Cover of Nadia Sawalha's book “Stuffed Vine Leaves Saved My Life” (Top) Nadia Sawalha (L) as a child with her father Nadim and sister Dina. (Below) Nadia Sawalha's Stuffed Vine LeavesWhen the Anglo-Jordanian actress and TV presenter Nadia Sawalha was three years old she suffered a terrible bout of whooping cough. Her actor father Nadim, a believer in the healing power of certain foods, decided the remedy was an intensive course of stuffed vine leaves. She ate little else for almost two months. “For years my dad would tell anyone who would listen that it was his stuffed vine leaves that saved my life”, Nadia recalls. When she wrote her first cookery book, recently published in the UK by Doubleday, she gave it the title: “Stuffed Vine Leaves Saved My Life.” She includes in her book the Sawalha family's version of stuffed vine leaves. Another dish related to her father's confidence in disease-fighting foods is Easy-peasy Yummy Chicken Curry. Devised as a “first-sign-of-a-cold” recipe, it is rich in garlic, ginger and onions. The Sawalhas are one of the best-known acting families in Britain. Nadim has appeared in numerous stage plays, films, and TV and radio productions since the early 1970s. Two of his three daughters, Nadia and Julia, followed him into the acting profession. Nadia's book is a feast of recipes, memories, and family anecdotes, seasoned generously with photographs of family members and of finished dishes. Nadia's best-known acting role was that of feisty businesswoman Annie Palmer in the long-running BBC soap opera “EastEnders” from 1997 to 1999. After leaving the soap she presented TV series such as “Loose Women” and “Passport to the Sun.” In 2007 she proved her credentials as a cook when she won the popular TV series “Celebrity MasterChef”, watched by over 5 million viewers. Her prizewinning recipes for the final included an Arab-style rosewater and pistachio ice-cream. After winning “Celebrity MasterChef” Nadia presented the BBC-1 TV series “Eating in the Sun.” In the series, directed and produced by her husband Mark Adderley, she was challenged to recreate famous chefs' most memorable holiday meals at the restaurants in which they ate them. Nadia's father Nadim grew up in a tent in the Jordanian desert, the son of a remarkably strong woman, Julia (after whom Nadia's actress sister is called), who succeeded in “muscling her way into the masculine worlds of business, property and politics.” Julia had been orphaned as a child and was a “brave, domineering and fiercely ambitious woman who could turn her hand to whatever business she wished and invariably made a success of it”. Nadim had shown some acting talent when young, and his mother helped him get a one-way ticket to drama school in Sidcup, Kent in Southern England. He met his English wife Roberta, known as Bobby, while working as a producer and broadcaster for the BBC Arabic Service in London. She was a secretary for the BBC French Service, but got herself transferred to Nadim's department after clapping eyes on him over a meal of Irish stew in the BBC canteen. Among the array of colorful relatives who come vividly to life in Nadia's book are Nadim's formidable sister Aunt Jamileh Marar, who bought a house in London next door to Nadim's family. Jamileh's son Nayef Marar founded the clothes' company Bench and Hooch. Nadia remembers how when Nayef and his family used to fly into Heathrow from Saudi Arabia, where they were living, there would be parties at which he would cook “kafarty” – the family name for kataef sweet pancakes. The pancakes are layered with walnuts, icing sugar and cinnamon, soaked in rose-scented syrup and served with clotted cream. Nadim's actor brother Nabil Sawalha is an acclaimed actor and satirist in Jordan. He is also an expansive host, and some of the most memorable food-related incidents in the book involve him, such as the occasion on which King Hussein came to his house for dinner but ate nothing. Nabil's culinary repertoire includes Desert-Baked Whole Lamb and the traditional Jordanian Mansaf. Some of Nadia's inspiration comes from her husband and their two daughters, and from her two step daughters. She includes some of their recipes in the book, such as her seven-year-old daughter Maddie's Magic Prawns with garlic, chilli and chopped coriander. There are some particularly health-conscious members of the Sawalha family. Nadia's sister Julia follows a raw food diet, and in the chapter entitled “My Body is My Temple” there are Julia's recipes for raw soup and for Bliss Balls made of strawberries, cacao powder and various seeds, nuts and dried fruits. Nadia explains the recipes in her book clearly, and provides useful tips. Some of the dishes are quite elaborate, such as the famous Moroccan pigeon pie B'stilla. But she also presents simple combinations such as creamy mushrooms on toast. At one point in her career Nadia spent a year supporting herself by making and selling gourmet sandwiches, such as the ‘Marmite and Avocado Sandwich (Mar-cado)'. Her Arab answer to the North America classic of the peanut butter and jello sandwich is Middle Eastern fig jam and flaked almonds spread on lightly toasted brioche. There are recipes from her early acting days when she toured with cast members and cooked for them, in basic conditions, her versions of cheap and cheerful foods such as Macaroni Cheese, Shepherd's Pie, Toad in the Hole and Baked Beans. Nadia came across some of her recipes while working abroad. From her time on location in Morocco playing the part of an Arabian princess in her first-ever film “Slaves of Dreams”, she particularly remembers a gorgeously sweet, succulent lamb and date tagine. As children, Nadia and her two sisters would spend their holidays wherever their father happened to be filming. During the making of the 1975 film “The Wind and the Lion” on location in Almeira, southern Spain, she was allowed to help prepare food for the cast and crew, including “the most gorgeous Mediterranean pepper salad you could imagine.” Sean Connery was playing an Arab sheikh in the film, and Nadim was playing his sidekick. Nadim was also Sean's voice coach, helping him to speak in an Arabic accent, but “after just a few days of trying, my father learned to accept that this particular sheikh was always going to have more than a wee Scottish tang.”
