A Mediterranean Dish coincidence

Mar 4
5 min read

“I think that is the key [-] the monotony of showing up every day and owning a niche and sticking with it." Suzy Karadsheh

It's a website post today - but before I get to talking about this particular website - just look at this - the most recent recipe - 'updated March 3 2026' - i.e. yesterday - the same day that I was writing about fish finger sandwiches - The best crispy fried fish sandwich (Egyptian style). There it was on the Home Page of the next website on my list - The Mediterranean dish - a deservedly popular American website. A fish finger sandwich with another name and different bread! Well - an Egyptianised version of a fish finger sandwich - or as she describes it:

"big flavor, color, texture, bold Mediterranean spices, creamy tahini sauce, fluffy pita bread, and fresh veggies."

Is it a sign from the gods? It was certainly the thing that finally decided me to do this - today's exploration of a website that is.

I had been dithering about writing anything at all truth to tell. It's been one of those days full of disappointments and little things going wrong. So seeing that recipe was just the right impetus to not give up. As our Mediterranean Dish - Suzy Karadsheh said at the top of the page - more or less - when you're on to a good thing stick to it.

I don't know whether the title of the website had a deliberately intentional double meaning, but as you can see the lady is indeed a dish.

She is an Egyptian American - having grown up in Port Said on the shores of the Red Sea in Egypt - at the age of 17 she went to America to university in MIchigan. I'm not sure now whether her parents came too. She did a business degree and worked for several years in marketing and fund-raising which involved a lot of travelling. But after the birth of her second daughter she decided to slow down.

And so, in 2014, at her husband's suggestion she began on a very intermittent basis to write a food blog, based on Mediterranean food. By 2016 it had gleaned a few million readers, at which point the couple decided to take it on together as a full-time job, with Saba taking over the business and technical side of things, and Suzy doing the more creative and front of house kind of stuff. To the point where it now seems to be the major source for Mediterranean food recipes on the net, with something like 60 million readers. Two cookbooks, and a range of quality food products. It's a business - and a successful one.

One question though - the countries represented are listed - but no France - although Spain and Italy are there. Also missing are all of the island nations, the entire Balkans, Syria, Algeria, and Libya. - dare I say Israel? So a tiny bit unrepresentative. I guess many of those I listed are very similar to the others but France? The entire Balkans? Even Israel has a fairly distinctive cuisine and it is Mediterranean. You might say that France is a really important and dominant cuisine treated elsewhere but what about Italy - which is included?

They are obviously a canny couple - even before her husband took over the business side, she had readers in the millions. And you don't get that by just writing good stuff, as I have discovered in these little explorations of foodie websites. You have to work hard at all the technical stuff and also at networking and getting sponsors and advertising. I guess their business background helped with all of that.

Like Recipe Tin Eats I come across her website pretty often - particularly when looking at something Mediterranean. For she does indeed focus purely on that area - not a taco or a stir fry in sight. She also is big into the Mediterranean Diet and all its health benefits. There is a page on it - which not only sets out a diet plan but, of course - this being a business, has lots of products to sell to help you along.

So looking at a couple of recipes - the fish finger sandwich showed me how - in a similar way to Nagi Maehashi and our own Recipe Tin Eats - with lots of step-by-step instructional pictures, tips and tricks. For less experienced cooks it's really pretty good, and the recipes - well the ones I looked at are pretty simple. There's not a lot of background however, even if it is an actual regional dish, and quite a few ads as you scroll through it all. Not as many as some however.

She also has videos of course. I checked out this one - Detox cabbage soup her video of the week. It's a perfectly nice soup - and one that most of us would be able to knock up I suspect, although to be fair there is a bit of Med spice in there to make it a little more interesting. You can see she's lived in America for a very long time though. The accent is strong, and she has an American kind of vibe. And yes it is photographed beautifully here. She introduces it as vegan and gluten-free because, I think, it is intended as part of her Mediterranean Diet theme. Homely, most probably delicious and chunky. Vegetable bits in a broth.

My opening recipe - the fish sandwich - she tells us is 'inspired' by her mother's Samak maqli a grilled whole fish popular in the Eastern Mediiterranean. And yet she does not have a recipe for that dish anywhere on her website. The photographs below are from a website called Arab America - whose recipe is the link shown above, and another random one which I thought was probably what she was talking about.

The highlighted photograph on the Home Page is Yoghurt marinated chicken - another dish that we have all had a crack at at some time or other. The spices might vary from recipe to recipe a bit, but the basic idea is very familiar to us all. But doesn't it look great?

As I said, I do come across her website fairly often when looking into various Mediterranean dishes, and don't we love them all?

In a way it's like the Coles Magazine, when it lifts itself a little above the really basic. And there's nothing wrong with that. There's a new one out today, with quite a few tempting dishes in there. And - truly - would you believeCrunchy barramundi and colesslaw burritos - another fish finger sandwich - see below.