"We come from a culture where failure is the enemy. We rather give it a half a try than try and fail."
Our guide for today is Noor Al Obaid an entrepreneur, a food and beverage consultant. She's the founder of Bake and Educate, a nonprofit organization that has covered the tuition fees for more than 480 underprivileged students in Kuwait since its inception.
Noor has been celebrated by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees for her stellar campaigns. She's been well received by the public, which is evident by her loyal and enthusiastic fans and followers on social media platforms.
I want to set the stage for this interview by shining the spotlight on three main points of focus for our dialogue
- About Noor and her unique human journey.
- Learn about Kuwait's food scene and how to start a food trend
- Walk away with some of the habits, tips, and tricks that help pave the road to Noor's success.
References mentioned in this episode:
Bait Lothan
Bake and Educate
Corporate Social Responsibility - CSR
re:food
The Chocolate Bar Ads
Dana Al Hanbali - Social Media Guru
Shrimpy Banned Billboard
Pret A Manger
Kuwait as a Food Capital
Gia
Mukbang
Fajer Eats - Kuwaiti Mukbangs
Reach out to Noor at:
Instagram @noorthatbakes
Reach out to broadband at:
Instagram @broadband.podcast
Email aziz@seedsmedia.org
Other Links
Reach out to luucid at:
Instagram @luucidkw
Website luucidkw.com
For guest recommendations Email hello@luucid.co
"We come from a culture where failure is the enemy. We rather give it a half a try than try and fail."
Our guide for today is Noor Al Obaid an entrepreneur, a food and beverage consultant. She's the founder of Bake and Educate, a nonprofit organization that has covered the tuition fees for more than 480 underprivileged students in Kuwait since its inception.
Noor has been celebrated by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees for her stellar campaigns. She's been well received by the public, which is evident by her loyal and enthusiastic fans and followers on social media platforms.
I want to set the stage for this interview by shining the spotlight on three main points of focus for our dialogue
- About Noor and her unique human journey.
- Learn about Kuwait's food scene and how to start a food trend
- Walk away with some of the habits, tips, and tricks that help pave the road to Noor's success.
References mentioned in this episode:
Bait Lothan
Bake and Educate
Corporate Social Responsibility - CSR
re:food
The Chocolate Bar Ads
Dana Al Hanbali - Social Media Guru
Shrimpy Banned Billboard
Pret A Manger
Kuwait as a Food Capital
Gia
Mukbang
Fajer Eats - Kuwaiti Mukbangs
Reach out to Noor at:
Instagram @noorthatbakes
Reach out to broadband at:
Instagram @broadband.podcast
Email aziz@seedsmedia.org
Other Links
Reach out to luucid at:
Instagram @luucidkw
Website luucidkw.com
For guest recommendations Email hello@luucid.co
Food with Noor Alobaid
Aziz: Hello, and welcome to broadband here at broadband, we live by the philosophy that one needs other human beings to teach them how to be human
our guide for today on this journey of communal actualization, is Noor Alobaid an entrepreneur, a food and beverage consultant, and the founder of bake and educate a nonprofit organization that has covered the tuition fees for more than 480 underprivileged students in Kuwait since its inception.
Noor has been celebrated by the United nations high commissioner for refugees, for her stellar and admirable campaigns. And she's been well received by the public, which is evident by her loyal and enthusiastic fans and followers on social media platforms.
I want to set the stage for this interview by shining the spotlight on three main points of focus for our dialogue, the first being Noor and her unique human journey.
Next, I want to leverage Noor's acumen to learn about the subtleties of Kuwait's food scene, particularly how to start a food trend in the food obsessed world that is Kuwait and finally, I want you to listen to be able to walk away from this conversation with some of the habits, tips, and tricks that help pave the road to Noor's success
without further ado.
Hello, NIR, how are you
Noor: Hi, I'm good. How are you
I love the intro.
Aziz: you know, we tried to bring it with a guest like you, so thank you for joining.
