Flip through the latest issue of Gulf Weekly.
What started off as a fun cookbook concocted between seven friends sharing their family recipes has suddenly become a best-seller in Bahrain, with copies flying off the shelves at several stores.
With the children at school and a spotless, clean house, the expat mothers were at a loss of how to fill up the rest of their days.
You could even say that they were ‘desperate’ for something productive to do. Joined by a common interest and a love of food, the friends set forth on creating a cookbook filled with their favourite dishes from back home.
After writing up a sample study filled with tasty dishes from the US, France, Italy, Korea, Switzerland and Ethiopia, the women held an international dinner party for their families to enjoy. The social gathering was such a hit with the husbands that the Desperate Housewives of Bahrain Cookbook was born.
GulfWeekly met with Ethiopian Serkalem Gebreyes, 37, American Zane Jahnke, 42, and French Floreine Laurent, 38, at the Saar home of Dutch Francoise Pantano, 37, for biscuits and coffee.
Zane, a mother of two, from Saar, said: “When you’re an expat in a foreign country you are always looking for new friends and something to do together because it really isn’t always possible for us to find jobs.
“Once you get your house settled then you begin to ask yourself: ‘What am I going to do now?’ You have to create a life and you feel a little desperate being away from home.”
Their friendship blossomed through their children that attended the British Preparatory School in Saar and it was at Zane’s daughter’s birthday party in April that the cookbook idea came about.
Zane explained: “Floreine said: ‘girls I have this great idea. Why don’t we make a cookbook for our own personal use writing about the best recipes from our countries?’ That was brilliant, as we cook all the time anyway.
“Once we got all our recipes in a book we held a trial dinner and invited all our husbands to taste our dishes. We even had little flags in them to represent which country they were from.
“Our husbands thought that it was superb so we had to print some copies of it. Floreine carried out the design work and we decided to approach a printing press.”
Union Press was so impressed that they sponsored the book and gave them a great deal on printing costs.
Francoise, a mother of two, said: “We originally only wanted to make 200 to 300 copies to share with family and friends. But Union Press said that we needed to print at least a thousand copies. Our first thought was what are we going to do with them all?
“We had no clue that the book would become such a huge success. A lot of people have been picking them up as gifts for friends and family. We are thrilled at the response. We have even suggested to women to make their own international dinner parties using our recipes because ours was so much fun.”
The book, priced at BD5, has been snapped up from Alosra supermarket, Waitrose and at different fairs. More than 700 copies have already been sold.
Aside from recipes, the book is filled with fun facts about their home countries, family pictures, a children’s section and tips on where locally to purchase ingredients for the recipes.
Floriene, a mother of three, from Saar, said: “Shopping in Bahrain is very different than what we are used to, so we offer a lot of tips in the book on where to find specific items.
“In my French cooking section I show how to make a lemon tart but say you do not have time to make the dough. No problem, I have put a picture of my quick fix and where you can get it from in Bahrain. I have even done that with my chocolate cake, showing readers what kind of chocolate I use and where to find it.”
The desperate housewives are holding a book signing ceremony and cooking demonstration tomorrow from 10am to noon at the Words BookstoreCafé in Palm Square on Budaiya Highway. For more information, contact info@wordsbookstorecafe.com.
