In a good place

Chef Samin Nosrat talks to Lauren Taylor about finding joy again

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AMERICAN-IRANIAN chef and cookery writer Samin Nosrat may have been catapulted to culinary fame with her debut cookbook Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat - and a hit Netflix series by the same name - but success sent her spiralling.

"That thing that I'd been single-mindedly chasing basically my whole life, I found it, I got it, and still had that loneliness inside, that feeling of 'it's not good enough, I'm not good enough," she shares.

The 2017 publication, which flipped the script on traditional recipes and taught home cooks how not to rely on them, and instead cook more instinctively, is somewhat considered a modern classic. But the experience "was actually really destabilising and sent me into a big depression", says Samin, 45.

"The publication of Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat, and the show, was so much bigger and longer than anything I could have anticipated or imagined.

"You get a whole cloud of activity around you and everyone wants to talk to you, [there's] opportunities and shiny objects and they love you so much and it feels good."