Sweet. Salty. Everything in between.

Welcome to Fig & Brine — a Mediterranean recipe blog built not around a country but around a contrast. The sweet against the briny. The rich against the bright. The fig next to the olive. If you have ever eaten something that hit every note at once and couldn’t quite explain why it worked, you already understand what this blog is about.

My Mission

My mission is to bring the full depth of Mediterranean cooking into a home kitchen — not the shortcut version, not the tourist version, but the real thing. The slow-braised lamb shoulder with preserved lemon and green olives. The Sicilian caponata with raisins and capers. The Levantine mezze spread that takes a Sunday afternoon and feeds everyone for three days. I cook for people who want to cook seriously on the weekend, who keep a pantry stocked with good olive oil and aren’t afraid to use it, and who believe that a well-made meal is worth the time it takes.

Who Is Nevaeh Hall?

My name is Nevaeh Hall. I am a home cook and recipe developer with more than 11 years of experience across all cuisines and cooking styles, based in Chicago, IL, and the founder of both Nevaeh Recipes and Fig & Brine.

Nevaeh Hall Family Photo

I have been developing and testing recipes since 2013 — first for myself, then for a growing audience on Nevaeh Recipes, where I have spent more than a decade cooking for every kind of eater at every kind of table. Fig & Brine is the Mediterranean deep-dive from that same kitchen. Same standard, one focused lane — the lane I keep coming back to because it never gets old.

The Story Behind the Name

It wasn’t a trip. It wasn’t a cooking class. It was a farmers market table in late August.

I was walking through the market on a Saturday morning when I stopped at a table that had a box of ripe figs sitting next to a jar of good olives. I bought both on impulse — no plan, no recipe in mind. When I got home I tore the figs open, dropped a few olives and a chunk of feta on the plate, drizzled a little honey, and ate it standing at the kitchen counter.

That first bite — sweet, salty, a little funky, impossibly simple — undid twenty years of thinking Mediterranean food meant hummus and a Greek salad. It wasn’t a dish. It was a logic. Fig for sweet. Brine for salty. Everything on this blog chases some version of that contrast across the whole Mediterranean basin — from Greek feta-and-melon salads to Moroccan preserved-lemon tagines to Sicilian caponata with raisins and capers. One flavor logic, endless directions.

My Expertise

  • More than 11 years of hands-on recipe development experience across all cuisines, rooted in everyday home cooking in Chicago since 2013
  • The full Mediterranean basin — Greek, Italian, North African, and Levantine cooking, unified by pantry rather than passport: olives, capers, feta, preserved lemon, good olive oil, honey, dates, pomegranate molasses, tahini, harissa
  • The sweet-salty flavor logic — every recipe on this blog earns its place by delivering that contrast in some form, whether obvious or subtle
  • Vegetable and legume-forward Mediterranean cooking with fish and seafood as the regular protein and meat — lamb, chicken — as occasional and intentional rather than default
  • A strong vegetarian and mezze lane — dips, salads, grain bowls, and mezze spreads that are core to the cuisine, not an afterthought
  • Weekend cooking for serious home cooks — recipes that reward the time you put in, developed for a Saturday afternoon rather than a Tuesday night

How I Work

Every recipe on Fig & Brine is tested at least twice in my own home kitchen in Chicago — with ingredients from regular grocery stores and the farmers market, without professional equipment, in the same conditions any home cook would face on a weekend. I test for taste, texture, balance of flavors, and realistic preparation time. I push on the pantry substitutions so you know what works and what doesn’t before you find out the hard way.

The real test is the table. Fig & Brine is my weekend cooking — the slower register when there is actual time to let a tagine braise or make labneh from scratch. I test on weekend guests and on the two people who always show up early to help: my husband, who gives honest feedback, and our 8-year-old, who has very strong opinions about which olives are the good ones. If it clears that table, it goes on the blog.

Nutritional values listed with recipes are estimates based on standard ingredients. I am not a registered dietitian. For specific medical or nutritional guidance, please consult a qualified professional.

My Story

I have been cooking seriously since 2013, when I started Nevaeh Recipes as a place to document and share recipes for every kind of eater. Over the years I cooked my way through dozens of cuisines and thousands of dishes. Mediterranean cooking kept pulling me back — not because of any single country or any single dish, but because of that flavor logic I stumbled onto at a farmers market table one August morning.

For years the Mediterranean recipes lived on Nevaeh Recipes alongside everything else. In 2026 I decided they needed their own home — a place where the pantry logic could unfold properly, where a post about preserved lemons could lead somewhere, where the connection between a Moroccan chermoula and a Sicilian gremolata could be explored without feeling like a detour.

Fig & Brine is that home. Eleven years of cooking, one focused lane, and a farmers market discovery that started it all.

Contact

Have a question about a recipe, an ingredient you can’t find, a technique you want to understand better, or just something you want to say? I would love to hear from you. Email contact@figandbrine.com or reach out via the contact page.

Until the next meal,
Nevaeh