Aziz: So, okay, well, I'll do my research on you. I learned that you founded bacon educate at the youthful age of 14 years old. And I think, you know, I wasn't really an expert at much at 14, except for picking my nose. What was the driving force that propelled you to building something influential and supportive at such a young age?
Noor: I think at the age of 14, I didn't realize what I was doing was such a big deal and so uncommon. Um, so I was raised in a household where we were constantly taught to give back coming from a non-quality background from my mother's side, I kind of got to see how the other half lives in Queens. I got to see the struggles of ex-pats, you know, from high income and low income families. I got to see, that it's not all peaches and sunshine and rainbows and butterflies for those who aren't local. Um, Not to say there are aren't any benefits, but at the end of the day, you know, they don't live the same lifestyle.
So at 14 it was around 2009, Right. after the market crashed. And Right. after, you know, the air spring started and I started to see just how many families and how many people I grew up with started to get affected you know, their businesses back home or just in general, their lives started to somewhat unravel, you know?
And I turned to my mother and I told her one day at lunch and I was like, you know, I had just gotten into the whole baking scene and. Reno, why don't we throw a bake sale? You know, I think my idea of a bake sale was definitely not what I got. I was thinking, you know, on the movie line, American bake sales style and at that point, my mom was like, let's do it. We uh, went to Bait Lodhan uh, spoke to the person who ran it at the time who was named Shaikha Alfarahand she was so supportive of it was like, Hey, let's do this. Um, We got the accountants from different schools because we want to show people that, you know, I know I'm just a kid, but I'm trying to be as transparent as possible. So you're not giving me any money. I am not receiving any money. Every time you buy a dessert, you go pay with the accountants and they will show you and give you a receipt of every child the amount that you paid being paid off. Every child's tuition fee whose families struggling.
Aziz: That's amazing. That's amazing. all right. So now you are, nor that bakes you're more than just noted that you are a local influencer and you're pretty well known in the local food scene. And
Aziz: you are a food and beverage consultant and you, you have, uh, resources at home being that both mom and dad are consultants as well. So so when you say there are so many things that you need to learn before you even think of opening up your own business what, I mean, I know there's probably a long list of things, but what's one of the things that stuck with you and really made an impact on your own career.
Noor: time management is so important because when people think, oh Yeah. I'm an entrepreneur. I'm self-employed they take things better ahead. They get so comfortable. When they blink a year, a year and a half later, that they're two steps from where they started when they could have been 10 steps.
Um, And I also try to tell people, ask for help. There is nothing wrong with asking for help. If you don't know how to do something again, I've seen business owners. I've seen businesses fail because business owners had too much pride to go and ask for help because they were like, no, I don't want to look like an idiot or, oh, I don't want to look like people say, oh my F I don't know what I'm doing, but I tell them, I'm like, there's no, don't, you don't have to ask anyone in your family.
If you are too embarrassed to ask them, there are so many consultants, it doesn't even need to be a food and beverage consultant. There's business consultants, finance consultants strategy consultants. Literally, there are people who have spent years doing this, who can help you within 15, 20 minutes. They can tell you how to solve your issue.
Aziz: That's such a good point. That's such a good point. And you know, you say something really interesting. And when I spoke to chef Nick face on Nash me, he said, exactly the same thing is that we come from a culture and a society that sees failure as the enemy, and we try to avoid it at all costs. And you know, whether we're afraid of the, I told you so, or we're afraid of what other people might think. It's really affecting small business and medium business culture here in Kuwait.
Noor: I agree completely.
Um, You know, some people don't take things seriously. They're like, oh yeah, I got some extra money on the side. I'm going to open something. If it works, it works. If it doesn't. Oh, well I tried because I think here, exactly what Faisal industry said was we come from a culture where failure is the enemy. So they'd rather give it a half a try, then try and fail and people say, Hmm. did you see they failed? No, they learned, they got experience. But here it's like, oh, if you failed while trying, or you can just look like you don't care. And, oh, it was just a side business for me. It's not important.
Aziz: Right. That makes a lot of sense. And so I know that being a food and beverage consultant is just one of the hats that you wear and you really have an entire life devoted to the humanitarian aspect of work. And so how are you merging both humanitarian and culinary passions to spread a delicious dose of empathy, so to speak.
