She won BBC’s Great British Bake Off in 2015, an experience Nadiya Hussain has often said changed her life. Today, the mother of three is a known household name because of her documentary The Chronicles of Nadiya and Nadiya’s British Food Adventure, an eight-part series on the BBC which will see her travelling to different areas of the UK to feature the local cuisine. Hussain is part of Loose Women, a hot topics and celebrity chat show. She also writes a column for The Times Magazine and is the author of two cookbooks and a novel that she will bring to the Emirates Airline Festival of Literature, which runs from March 3 to 11 at Dubai Festival City.
Visiting Dubai for the first time, she says, to say that she’s excited would be “an understatement”.
“I love travelling to different countries and experiencing new cultures but having lived in the UK my whole life I am most excited about the sunshine [in Dubai],” Hussain displayed her enthusiasm to Gulf News tabloid! with double exclamation marks in an email. “I am bringing the three books that I spent all of last year writing. It was hard work but it was an absolute joy to have the opportunity. I’m bringing with me my first cookbook, Nadiya’s Kitchen; my first kids’ cookbook, Nadiya’s Bake Me a Story; and my first fiction novel, The Secret Lives of the Amir Sisters.”
Hussain, born and raised in Luton, is one of six children. Her father, Jamir, is a chef and owner of an Indian restaurant. But baking was not part of the home cooking, even though both her parents loved experimenting. In fact, until she took cooking classes at school, she had been under the impression that an oven was a storage space for pots and pans. She taught herself to cook from books and the internet.
She had been a full-time mother for nine years when she participated in The Great British Bake Off.
“Whilst I was at home I was baking every day and I was honing skills that I never really expected to use on anyone apart from my family. It was only after winning the competition that I had all these amazing opportunities,” she said.
“I believe I have what I have today because I tried really hard to do well. Not to win but to prove to myself that I am not a quitter. That has meant I have had so many opportunities but to maintain these doors that have opened up for me I have had to work very hard. But you get nothing in life if you don’t work hard for it. Life does not owe me a living, I believe in working hard for it.”
Married at the age of 19 in a match she asked her parents to arrange, the British-Bangladeshi, who has also baked for Queen Elizabeth’s 90th birthday celebrations, spoke recently about reviving her vows to the man she’s grown to love in the last 15 years, Abdal. Family, therefore, holds great importance to the 32-year-old, she says.
“I am a mother to three beautifully fascinating children. The wife to a gorgeous husband who doubles up as my rock. A sister in a brood of six. A daughter to devoted parents. An aunt to a pick and mix of nephews and nieces, and a grand-daughter to a steely unshaken Nan. I am all of these people. These are the people who make me, break me and fix me,” says the introduction on her website.
“My children are massive eaters and I am a massive feeder,” she tells Gulf News tabloid!. “So if they eat, I will cook. But they also have a keen interest in ingredients and where they have come from, too. So I take their curiosity and make it into an education. My kids are always enthusiastic about anything new that I make but also hyper critical if they don’t like something. So we work great as a team.”
That’s why she says being in the kitchen, she says is “therapy” for her.
“I enjoy cooking and baking and it relaxes me, even if I am working to deadline. But I have always lacked confidence in general, so everything that has happened to me after [GBBO] has allowed me to really face my fears. I am growing every day and with any luck I will continue to grow every day.”
While she’d opted for the traditional route for her marriage, at age 14 Hussain took up the hijab more to cover up her head after her father gave her a bad haircut. It however became her “first acceptance” of religion when she realised its “significance”. And she has been the victim of racist comments and sidelining because of her dress, and she’s known not to mince words regarding it on social media.
“As we all know there is negativity in the world and people will always have both good and bad to say,” she explained. “But I try very hard not to listen to the negative. [If] I do, I like to just walk away. I don’t believe in balancing the scales with negativity like for like.”
Don’t miss it!
Hussain will be at the EAFOL on March 3 and 4. Varied tickets prices for each session. For full schedule visit emirateslitfest.com
