About The Settler's Kitchen

I am known for my often controversial newspaper columns and forthright comments on TV and radio. I can be tough and provocative, fiercely independent, never a groupie or religious, ethnic or national loyalist, sometimes too abrasive, often not but that is the perception. To many on the right I am a ‘disgrace’ and on the left ‘treacherous’. What they don’t see though is the woman in the apron at the end of the day, cooking and cleaning, putting meals on the table almost every evening. The firebrand turns into a quiet domestic alchemist, preparing food with tender attention to please the senses and bring the family together. Food is love, history, memory, one of the joys of life, an expression of who you were, are, are becoming. Sadly in Britain, food is also seen as the enemy, an invader, too hard, too much of a bother, just fuel.

After my mother Jena died in 2003, I could only get as close to her as I often needed to by smelling her cooking cardigan, the one she wore when she made the best food in the world using the cheapest and most common produce. Immigrants have that facility because in the early years there is so little cash to spare. And so to remember her and pass that spirit on to my kids and record the unknown story of my people, East African Asians, I wrote The Settler’s Cookbook, a history, memoir and recipe book marking the long journey of these wily and successful migrants who travelled from undivided India to Africa and now to the west, the next stopover. Each time we move to a new land, our food adapts, changes, borrows and reinvents itself. The repertoire includes ‘repaired’ English dishes like Shepherd’s Pie and Beef Wellington, Indianised African dishes and even pasta cooked with spices and coconut milk.

I cook fast but never eat fast food. We now have many East African stores where you can buy cassava and matoke (savoury green bananas) and all that we need, reasonably priced.

People came to dinner, asked for recipes, and some came home to learn how to make them. The book proved to be popular and so was born The Settler’s Kitchen. I thought "why not teach small groups of keen men and women how to cook without fear and with a sense of adventure"? So now I do. I also got together with David Rowles, who runs Cookery Uncovered, teaching children and adults how to cook well and without anxiety and to understand the importance of food in family and cultural life. David used to be the chef owner of Bar Gansa, a tapas bar, which was a Time Out favourite and also gastropubs and a whole-food shop. He is developing number of TV projects on food and children.

There are three options on offer:

• Yasmin can come to you and teach a group of up to 8 for three hours to make six dishes. Ingredients provided by her and the price includes a stainless steel box of spices from her supplier for each person. Cost £70 per person including the lunch or dinner cooked. Groups discounts can be negotiated. Political arguments included.
• David and Yasmin can do a cook-in in his kitchen in Kentish Town, which is fully equipped for this purpose. Cost £75 per person. Group discounts and specials can be arranged- eg birthdays, hen parties with a difference, useless blokes in the kitchen…
• David and Yasmin can come to you and do a combination East and West meal or teach you to cook the kind of meal you want to make but have never dared. Cost £70 per person and same group and spice box deal as above.

 

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