Noor: So I do try to get people into the habits of like business owners, into the habit of doing CSR
and talking someone who's been in this field for literally 12 years. I've approached so many corporations about getting involved with so many things and bottom line is how's this benefiting me?
How much exposure am I getting? then I see, you know, there are certain brands and certain corporations who really genuinely do want to get involved and help. And it makes me so happy because a lot of them are young, small business owners. I want it, I want to really highlight them because so many of them in the food and beverage industry during lockdown, during COVID were hand in hand with us making hundreds of meals a day to try to, get meals out for people that needed help, you know, on normal days, you know, pre COVID they'd be like, Okay. listen, you know, we wanna figure out a way to help. What can we do? let's donate the food that we have left over for the day. They give it to the employees and they say handed out, but tech, do you know that that's against the law? Do you know that it's against the law to donate food that would to waste otherwise?
Aziz: What? Okay. So I have no idea why it would be, can you explain to me
and
Noor: so, so, it's supposedly a health and safety thing was that obviously we'll say, oh, but what if it's ruined that's a liability?
So a lot of people just don't give the ministry face and we'll just, you know, work with, different organizations to try to. Work on that, which is like re food and all of those. So they pick up your food, repackage it give it to people in need. But when you, when you are just constantly watched, it becomes really risky.
Some people just write it off and we're like, listen, I'd rather this food not go to waste. The loophole is give it to your employees, let your employees take it out and pass it around the area That they live in or the accommodation or whatnot. Because again, most of these employees don't live in high income residential areas. So there's probably quite a few struggling families or individuals around them. And it's easy for them and being in the society, they do know who's in need of help.
Aziz: Beautiful. Beautiful. So Christian pray before eating Muslims, Muslims say Bismillah and millennials pull out their phones for that perfect photo of their Bongali pasta. So what's behind this phenomenon. You have been guilty of this as well. I've seen some of the amazing of food shots that you've gotten on your Instagram.
Noor: You question this so well, like you phrase that question phenomenally, and I think my entire family is going to start like referring to me like that. Like you have to think, I always have to take photos of my food because I enjoy the arts of food and I like their saying, you know, the eyes eat before the mouth.
you really do your eyes. Appreciate the art before your mouth tastes. So I always loved taking photos of food. I've always loved taking photos, food, and I love showing people, you know, my daily journey of food. And if I make something, I love taking a photo of it and posting it because I like teaching people how to make it.
So you always see recipes under my posts. Um, And I'm getting hungry as we speak talking about this food so much, but um, I am that millennial it's because one social media has become such a strong aspect of our life and we've become so used to sharing with the people who are either nearest and dearest to us, or the general public about what reading, what we're doing.
We're keeping people up to date with our lives. It's, you know, , it's become a part of sharing things. But I also think Annie, sometimes it's a bit of a show off, especially when you're at some of the world's finest restaurants and whatnot. It's kind of showing off like, Hey, it's my status.
Aziz: Okay. So those are all really good points. And those are things that I kind of thought about as well, but something that you mentioned that I didn't think about was the fact that to you, it's part of eating. Like I eat with my eyes first, so this is actually part of my culinary habits. And so like, I mean, now, now I'm going to kind of see people that do that in different light.
I used to, I used to always completely, I'm completely honest with you judge them, but, but now it's kind of less, it's a little less, less that, and more, more appreciating.
Aziz: All right. So as a consultant uh, what have you learned to be the main ingredients of building that food trend that is so often coveted here in Kuwait.
Noor: So I think making a food trend is by the way, it's not as easy as people think at all. It's insane. there's so many aspects to it. One of them is you need to make it Instagrammable.
If it's not Instagrammable, it's not worth it. A lot of the times when you see something that trends on social media, especially when it comes to the food game.
A lot of times it doesn't taste as good as it looks. People focus more on the look. And that says a lot about them as humans and the culture we've grown to become a part of, which is what you portray to the world. Isn't always true. It looks good. Doesn't mean it is good.
