at a level the chef would want to work at.

Q: Have you worked in a five – star hotel kitchen? If yes, how was the experience? If no, do you think it’s an essential experience you lack?
A: No I haven’t worked in a five-star hotel kitchen but I did two internships in New York City at really nice restaurants. I worked with fantastic chefs there, one the chef I worked in New York with was the season one winner of Top Chef Harold Dieterle. It was really fun to work with him and he is a great guy. People would get excited about coming to the restaurant and they would just want to go back into the kitchen and meet him. It was great experience working with someone so young and successful early on in his career. I did my second internship with a restaurant which served southern french cuisine. These restaurants were fairly popular in New York City. It gave me really good exposure in terms of what is to be expected when you work in a commercial kitchen. I don’t think that working in a five-star restaurant is a necessity. I think that working in a commercial kitchen, which is really busy is absolutely a necessity.

The kitchens in New York were minuscule because the rent is high. You’re working in a kitchen not more than 20 sq meters or 15 sq meters, you have to fit equipment and people in that area. Working in New York has given me great experience; working with great chefs and working in restaurants that were packed all the time. It was standing on your feet and not moving from your station for hours on end. At the end of your shift when everything is over you have to break down your station and clean up. It is not like a glamorous job by any means. There’s nothing glamorous about working in a kitchen. What’s necessary is to have experience in a commercial kitchen and that commercial kitchen should be very small and very busy, I think that would do a lot for you.

I don’t have any interest in ever running a hotel kitchen nor do I have any interest in working in a hotel kitchen. It is a completely different ball game and has a completely different setup, mentality and structure. It’s just different than what conventional kitchens do. It would depend on what the person would want to do in their culinary career. I have people who have hotel experience that work here with us. Most of the cooking done in hotel kitchens is mass productions because you’re serving hundreds and thousands of people on a daily basis. I like to work on much smaller scales. I like to do everything in small batches and I do everything from scratch. I like to take my time with cooking, not just on a personal level but also for the restaurant everything is done in small batches, so that it stays fresh and when it runs out you can make a new batch. All your food, your sauces and dressings are fresh all the time. I’m a Leo and that’s just the way that I work. Sometimes that may frustrate the staff in the kitchen. For me it better in terms of quality control. I really like to take my time, attention to detail, for me it’s all about the integrity of the food that’s my absolute priority and that is my way to cook.

Q: Are there any cultural barriers in the Kuwaiti society for what you are doing?
A: I haven’t faced any to be honest. If anything, people that come into the restaurant the people that I know my family and friends everyone thinks its great that I’m doing something that a lot people don’t venture into in Kuwait. It a very niche market right now at least, there are a lot of Kuwaiti chefs in Kuwait that have actually gone to culinary school who are very talented and are doing fantastic things. They are also swimming against the current. I think it’s great to do something different, to be in a field that most people wouldn’t consider going into the first time. A lot of people feel apprehensive towards doing work that would involve physical labor. People might think that there might be a cultural backlash but I have not had any. If anything people think its great and their excited. I haven’t had any sort negative feedback as to what I’m doing at all if anything I’ve been encouraged to keep doing what we are doing.

Q: Why did you choose to specialize in Japanese cuisine?
A: Initially I had worked with a few restaurants as a consultant before the opening of this restaurant. This restaurant was a consultation that I had done for my partners but they weren’t my partners at that time. They had hired me to develop the menu, develop recipes and train their staff. I initially was on board as a consulting chef and once my contract was over they offered me to partner with them and so I took them up on it. They are fantastic people and I work really well with them, which I think is rare in any business, to find people that you’ve never met before but you just click. It was a blessing that I was given a chance to work with them and it made sense to me to partner with them and further develop something that we had started.

So when they had come to me with this project, the idea was to develop a Japanese eatery that was contemporary using Japanese ingredients in a modern way. The culinary school that I was studying in the US was a concentration on health supportive culinary arts that was the basis of this school so I’ve had a lot of experience in working with Japanese ingredients. Japanese ingredients have many the health benefits especially the seaweeds and the different types of Misos. The Japanese way of eating is mainly for health purposes, it is in order to give their body nutrition. In Japanese ingredients there are so many beautiful bold flavors. I was already exposed to Japanese ingredients and had a fairly extensive knowledge about different types of Japanese ingredients. When we started the restaurant, we started working on the menu and the recipes and I just started playing around with the ingredients.

