Sumayya was with us on Wed 3rd May to tell us all about her stunning memoir, Andaza. She conjured a story of what it was like growing up in Pakistan and how the women in her life inspired her.  She spent the first eight years of her life at sea, with a father who captained merchant ships and a mother who preferred to cook for the family on a tiny electric stove in their cabin rather than eat in the officers’ mess.

This evocative and moving food memoir tells the story of how Sumayya managed to forge her own path between the expectations of following in her father’s footsteps as a lawyer and the pressures
of a Pakistani woman’s presumed place in the household.

‘I can’t decide whether I want to devour Sumayya’s story or her recipes first, but this has left me hungry to travel, to explore… and, of course, to eat.’
– Felicity Cloake, Guardian food columnist