So I think that's one of the biggest trends too. Um, You need to play on what people like most here, something you can drizzle in chocolate or drizzle in cheese or drizzle in something. There always has to be headache hits and, you know, pouring something on.
you can't get too creative with the flavors that you are bringing into a trend because then people are not going to be encouraged to try it. So you need to take something familiar and give it a new twist. So those are just a few things that, you know, when starting a trend. You cannot do all of those things. And it still won't trend because you just didn't get the right. people to post about it.
So there are so many aspects into creating a food trend. And I always say there's so many underrated concepts in Kuwait because people just don't know about them.
Aziz: Right. so that's a really good point. And you said that sometimes it could be something that's really worth having a huge following, but you just don't have the right people taking Instagram photos of it. and that is actually saying something about our culture. That isn't phenomenal. Um, so you start a trend and now you give us some really great pointers on how to start a trend.
Aziz: What are some of the ways that people or businesses can sustain that trend? Because, I mean, we have a, we have such a Hypebeast culture here in Kuwait and peoples, like you mentioned, people's attention spans are super short. So how can we
Noor: Yeah. So to sustain that trend um, one, you constantly have to be doing something new to be relevant at all times. How are you relevant? You do summer pop-ups you do winter pop-ups seasonal items. Send it to new people. Bloggers photographers. You need to be trendy or Instagram has to be athletically pleasing, like no tomorrow.
Also you need to do. On that fine line of risky and safe. So yeah, if your Instagram polls have double meanings, if your ads, you know, are a little bit borderline um, could be a little bit, you know, PG 13,
Aziz: interesting. Okay. So this brings me to an ad. That was a pretty, let's say a provocative. So there's one by the chocolate, the chocolate have you seen that one?
Noor: chocolate bar one? Yeah. The chocolate bar one made a huge outcry on social media. And I remember this one, I was in the states when it came out and I think people blew it out of proportion
Aziz: so explaining to people to add and what the issue was, would that,
Noor: so there was three versions of the ad and by the way, the ad was done by someone I know, and I think is one of the most fantastic social media gurus ever. If you guys don't know her Dana Alhanbali, she's super creative. And she constantly brings these new ideas. And I think maybe this was ahead of the time of qui.
A lot of people came out and said, this is unacceptable. Because one of the versions was, you know, he was a guy who was cheating on his wife and decided to take her to chocolate bar I'm not mistaken. That was it. It was a long time ago. So I can't really remember the details, but but wasn't one of them, like he was cheating on his wife, and, he took her to a chocolate bar and she was fine.
Aziz: Yeah. So exactly. So I mean, the problematic thing with that is that the woman is kind of pathetic and that she just needs a chocolate bar or whatever chocolate bar has to offer
Noor: It's hyperbole. So it's literally hyperbole. exaggeration, you know what I mean? it's comedic. There are so many ads around the world that if you actually see it and it happened in real life, like, come on, Axe, body spray, axe, body spray, you spray it. All these women are following you in the streets. Why did we not make a big deal out of that.
Aziz: Well, people do actually make a big deal. They say that, you know, people that use Axe body spray are douchebags. I mean, I'm sorry to have my listeners that do that but but but there is, but there is kind of like a negative connotation with X body spray either way. You were mentioning one, just say a Sharpie ad.
What's up with that
Noor: Oh, shrimpy.
Oh. Were you not around during the
Aziz: I
Noor: ad?
That one is super risky. That one is next level. That's why I thought you were talking about it. So shrimpy, I love shrimpy, just FYI, the shrimpy team, the shrimpy people. I thought this ad was insane. The genius, I just did not think it belonged in Queens and the fact that they, you know, they, they challenged society so openly and they did it, they trended so hard, they trended for ages. And it was, you know, you probably do. It's the idea that shrimp plays a role as an aphrodisiac for men.
Aziz: Okay. All right. Yeah, I get that. All right. I get what they're
Noor: Okay. It was billboards all over Kuwait it was provocative. I'm not sure if that was the exact terminology, but that was pretty much what it meant.
