Durkhanai Ayubi is an Afghan culinary professional, food expert, writer, and restauranteur based in Adelaide, Australia. Her cookbook and memoir, Parwana: Recipes and Stories from an Afghan Kitchen, offers a deeply evocative narrative of Afghanistan and its rich culinary heritage and traditions. The cookbook interweaves the history of war-ravaged Afghanistan along with family stories of food, cooking, and sharing traditional Afghan recipes. The Ayubi family run a restaurant by the same name in Australia, and her cookbook features the recipes from their restaurant. However, this cookbook does something more—it brings to the forefront the importance of food, family, and community for displaced and exiled subjects. What is fascinating about Parwana is Ayubi’s powerful testimony of her family’s resistance and survival.
Ayubi’s memoir focuses on her mother, Farida, whose devotion for traditional food and desire to preserve the customs, rituals and flavors of Afghanistan gave shape to their restaurant Parwana....
University of California Press