A Day in the Life:
Karima-Chloe Hazim is a Lebanese-Australian cook, content creator, storyteller, cook book author and full-time mum who describes herself as both unapologetically Arab and very Australian. She created her Sunday Kitchen Instagram account in 2019, using it initially to share simple recipes, photos and information from the cooking classes she was running.
Once Karima started creating unique, authentic content strongly rooted in stories, memories and culture, her followers rapidly increased. Within the past year she has gained 380k followers (including Kylie Kwong, Jaime Oliver, Nigella Lawson and Bella Hadid), which she attributes to adding value to a very messy and busy space.
Having grown up in Condell Park, Karima has been shaped by her vibrant Lebanese Australian family and community. She now lives in Drummoyne with her husband and two daughters.
I wake up at 6am. My favourite way to start the day is having a coffee with my husband. We sit down and have 10-15 minutes to regroup and discuss what the day looks like. I then prepare breakfast and lunch boxes for the girls and get them ready for school.
I use the early morning to get a head start on whatever I’m making for dinner. People find it bizarre, but I don’t know any different. Growing up we would be having breakfast and could smell lamb and cinnamon and bay leaves stewing as my mum prepared dinner. A lot of traditional Lebanese cooking requires slow-cooking and it saves so much time at night to just have to assemble.
After I drop the girls at school I go for a run. The rest of the day is not about me at all, but this is my time to clear my head and get all of my thoughts and stories together.
It’s about 9:30am when I start my work day by getting on top of any emails that have come through overnight. Depending on what I’m doing I’ll next shop for ingredients, film or edit content for my socials or brands I work with, write recipes, or do a cooking demonstration, event or TV appearance. My day in the life is definitely not routine.
I typically post a recipe every day or every second day, so that involves driving to Greenacre, Bankstown, Canterbury or Belmore for authentic Lebanese ingredients. I’ll go once or twice a week and buy based on what’s in season. I love to cook seasonally and a lot of the storytelling and cooking I do on social media is about seasonal cooking.
For me, grocery shopping is a joy. I don’t have to go to a shopping centre, I get to go to the places that I love: the grocer, the butcher, the baker, the farmers’ markets. My work is very much who I am and feeding my family is literally the centre of my world.
I spend a lot of time in the car, but never listen to music. I use the time to think of what I will say in a video or to plan a recipe.
When I get home, If I have enough time I’ll shoot content on the same day, but if not, I shop one day and spend the next day filming. The day after is quieter as I’m usually editing.
The most stressful part of the day is having to wrap everything up by
2:30pm and not being able to get back in the zone until the next day. My work day feels like about one hour from the minute I drop the kids at school to when I pick them up. I’m often picking them up in an apron or there’s a chicken in the oven. Sometimes the chicken is a bit bigger and it just took too long so what do you do? Do you turn the chicken off? Do you leave it on? Do you run? Regardless of what I’m in the middle of though, the school pick up time doesn’t change. And that’s ok, I’ve built my work life around my children.
From 3pm I become my children’s uber driver, taking them from one activity to another. I use the distraction-free time when I’m waiting in the car outside to get on my laptop and take my handwritten recipe notes from scribbles to polished recipes. When we get home I’m making dinner to give them a plate of food by about 5:30pm.
My husband doesn’t get home until 7/7:30pm and that’s when I sit with him and have my dinner. After that he ushers the girls upstairs to get them ready for bed and I spend about an hour packing down my kitchen from the whole day of cooking. My kitchen is my office and I have to prepare it for the next day because anything left over delays me first thing in the morning.
I go to bed around 9:30pm, so there’s not much time between coming home and being in bed. Sometimes I have events in the evening, which throws everything out, but usually I end the day by reading a book (perhaps poetry or a book on creativity) in bed with a tea.
My days are so busy, I don’t actually sit down from the minute I wake up unless I’m driving a car, but the greatest thing is the minute I put my head on the pillow, I’m asleep.
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