Hi there! My name is Machel.

It's pronounced "Mah-shell". For simplicity, most people just pronounce it like the typical "Michelle". Thank you so much for stopping by and visiting my site. I truly hope you'll find something that you can enjoy and share with your family.

Suzon Spice? What kind of spice is this, you may ask. It's a special, original flavor, unlike any other. Me! Just kidding. Anyway, my middle name is Suzon. My husband used to joke around saying that my middle name sounded like a type of seasoning. Kind of like a take on Goya's Sazon, which coincidentally is a spice I use quite frequently in my cooking. Hence, Suzon Spice & Everything Nice was born.

I'm the eldest of 11 children and from an early age, I learned to cook. If mom and dad were at work, I was responsible for putting dinner on the table for my siblings and I. Several of my family members like my mother, father, grandmother, aunts and uncles were the ones who taught me how to cook. I quickly picked up on their methods and even devised some of my own. Some of my attempts were finger lickin' good while others weren't all that great. I saw my mom always wash her meats before cooking them so one time I tried to washed ground beef... Ya, I kind of lost it all down the drain. You live and you learn. That's how cooking works. What really motivated me to do well was my siblings. They were the ones who had no choice but to eat my food and were in a sense, "taste testers". Nothing was more satisfying than the "Mmmmm's" around the dinner table and the squeals of "Thank you Machel!!". I truly hope you get those same reactions when you try out some of these recipes. 

One thing I want you to keep in mind is that in Haitian cooking, based on watching my Haitian family and friends, they NEVER measured anything out. It's all by sight and to taste. I've never seen my mom with measuring cups or measuring spoons. If I called my mother and asked her how to make a particular dish, she can easily tell me the ingredients but will never give me any kind of measurement. We were just "expected" to know how much. "Mom, how much of this do I put in?" Her answer would be something like, "Ou-ap mete on ti kal. Goute-l epi ou-ap we si-l bon. (You'll put in a little bit. Taste it and you'll see if it's good)." Really, mom? That doesn't really help much...

I want to let you know that I took a lot of time preparing these recipes for you by measuring the ingredients. I wanted to be as thorough as possible so that your dish can be replicated as close as it can be. No two Haitian dishes are ever the exact same but they still portray the same ingredients and flavor that make it unique to the Haitian culture. Feel free to use my recipes as a starting point and play around with the ingredients to your liking. I want these recipes to serve as a general base/idea for you so have fun playing around with some of these recipes and get cooking!