Tony Stark said to Jarvis in the first Iron Man movie, “sometimes, you have to learn to run before you learn how to walk”.

That’s how I would describe my experience with my kitchen.

When I started my cafe, I know of coffee and a sense of what makes a good business. A risk it was but since I knew the A-Z of my product, the risk is something I could digest. My kitchen is different. You see, I don’t cook at home (in fact, I don’t cook anywhere) and I’ve never renovated for a kitchen. While I could possibly sit down, talk to people and learn about how commercial cooking is done, understand its processes, it would have delayed my launch. It wouldn’t have been “think big, start small, move fast”.

Adding to the list of things I’m constantly thankful for, I’m thankful to have met great people and friends in my consultants, Chef Anuar and Didie. Together they helped Alia and I understand the kitchen, it’s flow, what makes a good menu and launch it. Our kitchen was launched on 22 July and after one month of operations, things are Alhamdullilah great. The lesson here is that when you start a venture, there will be a million unknowns and you should not let you fear of the unknown prevent you from doing what you know.

And now that I have a kitchen, maybe my approach to my cooking skill too shall be “to run before I can walk”. With my limited knowledge on how to cook, perhaps the first thing I should learn to cook is steak.

Because why not.