Eventually, of course, even after it reopens, Darjeeling Express will sometime close for good. Asma can’t cook forever. But that future, even if she may not live to experience it, still holds excitement. Because those seeds are being planted now. There are people who will see her skin and hear her story and be encouraged to try something of their own. They’ll remember that it was hard for Asma for a long time and now it’s a little better. And hopefully they’ll remember that it isn’t your gender or your class that matters, but whose life you changed.

Asma, a gender equality activist and the first British chef to be featured on the Netflix series Chef’s Table, has always run a kitchen of only women cooks who had never cooked professionally before joining her team. And at this location, where they moved during the pandemic after outgrowing their original space in Soho, which had an open kitchen, the women were out of sight. The cooks were cramped together in a basement kitchen, invisible to diners who were folding blistering paratha and spooning prawn malai curry over rice, Jubin Nautiyal and Asees Kaur crooning in Hindi from speakers overhead. Kaatun kaise raatan, o saawre? Jiya nahi jaata, sun bawre. I’m at a loss at how to spend my nights, handsome lover. I can’t bear to live or listen.

On that basis, it bodes well. Last year, Khan set up a cafe in a refugee camp in northern Iraq employing traumatised Yazidi women. Most Sundays, she has given over the restaurant for free to other novice female chefs to host their own supper clubs. As her swansong in Soho she has negotiated a deal with her landlord so that the remainder of her current lease is secured for Imad Alarnab, a refugee chef whose Syrian Kitchen has been running as a pop-up across London for the last couple of years.

The thing about Asma Khan is not just that her food is divine, but that cooking is such a deep expression of her true self. Her hard work, her generosity, her sense of ready connection with others, her direct and full-throttle character, which seeks to lift up and nourish those around her, are all immediately apparent when you eat her food at her restaurant, Darjeeling Express, or when you read her words or follow her recipes. That is such a gift. Fay Maschler, the restaurant critic of London’s Evening Standard decided to try her food. It was unexpected, as temporary setups like pop-ups and supper clubs don’t usually get reviewed. “She liked the food and wrote the review. Overnight, we had a massive queue of people,” Asma smiles. Asma Khan... is one of the most articulate, powerful voices in the world of food, and this book is her masterpiece...More than a cookbook, this is a meditation on the power of food to nourish and heal.' - Bee Wilson, The Times a b c d e f g Barrie, Josh (22 February 2019). "Asma Khan, a Muslim immigrant to the UK, is the first British chef on Netflix's Chef's Table". inews.co.uk. Archived from the original on 6 April 2019 . Retrieved 18 July 2019.

Kesar Pista Firni

My team will be bringing in their food and cooking their grandmothers’ dishes, not just my grandmother’s food,” says Khan. “It’s important to pass the baton on and I want these women to feel a sense of ownership and to cook the incredible food of their childhood villages. Why should it just be my story?” a b "Chef Asma Khan shares emotional lessons learned in the kitchen". The Splendid Table. Archived from the original on 26 October 2020 . Retrieved 21 January 2021. As a Muslim Indian woman who made “no attempt to lose my accent”, Khan has endured her sizeable share of prejudice and bigotry, so it’s unsurprising she’s so no-nonsense about shallow claims of celebrating diversity. a b c d e f g h i j k Masing, Anna Sulan (3 October 2018). "Britain's First 'Chef's Table' Star Explores Identity Through Her Food". Eater London. Archived from the original on 4 June 2019 . Retrieved 18 July 2019. A lot of countries take the food and don’t respect the culture. But you cannot have my food if you don’t have me. It is a connection and if you take that away, you disrespect me.” Khan’s take on cultural appropriation is vociferous and unapologetic. The food world, like art, fashion, film and music, has been built on blending and borrowing, often riffing on ingredients and styles. “I don’t have a problem with this,” she says. “You can be from any culture, be any colour, you can cook our food but you must respect our traditions and our people.”

