Yasmin Khan is an award-winning author, campaigner and cook.
In 2013, after suffering a debilitating burnout and having to step back from her human rights work, Yasmin switched careers and turned to food as a tool through which to share people’s stories. She ran a Kickstarter to write a book that would offer a window into Iran, the result of which is her best-selling debut book The Saffron Tales: Recipes From the Persian Kitchen (Bloomsbury, 2016). The book was chosen by the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and the BBC Food Programme as one of the best cookbooks of 2016.
Yasmin’s second book, Zaitoun: Recipes and Stories from the Palestinian Kitchen was published in July 2018 and immediately became a number 1 best-seller on Amazon. The book is a collection of recipes and stories gathered from her travels through Israel, the West Bank and Gaza and was heralded by the late, great, Anthony Bourdain as “A moving, hugely knowledgeable and utterly delicious book”.
In this episode we talk burn-out, Kickstarter, career changes, micro-communities and how to manage multiple projects.
