Faryal Umer could barely boil an egg when she got married.

Her husband Umer Islam was shocked. After all, they’d known each other for ten years and they were both from Pakistan, where “every girl cooks”.

Mrs Umer’s mom was the cook in their house in Lahore. She was too busy studying international diplomacy and law.

“I didn’t realise how spoiled I’d been until we moved to Bermuda in 2005,” she said. “As a newlywed I thought whipping up basmati rice would be easy. I didn’t realise that American basmati rice is thicker than what we had at home, and takes twice as long to cook.”

Frantic calls to her mom did not help.

“She didn’t know what was wrong either,” the 35-year-old said. “My husband said ‘Don’t worry, however it comes out, I’ll eat it’. It was fine, eventually. I thought it would take 25 minutes and it took an hour.”

She threw herself into cooking, learning mostly through experimentation — and more calls to mom.

“There was one shop in Bermuda at that time that sold Indian spices,” she said. “I went there and bought masala packets and started cooking from that day. It got better every day.”

Encouraging words from her husband were huge motivators.

She is now encouraging other women to improve their skills through her Facebook group Bermuda Foodie Ladies. So far, there are 116 members exchanging recipes and offering cooking support. “I wanted to encourage home-cooked food and to encourage women to value the effort and time they put into cooking food for their families by taking pictures and sharing it with other people,” she said. “Food is like a piece of art.

“I have made a lot of new friends through the group. Last summer we had two picnics. Everyone brought something from their own cultures.”

Visit the site for recipes from around the world including Italy, America and Afghanistan.

Mrs Umer loves posting recipes of her own. Almond cookies called peda are among her favourite.

Pakistani food is very similar to Indian cuisine with lots of curries, rice, beans and chicken.

“Most people don’t like things very, very spicy,” said Mrs Umer. “I would say our spice level is lower than that of Mexican food.”

Lahore is a foodie city, with speciality food shops everywhere.

“For example, in the walled part of the city, there is a shop called Amritsari Hareesa devoted only to making harissa, which is made up of lentils, wheat and meat,” she said. “They let it cook all night and then add clarified butter, ginger and black pepper with salt and spinach. It is considered a warm food so the store is only open in the winter, and the food is expensive. People queue around the block to get in. Some of these speciality shops are over 100 years old.”

There’s also a lot of street food available in Lahore, but her stomach can no longer tolerate it after living abroad for years.

“I miss it,” she said.

The greatest cooking compliment she ever received came from her mother.

“I cooked Pakistani rice pudding for her when I was living in London,” she said. “My mother said that my rice pudding was much better than the one she made. That was a very big compliment as her rice pudding is delicious. And this year, my mother-in-law came to stay with us and appreciated everything I cooked for her — that was like winning a gold medal.”

• Check out the Bermuda Foodie Ladies group on Facebook. It is open only to Bermuda residents or former residents.