Hello from My Kitchen (and My Chaos)

Food, life, and mild chaos

Hi. I am genuinely so happy you are here.

I have been meaning to start a Substack for the longest time, and I kept imagining my first post being very formal and “writerly.” But then I remembered who I am, a woman who films recipes with a toddler shouting “Mamaaa look at this!” in the background. Formality left the chat a long time ago. So I am writing this the way I would talk to you if you were sitting in my kitchen with a cup of tea and asking, “So Ilhan… how did all of this even start?”

Let me introduce myself properly.

I am Ilhan. I am in my thirties, Somali and Egyptian, London raised but Mogadishu born. I left Somalia when I was one, so I do not have memories of it but my parents made sure I never lost it. Not just through food, but through everything. And from 1997 onwards, we spent our summer holidays in Somalia, mostly in Hargeisa, which helped root all of that even deeper.

Now, unlike many food writers, I did not grow up thinking I would end up in a kitchen for work. I studied Politics, did a whole Master’s in Violence, Conflict and Development (which sounds dramatic because it was), then worked for NGOs like UNDP in East Africa. Then I somehow took a turn into security risk management and found myself working at Goldman Sachs and Amazon. Truly, if you had told 18-year-old me that I would one day be making spreadsheets about security risks and then leaving that career to film sambuusa recipes… I would have laughed.

But even with corporate life, cooking was always the thing that made sense to me. When I got married and we came home after long, draining days, all I wanted was the type of meal my mum would make. The only problem? We were too tired to be my mum. So I started finding shortcuts. Good ones. Clever ones. Shortcuts that kept the flavour but saved my time. And because I love oversharing, I posted them online and people loved them.

Then lockdown hit in 2020. Everyone was doing Vlogmas, and I thought, “Okay, where is the Ramadan version?” So I started going live on Instagram most evenings, cooking in real time, chatting, laughing basically giving everyone a front-row seat to the chaos. And people actually turned up. Then they came back again. And again. The following year I filmed a proper Ramadan series and it completely blew up.

And in the middle of all that, something even bigger happened, I had my daughter. My long-awaited, prayed-for little girl. And as any mum will tell you, once a small human enters your life, time becomes a rumour. I stepped back for a bit, convinced myself my platform would shrink, but it did not. People were happy for me. They understood life happens but at the end of the day, they always came back for my recipes.

When maternity leave ended, I made the decision not to return to the corporate world. Scary, yes. But Alhamdulillah, it felt right. I do miss working with people sometimes. I worked from home long before it became the norm, so the quiet was familiar but back then, I still had colleagues. I could pop into the office, sit with my team, and have those everyday work moments.

Now, it is just me, my kitchen, and my three-year-old (most of the time!). But I love sharing what I do: my hacks, my recipes, my little series, my toddler’s forest school lunchboxes, and even how I taught her to read (a story for another day!).

And then… the plot twist of all plot twists.

Last year, I was in the Lake District, my absolute happy place, when I got an email from Lucy, who is now my editor at Pavilion/HarperCollins. She asked if I wanted to write a Ramadan cookbook. I sat there staring at the lake, trying to act normal while my brain was doing backflips. I think I replied in under three seconds. No playing it cool here.

And now… here we are. My debut cookbook “The Ramadan Kitchen” exists. Eighty recipes from my Somali and Egyptian heritage. Recipes I grew up eating during Ramadan and Eid, and all the comforting dishes that make a house feel like home any time of the year.

So what is this Substack going to be?

A bit of everything. My stories, my shortcuts, the behind-the-scenes I never get to share on Instagram, the recipes you always DM me for, the little things that make life easier. Think of this as the cosy corner of the internet where I get to talk and you get to actually pause and read.

And if you want to support me on this journey, preordering the cookbook truly means the world. Preorders matter more than people realise, they are what help authors hit bestseller lists. And honestly? A Black Muslim woman making a bestseller list? That would mean more than I can explain, not just for me but for others who want to see themselves reflected in this space.

Thank you for being here. Thank you for reading my story. I cannot wait to share so much more with you

Click here to preorder “The Ramadan Kitchen”

- Ilhan x