I wanted to do something that was different than what was already out there in Kuwait. I think there are restaurants that are classical Japanese restaurants in Kuwait and they do a good job at what they are doing. I’m not trying to compete with that because I didn’t spend years in Japan studying Japanese cuisine, so I didn’t want to try and replicate something that I don’t have a lot of experience in. What I have experience in is taking ingredients, creating something and putting flavors together that I think would work well together. Everything that we use in the restaurant is traditional Japanese ingredients but the way that they are cooked and prepared is in a very non traditional and contemporary way. I’ve had Japanese people who come to the restaurants and go crazy for the sesame nori chips because sea weed is an integral part of their life. They have never seen it being used like that and they think it’s great. This makes me really happy.

Initially I thought they would be offended. I just wanted to have fun with the menu and I wanted to showcase simplicity of Japanese food. Even our rolls are not massive like other Japanese restaurants in Kuwait because I use a lot less rice because I want people to taste the ingredients. I’m proud of the ingredients that we have. I use very high quality fish, we fly in fish chilled. I think it’s important that if you have quality ingredients, you want people to taste them and to appreciate them. Everything is made from scratch here. We pickle our own ginger, the ginger that comes with the sushi is home made and also our dumplings, the dumplings wrapper is also homemade, everything is made from scratch. There are limitations to certain ingredients but whatever we have access to will be made from scratch. I think it’s important that people eat food that is prepared in a natural way. I’m not a health food resultant but we don’t use any MSG at the restaurant and there’s no food coloring. I use real ingredients.

Q: What are the salient features of Arabic cuisine and how different is it from Kuwaiti cuisine.
A: Well, Kuwaiti cuisine is a type of Arabic cuisine. The essence of traditional Kuwaiti food is a culmination of years of trade throughout the region. There was a lot of trade between India and Kuwait, for example, and you can see that influence being represented in the spices used in our everyday cooking.
Kuwait’s economy was dependent on pearl trade before oil was discovered, and Kuwaitis lived off of the sea and all the fruits the sea had to offer, so fish is an important part of our cuisine. Other foods that define Kuwaiti cuisine include stews, rice dishes, dates and other dried fruits, and nuts and spices.
Influences from the region and our ancestral traditions are rooted in Kuwaiti cuisine.

Q: Food is the main source of a lot of lifestyle diseases in the current world, especially in Kuwait. Do you have any solutions for it?
A: What you eat has a direct impact on the way that you feel and has the largest impact on your state of health.
I think there needs to be a paradigm shift in the way that people think about food. Food is meant to nourish our bodies, not break our bodies down. The first step people should take in making better choices for themselves, is to educate themselves about food and the dynamics of food on their health.
A simple thing to do is to read food labels, if there are ingredients in there that you cannot recognize as a natural food or pronounce, then you probably should not be eating it. Basically, if it doesn’t grow out of the ground or have a mother, it isn’t food.

Kuwait is the second obese country in the world right now, which I think is a direct result of the fast food chains that have spread like wildfire in Kuwait since after the Gulf War.
I think it’s really sad, and I think parents have to play a more active role in their children’s eating habits. I don’t buy the “I can’t control what they eat” excuse, not for a second. It all starts in the home, at an early age, in the kitchen, with your kids cooking with you. And if they don’t like the food and kick and scream for junk, let them kick and scream till they pass out. Practice tough love.

Solutions:
First & most import step, Step 1: Get in the kitchen!
Cook at home, from scratch. If you don’t know how to cook, take a few cooking classes and buy a few cook books. Cooking is so much easier than most people think.

Step 2:
Use high quality ingredients. Get rid of the bullion cubes, they’re poison. Use all-natural ingredients - whole grains, fruits, veggies, raw nuts & seeds, beans, lentils, legumes, line-caught fish (not farmed), grass-fed beef, free-range chicken. Yes, some of these things are hard to find, but most of these ingredients are available here in Kuwait.

Step 3:
Avoid foods in shiny packages, better yet, avoid all foods that come in packages, most are packed with unnatural mystery ingredients. No thanks.
People should avoid white flour, white sugar, or any other unhealthy refined/processed foods. In my cooking classes, we cook with organic, natural whole foods, which help implement a healthy way of cooking and eating. I show people how easy it is to make things from scratch.

Q: You are also involved with special children. Tell us about it.
A: I was involved with special needs children a few years ago. I had developed a food program for a nursery for children with autism, Down ’s syndrome, developmental delays, cerebral palsy, and those with learning disabilities and ADHD.
I trained the nursery’s staff on how to prepare gluten-free and dairy-free whole foods that were devoid of refined white sugar and other processed foods. The key was to feed the kids natural foods prepared from scratch, not using any processed or refined ingredients, in addition to omitting gluten and dairy.
The diet included foods that were high in fiber and Omega-3 fatty acids, gluten-free grains such as buckwheat and quinoa, lots of veggies, and natural sweeteners like dates and other fruits that are nutrient-packed.

