We gave that little mom-and-pop our all and watched it grow from the blood, sweat, and tears we put into it. Finally, in 2011, with the support of my husband, Christian, my father, and some of our closest friends, I put all of our savings into opening our first Olive & Thyme. I threw myself into cooking at home and hosting friends while becoming a loyal customer of some of LA’s best restaurants.
#OLIVE AND THYME DINNER MENU MOVIE#
After college, I found success in the movie business, but I was always drawn back to my love of food. I never thought, however, that it would lead to my career. We were back together, connecting in the way I’d missed so much.Įver since this discovery, cooking has been my passion. Seeing their reactions as they took a moment to rest and enjoy these meals brought me so much joy and comfort. They would join me at the table, and after a warm meal and a couple of words, shake off some of the stress from the day. Even if my parents worked until late in the evening and arrived home too tired to even talk, they were happy to see dinner waiting, proudly prepared by little me.
And so at the age of eight, I started cooking for my family, in the hope that sharing that feeling of warmth might spread and maybe even get us around the table together again. Julia and Jacques weren’t my real family, of course, but they gave me an idea. When I watched Julia and Jacques cook, I got a tiny taste of that familial warmth that I so missed from my early childhood. Instead of watching Scooby-Doo like my school friends, I became deeply absorbed in cooking shows, specifically those of Julia Child and Jacques Pépin. I was a latchkey kid, often alone while my parents were at work and my brothers, nine and ten years older than me, were busy with their own lives. In Los Angeles, we were a family I barely recognized. In Iran, we had every meal together and spent countless hours around the table filled with family, friends, and conversation. My parents worked endless hours to create a new life for us. Eventually they were able to save up enough to buy a small dry-cleaning business in Beverly Hills, one that my mother still runs to this day. My father was hired as an engineer at Parsons International Engineering in Pasadena, and my mother, who never had worked, desperately tried to find any job she could get to help my father in rebuilding our lives. My brothers rejoined us when we found ourselves safely in Los Angeles, a place where we had neither family nor connections and barely spoke the language. It was a couple of years before my father was able to leave Iran to be with my mother and me. Along with so many others, our lives changed dramatically. We had to leave everything behind: our family, our friends, our home, and all of the possessions that my parents had worked so hard to provide for us. Without hesitation, he sent my two older brothers to boarding school in Switzerland and then sent my mother and me to London. My father was a partner at a large construction company that built projects for the Iranian government, and he’d heard rumblings that the revolution was near. When I was a young child, my family was forced to emigrate at the start of the Iranian Revolution. Introduction The Power of a Good Meal with Family & Friendsįor me, the foundation of cooking always started with family. With stunning photos by Ann Elliott Cutting and a foreword by chef Jet Tila ( Chopped, Cutthroat Kitchen), Olive & Thyme is the ingredient every kitchen needs: a fun, inspirational guide to enjoying what matters most in life-family, friends, good food, and music. Davies brings that same passion to her book, Olive & Thyme, which shares her most popular recipes (drawn from French, Californian, Italian, and Middle Eastern influences), along with her breezy, practical entertaining advice. A consummate host and lauded chef, Davies brings her love of togetherness to Olive & Thyme, where the vibe is relaxed and warm and the food is fresh and delicious. Ask her for tips on hosting the in-laws for dinner, and she'll walk you through her juicy roast chicken with thyme and which wine to serve and music to play. restaurant and marketplace, Olive & Thyme, and she'll come by your table to see how you're enjoying your avocado and burrata toast. Stop by her house and she'll whip you up a fluffy, buttery vegetable quiche with fresh greens in a homemade dressing. Melina Davies treats everyone like family.
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