The Right Blend

From her Hartley Wintney home, Anglo-Burmese food enthusiast and blogger Davina Quinlivan is exploring her heritage through the flavours of her family’s culture

In their highchairs or cross-legged on the floor, my two young sons are playing with spice jars, rolling cardamom pods between their fingers or tapping the contents of an almost empty bottle of saffron, inspecting the little strands as if they were hairs from a mythical creature. We experiment, we smell, we taste. In a very small, but hugely meaningful way, we are making memories which remind me of home, while feeding a very hungry family!

I grew up in West London, raised by AngloBurmese parents and brought up with a wide range of Asian foods which I never truly appreciated while I was young, but have now started to treasure, especially since most of my family have now passed away and there’s even less of an opportunity to sit down and eat together. Now, I have my own family and we live in Hartley Wintney; not really a place known for Asian cuisine, but we are doing our best to use local ingredients and make the most of what Hampshire has to offer.