Aziz: Right. So, so, so to all, to all the listeners that might not speak Arabic what the ad is saying is eat the shrimp because it's an aphrodisiac and you'll catch the dough, which is, you know, the gazelle, the beautiful woman.
Noor: beautiful woman. And it was tad risque for the billboards of Kuwait. Let's be real.
Aziz: Yeah. It's very conservative country.
Noor: And people were crying out like crazy. Like, what is this? This is so inappropriate and this is not okay. And so they took it down. They
Aziz: so that's funny.
Noor: so long to the point where people still talk about it. It
Aziz: That's me.
Noor: two or three years now.
Aziz: Wow. I didn't. Okay. So that's, I, I wasn't here for it, but that's amazing. That's really cool. That's really funny. And that's a really good way to sustain the trend and to ride the hype at high play. That's really cool. Okay. Fantastic.
Aziz: Hey guys, this is the part of the podcast where people usually tell you to buy this product or subscribed to this service, but we don't have any sponsors yet. So we'll sell ourselves. Instead. We have four simple asks one, please subscribe. If you haven't already. To share the podcast, share it with your friends, share with your family and share it with a stranger. Start a conversation, three, check out the show notes. You can find all the references that we've already made and are about to make on there. And for engage with us on Instagram and email, enjoy the rest of the show.
Aziz: All right. So you spoke about being a high school student and going to the avenues. And I remember being in a high school and people were obsessing over the international franchise, pink Berry and their fro-yo. Now I remember it, it was insane. It was, it was absolutely insane, but now do local businesses, like you mentioned, have an easier time staying relevant and pivoting with the changing ties over the large multinational franchises.
Noor: oh 100% because the large multinationals don't have freedom of creativity. They cannot jump on a trend the way that a local one can, because they have to report back to an HQ. Why would you never see Starbucks or Kosta or, McDonald's or any of those? They can't jump on trends here because.
They have an HQ they have to get back to, and there are checks and balances. They can't just do things. They have to, you know, send letters and discuss logistics and finances and et cetera here. It's like LA Ella let's change it up yellow. Cause you're the owner, you know what you're doing? So pick, basically took that role from pink. Berry started introducing significantly more flavors. Pic is Pam on Shea in Kuwait? Like, I don't know if you're familiar. Most people know is Pretz Preda
Aziz: Yeah. Pride of manager. Yeah. Yeah. When I was living in London, yeah. I was going to Pratt and manager to get my, my juice every morning.
Noor: yeah. And, and with some people I'm like it's French, but okay. Um, you refer to it as prep and And so, so many people that were familiar with Pratt and London started to gravitate towards pic because pick did not just offer fro-yo there's meals, there's sandwiches, there's bite fish, sweets, there's juices, there's coffee. There's it's literally everything. So what they were able to do was they were able to cover an entire missing part of the market, which was something that offered a little bit of everything.
Aziz: Beautiful. I love that. I love that. So they kind of understood that Kuwaitis love traveling specifically to London. They're familiar with Primo. Yeah. And they're like, okay, well that's a trend. That's going to be sustainable here in Kuwait. And they brought it here. So pick
Noor: percent.
And they've, they're really good with keeping up with the ideas of flavors and seasonal flavors and whatnot. They have a great research and development team. It's actually ridiculous.
Aziz: Phenomenal. Um, So can we doesn't really have a food critic scene and I spoke to chef Fez on me about this you know, we have trendsetters and social media influencers that tend to fill that gap in the culinary space. So is it good for the culinary scene to have paid influencers such as yourself rather than unbiased and unattached food critics control the promotion of restaurants?
Noor: So the thing about food critics and Kuwait, it's very hard to do, because if you're bad mouthing a restaurant, you don't have a fully unbiased opinion here. We're too small of a country to have an unbiased food critic. if you're having a local food critic, it's very, it's impossible to get someone on biased because you have crossed paths with the chef or the owner of the restaurant or something at some point in your life.
you can't go in somewhere. You're either you either love this person or dislike this person. So you're going in already with some form of. Uh, so that helps you, you know, that helps you when it comes down to how you're going to talk about this restaurant. Also, you don't want to hurt feelings because things get touchy and sensitive. So you really don't want to step on any toes because, oh, it's such a small society. What if we cross paths again, it's really hard to get a proper food critic scene unless you're anonymous.
