Hi, my name is Iryna. I’m married to a God-loving man and we have two wonderful girls and one little boy. I am definitely a busy mama, juggling multiple jobs at the same time: a housekeeper, cook , babysitter, a mom that makes sure to keep the routine of the family floating smoothly. I enjoy spending time in fellowship with family and friends, I love music, reading and occasional shopping spree.
Roots of becoming a cook:
From very young age, I always enjoyed the process of preparing a meal. My inspiration comes from watching my oldest sister, Oksana, that has always been a fantastic hostess, that creates delicious dishes. Almost every weekend, we had some sort of gathering for fellowship, and each time, my mom would make various dishes. I grew up in that atmosphere. Especially when a holiday was coming, my mom could be found running around our small kitchen, preparing tens of dishes. I was always excited to help out with different kitchen chores, like pealing potatoes or cutting vegetables for the salads, etc. I still remember the days, when my mom was super thankful for my help, she would tell my siblings, that no one in our family cuts potatoes and carrots for the “potato salad”(olivye) better than me:). As a child, being noticed and appreciated for the hard work, was the best feeling ever.
Few years later, my sister moved to America, from our hometown of Rivne, Ukraine. Around that time, my mom started suffering with extreme migraines, which forced her to spend a lot of time in a hospital. During that time, she couldn’t teach me much about cooking. But my mom has always been the best mom ever. WHY? One of many reasons is because she would allow my friend and I to experiment in our kitchen with cooking and baking, knowing that we will make a huge mess. I remember the first cake, it was a “Drunken cherry” :), that we were baking for a youth gathering. Oh my, you should have see our kitchen, covered in flour. To our surprise, when we took the cake out of the oven, we were shocked to see that one side was much taller than the other. Of course, now I know, that when your batter is in the oven, you should never open the oven door while its baking, because the batter will fall, and that’s what happened with our cake that time. At the moment, we thought we were so “professional”. Obviously, we found a way to make it look pretty, and surprisingly, everybody who tried our “creation”, was thinking that it was made by an adult.
When I was 18, my parents and I moved to USA. A year later, I met my wonderful soulmate, Vasiliy. We got married in 2007, and from day 1, I was trying to surprise him with different varieties of dishes. Family members were saying that everybody is doing this for first couple of month … but my passion for baking did not go away, and I enjoy cooking and baking for my family more than ever.
What is the plan?
The ideal way of cooking in my mind, is when the house is clean, soft music playing on the background, little ones are playing with their toys, and mama is making dinner. As kids grow up and their schedules get filled with daily activities, its nearly impossible to find quiet time for cooking. My goal with this page is to create fun memories cooking with my kids, and inspire other moms, that its not difficult to prepare meals involving your children. I want to invite each mom to become a part of it as I’m sharing the dishes, that have become my family’s favorites, and I really hope, that they will become yours as well. I’m planning to post recipes that would be easy to prepare with kids of all ages. Occasionally, I want to plan a “COOKING KID FRIENDLY “days, where kids gather to cook and bake together with moms.
FIRE THIS CHEF
I didn’t have to think too long for a name of my page, since I found so many reasons why this is a perfect name for my website. I definitely consider myself as a Chef on Fire, filled with love for cooking and baking. In the Seattle area, there are many busy moms, just like me, who have a passion for baking and cooking. My future plan is to share this page with few other cooks/bakers, who would like to post their family favorite dishes and kid friendly cooking activities. I’m inviting everyone interested to become a part of this journey. I cant even imagine how many talented people we have out there. I would like to hear your feedback.
With Love,
Irina