My interview appeared in The Express Tribune Magazine, (which works in partnership with the International Herald Tribune), this Sunday. Many thanks to the editorial team at the Express Tribune.
Here is the link to the magazine pages – Shayma Saadat Mistress of Spices. It is also available online here.
I don’t remember Amma Subraayi. Our family’s seamstress, she died a few years after I was born, and by that time we had already moved to Washington, DC. My Nani Ami bought the jewel-toned fabrics for our razais, (winter quilts) and Amma Subraayi would stitch them painstakingly, by hand, with a curved upholstery needle. Sitting under the winter sun on my grandparents’ rear terrace, she laid the fabric out on a woven bed called a charpai and nimbly stitched the fabric together, stuffing it with cotton for weeks on end. Each razai was stitched in its own geometric pattern and with special fabric. Ami’s was a plaid burgundy and my Khala’s (aunt’s), was a candy-coloured orange with a floral design. Read More
*SOLD OUT*
Crisis. That’s the face of a punctilious cook who can’t use a certain oil over another one for shallow-frying. When you’re teaching participants to make blinis in your first ever workshop, you unnecessarily stress over such trivial matters. To make matters trickier, you feel nauseous and soporific because you are expecting Tiny Spoon, unbeknownst to everyone at the workshop.
I was invited to host my first workshop last year in February, which turned out to be a lovely experience – we finally settled on olive oil (as the picture depicts) – and all the participants went home happy after having a few sips of Pomegranate & Rosewater Essence Sparkling Wine Cocktails.
I am in the kitchen again, (this time, stress-free) – teaching another workshop. I will be over at The Depanneur showing you how to make aushak – dumplings which hail from the Afghan kitchen.
The cost is $40+HST – more information on the workshop and how to sign up for it is available here.