Having created a business where she is adamant that it is possible for women to meet the demands of work, family and home, Khan is agog at the slow crawl to progress around her. Vines, Richard (21 March 2020). "Coronavirus Shatters One Chef's Dream of Helping Immigrant Women". Bloomberg News . Retrieved 21 January 2021. Asma Khan among women celebrated at Urban Food Awards 2019". Evening Standard. 21 March 2019 . Retrieved 18 July 2019. a b "How 'Chef's Table' Star Asma Khan Is Breaking Down Barriers With Her All-Women Kitchen". Food52. 8 March 2019 . Retrieved 18 July 2019.

Zarda

Khan had an arranged marriage and immediately afterward moved with her husband to Cambridge in 1991. [8] She had never learned to cook [9] and missed the dishes she had grown up eating. [10] She first started learning to cook from an aunt who lived in Cambridge. [11] After her aunt died, Khan returned to India for a visit of a few months [10] to continue lessons with her mother and the family's cook. [11] [12] She told Francis Lam that learning to cook from her mother helped their relationship. [6] I don’t want to be on the wrong side of history,” she tells me “You know, you need one woman on the bus to say, I’m not getting off. Segregation ended, slavery ended, apartheid ended. You know, because somebody was brave. And somebody decided not to be silent. I want to be that somebody, I want to be on the right side of history. The fact that other people are keeping silent when they can obviously see that there is a problem when Michelin star chefs and female chefs keep quiet. When there’s evidence of bullying against women, where there’s evidence of racism. Where there’s violence, you know, I can tell you as a lawyer, if you did this outside the kitchen, you’d be in jail. The terms of assault are very clear. When touching is without consent. It’s assault. How’s it being allowed in kitchens? It’s being allowed by a conspiracy of silence. I will not die till that has changed.” In 2018 her cookbook, Asma's Indian Kitchen, [3] was published by Pavilion Books. [21] The San Francisco Chronicle called it a "stellar debut". [22] It was shortlisted for the 2018 World Gourmand award for Best Indian Cookbook. [10] [23] With over 100 recipes, easy-to-follow instructions and a photograph for every dish Ammu is an essential book for anyone wanting to make Indian comfort food at home.

This book is a joyful celebration of the universal power of food to restore, and to comfort. It is a tribute to Ammu, Asma's mother, to the simple home cooking from her kitchen in Calcutta, and an exploration of the inextricable link between food and love.It is interesting to read that Khan’s mother, Ammu, was herself a pioneer in challenging the patriarchal restrictions by which women continue to be constrained. She founded a food business in India and Khan is the heir to her recipes. Asma has furthered her mother’s legacy and, through food, has worked to develop how women are thought about whether in domestic or professional kitchens. The book itself contains a variety of recipes that Asma loved from her childhood and she evocatively describes her memories of each dish so as to underscore its importance in her personal development whether as a child in Kolkata, Hyderabad and Madras, or a student at Cambridge University. The recipes traverse a number of regions and bring to the table a variety of dishes with influences from Bengali, Afghan, Mughlai and Turkish cuisines. a b c d e f g h i j k l Tang-Evans, Ming; Som, Rituparna; Pundir, Pallavi (18 October 2018). "Kolkata-born Asma Khan Is One of the Upcoming Faces on 'Chef's Table' Season Six". Vice. Archived from the original on 21 May 2019 . Retrieved 18 July 2019. Indian family food with heart - the mouthwatering new cookbook from Asma Khan, founder of the iconic Darjeeling Express In Cambridge a year later, Asma was heartened and hardened, slightly, to the country. It was still cold, but at least she could cook. But comforting as it was, cooking wasn’t all she could let herself do. Outside, she still felt she had to be good. To be so good no one could ignore her or think she was a burden. And so she was. Over the next two decades, she became the first woman in her family to attend college. She qualified as a lawyer; completing a doctorate in British Constitutional Law at King’s College, London. She had two children, boys. This was what the outside world saw.