"Lost" 30-year-old cookery book is lovingly repaired by The Repair Shop team to the delight of its owners
A "lost" 30-year-old cookery book has been lovingly repaired by The Repair Shop team, much to the delight of its owners.
Portsmouth’s Nadia Arab co-authored The Road From Karachi: Indian and Pakistani Cookery Made Easy with her mother Khalida based on the recipes she wrote and gathered 30 years ago and last week the specialist team presented the pair with a restored version.
Khalida and her husband Riaz Arab came to the UK in 1972 from India and Pakistan, and after settling in Portsmouth which they had visited on their honeymoon, they decided to establish an Indian cookery school in Buckland in 1984. Following this success, in 1987 they decided to create a Indian Cookery Made Easy, a recipe book sold to students and in what was then known as WH Smiths.
The course continued for a few years but closed when Khalida and Riaz moved from the area and Khalida lost her copy of the book, and spent many years searching for a replacement. But then 30 years later Nadia, found a copy through a work colleague and this lead to the new version of the book, The Road From Karachi, being created.
However the next chapter of their story saw the original book taken to the team at The Repair Shop based at the Weald and Downland Museum in Singleton where the team lovingly restored the book, and in an episode which aired last week.
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Nadia said: “It was very emotional when we collected it from them.
“It’s nice, its tidy, all of the pages are back in the correct order. We did ask for some of the stains to be kept in to retain some of the authenticity of it.
“They have done a really, really lovely job on this.”
Watch the video embedded in this story for the full interview with Nadia and Khalida.