By @saudifooodie

We break bread with one of our favorite food bloggers: Ibrahim Saleh

How do you want to introduce yourself to our readers?
My name is Ibrahim Saleh, I live in Khobar and I am married with one son. I currently work in Saudi Aramco and I’m a passionate food blogger and chef.

What is your favorite food to eat?
I most admire my local traditional food such as manid and kabsah, but my tastes are eclectic. I love Italian pizza and pasta, noodles and soups from the Chinese kitchens and the Mediterranean’s menu of fatoosh, kebbah with laban and grape leaves.

Why did you choose to become a chef?
I have a lot of passion for food and for being creative in cooking. It just organically happened that I felt like a chef and wanted to express myself as one as much as possible.

What do you do when you try out a new recipe and it fails?
I have to keep trying at it, time and time again, until I master it. What’s the point of failure if you don’t learn from your mistakes?

Name three ingredients you consciously avoid?
Nuts since I’m allergic, artificial spices and bacon.

Name three things you have to use in most recipes?
Salt, spices and cheese.

If you could delete one food from the world, what would it be?
Indomie!

If you could have any three people (from past or present) over for dinner, who would they be?

• King Salman

• Mohammed Ali

• Bill Gates

How did you learn about food styling?
I used to help my mom in the kitchen as a child. Over time I’ve developed my skills more by reading, YouTubing and constantly practicing.

What’s the best and worst thing about being a food blogger?
One of the best things is the high engagement with people through my interactive blog posts. The worst thing is that it’s costly in terms of time and money. Plus it stings sometimes getting criticized by people (each person’s tastes are different after all).

How long does it take you to do a post?
Anywhere from ten minutes to a couple of hours, depending on the content and the idea I want to get across to my readers.

Which part of blogging excites you most: the cooking, the writing or the photography?
I’ll cheat by saying that each part is exciting in and of itself: cooking is physically fun, post writing is mentally fun and photography is a reflection of both.

What do you think Instagram food blogging will look like in 2020?
Looking at our current technology, I imagine and hope that food blogging will become a virtual reality experience.

Instagram: accountname8