Hello,
It’s been less than a week since I launched Scribbles & Dribbles. To thank all my readers and subscribers, you get to hear the big news first: I have a new book coming out!
The Jackfruit Chronicles: Recipes and Memories from a British-Bangladeshi Kitchen will be published in summer 2025 by HarperNorth / HarperCollins
Pre-orders coming soon.
The Jackfruit Chronicles is a part-memoir, part-recipe book that follows my family from Bengal to Britain and tells our story over several decades. It is a celebration of migration and identity, particularly that of the Bangladeshi diaspora, flavoured with our own recipes that we still cook, eat, and share today.
I wrote this book for my children, but also for other readers who I hope will see their own families, journeys, and foods reflected in these pages - wherever they are from.
I am so delighted that my book has found a home with HarperNorth and HarperCollins. You can read the full press release in The Bookseller and Book Brunch.
What next?
In the months leading to publication I’ll be sharing my publishing journey with you: from writing the pitch, the setbacks along the way, and how friends and allies within the industry helped me bring this book to life. I’ll also be updating you all with the cover reveal, giveaways and even a few recipe previews!
Details for pre-orders coming soon!
If you haven’t done so already, please subscribe to keep updated - I’m so excited to be on this path with you.
From the Dribble Corner…
While I’ve been plodding away at writing a book, Little Lad has been toiling over his alphabet. He’s been able to write and recognise letters (in English, Arabic and Hebrew - more on trying to raise a multi-lingual child in a future post, for sure…) for a while, but has recently discovered the magic of threading them together to create WORDS.
A recent effort was sounding out and spelling T-O-F-U when helping me write a shopping list. He was delighted; I was 90% proud, 10% mortified that his first written word was…tofu.
In a twist of modern parenting that I did not see coming, Little Lad also loves tapping out words on my phone keypad (me telling him the spelling, him pressing the letters) and sending them to various family members. His choice of words is seemingly inexplicable: ‘umbrella’, ‘excavate’, ‘queen’. It struck me that typing is likely to be just as, if not more, important a skill as writing by hand for him, in the future.
But even though he sometimes complains that his hand gets tired from holding the pen, I hope that he learns to love that feeling of ink on paper; the tangible sense of putting down words, and having those words convey meaning - whether in the form of a shopping list, or birthday card message, or a poem. I wish that for him.
Festive sweet treats
This month also brings the festival of Eid ul Adha. In our family, Eid starts with a delicious breakfast of flaky buttery parathas with a sweet treat such as milky vermicelli or semolina pudding, studded with sultanas and cardamom. Here’s a recipe that I developed for Waitrose Magazine - do let me know if you give it a go!
Recipe: suji halwa - aromatic semolina pudding
Until next time,
Shahnaz x