Hi, nice to meet you!
I am Alexander and Whaleycooks is my slice of the internet!
Basically, I am the main author, cook, and planner behind Whaleycooks. I create these recipes, take photos of them, write them up, and when possible, make some amateur recipe tutorial videos. Not only that, but I also have a look at just how we cater for large events, both at work and at home.
Where does my passion for food come from?
My first recipe book came from a children’s magazine… At the time we lived in Algeria and all the produce we could buy tended to come in tins, mainly imported from France. At the age of 10, I prepared my first full meal – pasta with peas and tinned sausages… Not haute cuisine, but still, not bad for the time…
My cooking heritage stems from my childhood – French Cuisine from where I grew up, English Sunday lunches from my paternal grandparents, and Indonesian flavours from my maternal grandmother.
Why Food?
Food is a love language – I will always cherish being woken up by my grandmother while on holidays with a hot cup of Dutch cocoa and a beschuit, a Dutch toast topped with chocolate sprinkles, or more simply a spoon of sugar – while I can buy the same ingredients, it will never taste the same as I miss the love of a grandmother.
My Recipes
Over the years, my cooking has improved to incorporate more styles, and new cuisines – no longer just “twiggy French dishes, but through my travels across Africa, Asia, the USA, and Europe, my repertoire now includes curries, braais, breads, and burgers… to name a few.
This website reflects my approach and philosophy on food and cooking – for daily use, it has to be fast, fresh, and creative – for weekends, it can be complex and multi-stage. For socializing, it has to be scaleable to large quantities for parties and events.
My attitude towards daily cooking:
- Fast meals for busy weeknights, with as little mess as possible.
- Fresh, because fresh meals are made from scratch, and in the modern world, this is the easiest way to make sure that it is healthy.
- Creative – to eat the same food day in and day out is a waste of living. You do not need to sacrifice taste just because you are in a hurry and even budget ingredients can be tweaked to ensure that the most flavour is extracted from them. Being creative is also a way to make food more nutritious so that the whole family benefits.
My attitude towards weekend cooking:
Weekend cooking is where you can make more complex dishes that involve many steps. it is also the moment where you can prepare bulk dishes and freeze them, ready for the week.
My attitude towards events and parties:
Most of my knowledge here stems from my childhood, when my father was a diplomat, and my mother ensured that the required dinner parties and receptions were handled magnificently. Attention to detail, and sufficient catering always seemed to go hand-in-hand.
Where do I draw my cooking inspiration?
My shelves are full of Tex-Mex, Creole, Indonesian, Indian, Greek, French, Italian, Dutch, German, Argentinian, American, Vietnamese, Chinese, Koran, Japanese, American, Lebanese, and South African cookbooks. My wife and I try to collect at least 1 recipe book from every country we collect.
Not only are cookbooks important, but it is just as important to go to these countries to experience the original food. With this accomplished, it is then a good idea to try out local restaurants to see how the experts modify their traditional cuisine to meet local palates.
Who is Alexander Whaley, a.k.a., a bit about me…
Born in Burkina Faso, and raised in Madagascar, Benin, Algeria, New York, Kenya, and Norwich, UK, I eventually settled down in South Africa with my wife. My family roots, however, were in the UK, France and the Netherlands… Over time, I got to visit Belgium, Germany, Ireland, Austria, Madeira (Portugal)
My current job has me travelling across Africa, the USA and Asia, enabling me to extend my culinary experiences to Indonesia, the Philippines, India, China and Thailand in Asia, Ghana, Kenya, Uganda, Ivory Coast, Namibia (try the beer), Botswana (best beef ever), not to mention Swaziland and Lesotho… Finally, the USA! Florida, Pennsylvania, Quebec (OK, not the USA), Vermont, Michigan, and Ohio to name a few places…
Where I have not been is South America, though my wife has covered this region for me, going to places such as Argentina and Brazil, while also bringing back some amazing Vietnamese recipes from her trip there.
Truly, we are blessed to be able to visit and experience these countries and bring back the best recipes they have to offer…
Growing up, we were not always fortunate to have full pantries – sometimes the best you got was meat from a 12-year-old horse, tough and gamey… or wild boar or truly free-range chicken -nothing quite like plucking a “just slaughtered chicken”…
Where to find me on Social Media?
Would you like to connect or follow me on Social Media? Find me at the following locations!
- Pinterest: www.pinterest.com/WhaleyCooks
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/whaleycooks/
- Quora: https://www.quora.com/profile/Alexander-Whaley-8
- Trip advisor: 118alexanderw
- Mastodon: I’m @Whaleycooks@mastodon.social on #Mastodon! Come follow me at https://mastodon.social/@Whaleycooks
- HubPages: http://hubpages.com/@alexanderwhaley
Kiaramel:
Kiaramel, Kiki for short, is our daughter… Just starting in her cooking career, with a definite bent towards cakes and deserts – like the saying goes, sugar and spice and all things nice…
Kiki draws inspiration, as all modern teens seem to do, from TikTok. Not one for reading and following a recipe book, Kiki will happily play in the kitchen, headphones on, and woe betides the mere mortal who dares enter her kingdom…
We look forward to discovering her next experiments.