Aziz: Okay. That's a really good point that Kuwait is such a small community of people that feelings are taking into account and are a big part of that equation. So maybe the food critic scene here is slow to start because of that. It's necessary to have food critics to reach that food capital 20, 30 vision that some Kuwaiti restaurant tours have.
We have hammered Jaffa chef at the Shanahan bus . They had that vision of making Kuwait, the food capital by 2030. do you think that, this initiative was a studied in deliberate one or was it kind of a publicity stunt?
Noor: It would be more realistic. In my opinion, if we had Michelin star chefs, if we had more variety, if we had it more spaced out, because majority of our, food is, centralized in Kuwait city, which barely has enough space for parking two cars.
You can't make it a food capital. you're not planning on growing the pal, we as quite his, you know, we're known the , we love food and, you know, we have a nice palette, but realistically, no, we have not started to even cross parts of the thresholds that come with becoming a food capital.
Aziz: That's kind of like a publicity stunt, or maybe like a challenge,
Noor: I would say the challenge, but it's a statement that they would like to fulfill. I would love to see that fulfilled, but. If you are going to make it a food capital, you're going to need to open world-renowned restaurants from all over the world, which some people are not willing to do because the laws in Kuwait mean you have to have a partner in at least in Kuwait that owns 51% of the business. And restaurant tours do not want to take that chance.
Aziz: Well, there's that. And then there's also a lot of international restaurants, uh, pair their food with alcohol and alcohol is illegal here.
Noor: that's
a
Aziz: Um, So
Aziz: one of the restaurants that is a local gym and could be part of this 20, 30 vision is GEA your, your cousin's creation uh, which, uh, you are pivotal and building from the ground up. What were some of the most challenging factors behind building a successful restaurant? And how difficult was it to let go of geo when it was sold to alpha company?
Noor: So JIA, I would consider a like literally like my niece or nephew. I think geo was, you know, Mariam's first baby before her actual kids. So as a family, all of us were super attached to it. G has recipes are recipes that have been passed down in our family, you know, and just giving it a GEA twist on it. I think for all of us, it was super difficult to, to come to terms with the fact that it has now changed ownership, which means the direction it's changed into is not what we watched it grow as and not to say that they're not doing a good job, you know, I feel at home Brava, you guys know what you're doing, and I was so proud to see a geo became such a phenomenal that, you know, a group wanted to buy it. I'm thinking of JIA that geo was, you know, this four or five table, little spot insomnia, or like Charbel hunted that people, you know, didn't know in the beginning and now it's branched out all over Kuwait and I'm so proud of it. And it's grown so much in medium, put her heart and soul and we all, did, you know what I mean? Like, we really love JIA, like our own child. Like I tell Maddie I'm, you know, it was like your kid before. So it's like, literally like my niece or nephew.
Aziz: So. What were some of the things that you did as a family to make JIA attractive enough to be sold to a third company? I mean, you said it started off with four tables, south Mia. Well, what were some of the things that you guys did as a family to, to expand it?
Noor: So I still remember, oh my God times me and Marianne would just be inside GEA testing, random things and random pairings and random. Like there was a KDD right next door,
Katie D soft serve and we'd like run across strata to get ice creams. And, you know, we were trying to make something that would look cool. So I scream inside coffee and this and that. And we were running around so much trying to like, just really come up with something that gave people something they're missing and you know, my mother and her, and so many input of recipes. We're so classic yet, given this new modern day twist, you know, you have like the stuffed origins, that's literally just, you know, what's it called uh, Bates and John mushy without the rice. and it's cold and it's cooked. Cause we, we love eating leftovers. That's something that I think played a big role is we love eating leftovers. especially when they're cold and in the fridge, it's a weird thing in our family that we love doing. But, that played a big role in the fact that, you know, I I'm thinking paid big role in the way that she plays fringes and you know, food was on display. You got to have it heated, but you could also eat a cold and it's already made stuff that was healthy was good and still appeal to your sense of culture.
