What happens when Ramadan cooking meets modern life
When most debut cookery authors are preparing for publication, they’re celebrating, sharing recipes with followers and gearing up to sign hundreds of books in their publisher’s office. The run-up to Ilhan Mohamed Abdi’s first cookbook, however, also involved surgery. Brain surgery, in fact. “So if I am a bit slow on some of the questions, please bear with me,” she says gently. Major surgery has not blunted her elation at having written a cookbook, though. “I’m very excited, nervous at the same time, but very excited,” she buzzes. You may have come across the London-based 36-year-old on Instagram, where she has 265k followers. It was there, particularly during lockdown, that The Ramadan Kitchen was first conceived. “I started a Ramadan series online, just live on Instagram, and I’d post to tell everyone, ‘This is what we’re going to cook. These are the ingredients and kitchen utensils you’re going to need. Join me at six o’clock.’ And I’d get hundreds of people come on these lives. It was fantastic,” she remembers. What particularly resonated was the …