Q: Do special children need a different diet? Explain why and how?
A: A lot of research has been done on how children with certain special needs process casein (found in dairy) and gluten (found in most grains). It has been shown that they are not able to digest casein or gluten very well, which creates an affect of psychological lethargy within them.
Following a strict dairy-free, gluten-free whole foods diet has shown to positively impact developmental progress in children with special needs. Yet, parents should allow for some time before they can expect to see the effects of following this diet, given that it is being followed strictly for at least 6 months.
When people seek healing through natural means, the healing process will follow a transitional period that could take at least a few months before any progress is seen or felt.

Q: Are you more of a chef or an entrepreneur? How do you manage both?
A: I want to cook good clean food, so I’m definitely more of a chef than an entrepreneur. I always think about the food first, whether it’s for Tatami, the cooking classes, catering, or for restaurant consultations that we provide.
The entrepreneurship comes into play when the ideas are materialized, it’s a byproduct, and I have a fantastic team working with me to help make that happen, from the kitchen to the front of the house. It also helps to have partners that concentrate on the business side of things. In terms of managing it all, it’s definitely a team effort, everyone plays their part, and all their parts are integral to the bigger picture.

Q: What is your advice to women in Kuwait who plan to be entrepreneurs?
A: Just get started. I know a lot of people who have things in mind for years and they just put limitations on themselves, they begin think of all the reasons why they shouldn’t as opposed to all the reasons as to why they should. You just need to get started even the smallest things, like designing your logo, coming up with the name, finding a location and start sourcing. All this definitely varies on the kind of business. I think people over think things and you end up not materializing as much, as oppose to just starting which is really important.

Q: Do you think self-employment is the answer to Kuwait’s growing unemployment rate?
A: I don’t know if it’s the answer but I think it definitely helps if no one else hires you, you should be able to want to hire yourself. I definitely encourage people to do their own thing because I think they’ll be more successful doing something that they enjoy doing rather than sitting in the office and waiting for time to pass, to a point where it’s time to leave that would just be a waste of time.

Q: If not a chef, what would you have become?
A: I would have gone into teaching. I had done some volunteer mentoring a few years ago for a group of teenage students, I loved it. I had volunteered for an organization called INJAZ, which is non-profit. My role was to mentor the students through the process of incorporating, operating and liquidating a company which they had invested in. Through this process the students gained real-life hands-on experience, something that can’t be taught in books. I think the best teachers are those that lead students through the learning process, and encourage them to come to their own conclusions, rather than merely feed them information. That’s where independent thinking stems from, which is absolutely essential in character-building.

Q: In what ways is your restaurant different from other Japanese restaurants?
A: I guess I’m not really sure. I haven’t been in the kitchens of other Japanese restaurants in Kuwait, so I can’t speak for any other restaurants and I don’t want to compare. What defines Tatami or what factually defines us is that fact that everything is made from scratch on premises. We don’t use any MSG, we don’t use any food coloring and everything that gets served to your table is made just a few feet away from the kitchen. We make our own pickled ginger, the ginger with comes with the sushi everything is home-made and fresh. We use freshly squeezed juice to make the sauces. It is very important to me. It is not a traditional Japanese eatery, it is contemporary. It is my take on Japanese ingredients; I don’t even want to say its Japanese dishes. I’m using Japanese ingredients in ways that I think it would taste good.

Q: What are your future plans?
A: Future plans we are so busy with the cooking classes, and the consultations, the catering and managing the restaurant for now we are just developing those four lines of business. My plates pretty full right now. The future plan is to further develop the business that we are currently working. I’m not interested in having branches at all. If we do another restaurant in the near future it would be a new concept.

biography
Danna Al-Tourah is the Executive Chef at Tatami Japanese Restaurant, a contemporary Japanese eatery located in Kuwait City. She received her Chef’s Certificate from the Natural Gourmet Institute for Health & Culinary Arts, based in New York City. Chef Danna also teaches cooking classes at Tatami that focus on how to prepare health-supportive foods. Before becoming a chef, she worked as an Investment Banker in Kuwait. She’s petite and has a fresh face, with an inspiring aura around her. “Cooking is personal to me” says Danna Al-Tourah.