Aziz: beautiful. I love that. I love kind of the, uh, the unique twist that you guys put on it, and I can definitely see that it meant a lot to you. I'm sorry. You had to give it away, but it meant that it grew
Aziz: Okay. So I want to play a game with you where I mentioned some popular trends in the food world, and you reply with sold or not sold on whether you buy this trend as viable and why. So we're going to start with the muck bang. And for those of you who are not familiar, muck bang is originally a south Korean audio visual trend where people consume various quantities of food while interacting with their audience and name that might be familiar many of you guys here in Kuwait is Fajer Hayat from federal aids. Um, So what do you think of muck bang?
Noor: I'm torn.
Aziz: Well, okay, so if you love it, why don't you do it? Yeah.
Noor: so literally you eating on camera. So there is a certain, sexualization of muck bang, and that's why it's so popular because people genuinely enjoy it. And it's just so sensual. Well, the most case, the waste, a lot people do it and I wouldn't do it because I know. And I've seen, unfortunately, the comments on different people who do muck bang, a McMahon council quick Confederate really did start. a phenomenon of people eating on screen and breaking through that. But I don't, I don't want to say I'm not brave enough to feel that like, I've done enough. can leave this one, the veggie to eats. I've done it once before. And I was like, Nope, not doing this again. I applaud her because to be brave enough to go on camera and do this and knowing the comments that come through are not always the best. genuinely do applaud her. And she is such a great girl.
And she's hilarious. And so I know that she does this in good fun, because she just loves food. you can see that in the way that she eats I wouldn't, love watching it a hundred percent. Would I do it?
Aziz: Fair enough. Okay. So we'll leave it to fidget eats and newer bakes. We'll leave it there. All right. So
are you sold or not sold on the health and wellness trend and we have tumeric in your orange juice and McDonald's salads and calorie counting. Are you sold?
Noor: yeah, I am sold on that one, honestly, because a lot of these things, you know, you're going back to origins old McDonald's salads. No, not really. I love McDonald's, but if you're not getting chicken nuggets from McDonald's, you're wasting your time.
But I
Aziz: Okay.
Noor: in the health and wellness trends, because I'm currently going on a health and wellness trip.
Aziz: Okay. Fair enough.
Noor: Well,
Aziz: so, so
you're a little bias, but you think that trend is here to stay? You think it's gone? I mean, a lot of people are, trying to become more healthy.
Noor: Definitely definitely. And I think it's better because we do face a huge, spike in the past. I want to say 20 years of
Aziz: Hmm. Yeah,
Noor: or child
Aziz: yeah, definitely. That, that is something that I spoke about with my episode with, uh, Dr. Henna Jaffa on, she gives some really great insights.
Aziz: Uh, Okay. Walk us through the process of taking that perfect food photo. I know you're an expert at this.
Noor: So, first of all, lighting is so important. Natural lighting is best. If you could get sunlight, Okay. So I prefer to tell people to stay away from direct sunlight, always get right next to direct sunlight. So it's not too harsh and doesn't show the flaws of the dish, but you're getting great lighting to always hold your camera upside down.
So literally um, hold your camera as close to the plate as possible. You'll get a better angle. So flipped upside down and then get close to the plate. I would say play on colors. So either highlight the colors on the plate and get a plain clean background or put a hand in kind of bring in that focal point to make your dish, the focal point. Don't make it too.
Aziz: Wow. Okay. So I'm going to try that right now. Right after I get done with you.
Noor: I expect a photo, please send it to me
Aziz: all right. Thank you so much. No You're amazing. Appreciate having you on here.
And, uh, and, and I'm sure we'll have another one of these uh, in the, in the
near future. Thank you so much. And we'll talk to you soon.
Noor: anytime you guys need me,
Aziz: This podcast will now be possible without your support. So please subscribe to our podcast, share it with your friends and family. Check out the show notes for any references made and engage with us on Instagram and email. Thank you.