24 September 2023 , 06:00
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Nadiya Hussain is warm, generous and never stops smiling, so it’s surprising to discover that her favourite word is "no".
After years of people pleasing, the TV chef, 38, has discovered the wonderful power of "no" and is focusing only on things she wants to do, without justifying her reasons to others.
"One thing I was told not long ago is that no is a full sentence," says Nadiya. "You should be able to say no without explanation. I live by that now. If I say no, I don’t owe anyone an explanation. I can just say no."
Nadiya, who shares sons Musa, 17, Dawud, 16, and Maryam, 13, with her husband Abdal, plans to pass her wisdom on to her three children, who she hopes will follow their dreams as they begin to leave the nest.
"It’s very important, especially as a woman in this industry and especially for my children as they’re growing up navigating this world, to understand that they can say no without explanation and that is OK," insists Nadiya.
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Since she won The Great British Bake Off in 2015, Nadiya has not stopped working and has produced countless TV series. Nadiya's Everyday Baking has just finished on BBC Two in time for Nadiya’s Simple Spices to start broadcasting. She’s also written cookery books, children's books and co-authored three novels.
Nadiya found fame on Bake Off (PA)
Nadiya has written multiple cookbooks (BBC/Wall To Wall Media Ltd)Time is precious for Nadiya, who says, "My toxic trait is to say, 'Come on, let’s go do something' and know, deep down inside, that I want to be in bed by eight, in my pyjamas by seven and have had dinner by six."
Cooking for her family is Nadiya's passion, but to relax she has a different and rather surprising hobby – archery. She took it up after walking in the woods near her Buckinghamshire home and being intrigued by the noise of arrows thudding into targets.
"I love to go walking in the woods," says Nadiya. "I’ve just taken up archery recently. It’s something they do in our local woods and I could hear the "th-donk" of the archers every time I walked past. I’m like, 'What’s going on there?' My kids said, 'There’s an archery range there.' That piqued my interest, so we got licences and our kids got licences. We all now have licences to do archery in the woods. I love it. It’s so therapeutic."
Archery lit a passion in Nadiya and it wasn’t long before she’d progressed to shooting rifles. "I’ve got a good eye," she laughs.
"I recently went shooting and the instructor said, 'Oh, have you done this before?' And I said, 'No, I haven’t,' and he goes, 'You are really good. You need to come back.' I'm a good shot. My aim is pretty good."
In the eight years since Nadiya shot to fame, she hasn’t wasted a single second. "I never imagined I would be where I am today. I am loving every second," she says. "When I wrote my first cookbook I thought, 'Well, this is the first and only cookbook I will ever write,' and here I am, still writing cookbooks. So that is pretty special. I don’t take it for granted."
For a long time, Nadiya attributed her success to luck, but recently she’s started to accept that hard work and talent also have something to do with it. It was a lesson she needed to learn.
"I kept saying to everyone in the crew, 'You guys have a much harder job than I do.' And they were like, 'You realise that none of us can do what you do? Like none of us can do what you do.’ I’m like, 'That’s not true…' And a few years ago, it dawned on me that you can’t do this unless you’re good at it. I have to believe I’m good at it. I can’t run on luck forever."
Like all the great TV chefs, Nadiya makes conjuring up a mouthwatering masterpiece while talking to the camera look easy and fun. In truth, it’s a very rare skill and owning that has given Nadiya a new confidence.
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"I have a very different mindset now where I do believe that I’m good at my job," she smiles. "The camera does not faze me one bit. I love, love, love what I do. I’m perfectly happy to be alone in front of the camera and don’t feel scared and daunted any more. It’s helped grow my confidence.”
But she could never be accused of hubris – and her family help keep her grounded.
"It’s tough because I work in an industry where there’s a fine line between confidence and overconfidence," she acknowledges. "I’m very lucky in that I come from a background where I’m very humbled. It’s like, ‘Your job is just your job.’ I love that I can keep my feet firmly on the ground."
While Nadiya is modest about her achievements, she’s fiercely committed to her ambitions. Next on her list is a farm.
"I’m a big dreamer," she says. "I love to dream up things that are unrealistic. Living unrealistically is what makes you hopeful.
"The big dream for us as a family is to move out and buy a farm and live completely isolated and have a little smallholding where we can raise a few animals and ducks and chickens, alpacas, maybe some goats… Just live that outdoor life a little bit."
Nadiya’s grandfather was a farmer in Bangladesh and now she’d like to be self-sufficient. She explains, "My granddad was a farmer... I’d love to be able to recreate that but here in England. The ultimate goal is to be completely self-sufficient. We want to be able to have milk, eggs, vegetables, as much as possible without having to go to the shops."
But Nadiya’s biggest passion is still writing cookbooks. "It’s so important to remain humble and to love what you do," she says. "If I didn't love what I did, I wouldn’t do it any more because I think this is very much a job that requires you to be passionate. Writing cookbooks is by far the best part of my job."
Nadiya’s latest book Nadiya's Simple Spices, which accompanies the TV series of the same name, shows fans how to make highly flavoured dishes using just eight spices.
"Cooking shouldn’t be laborious or difficult," says Nadiya. "When people think about spices, they think it’s going to be complicated or they’ll have to buy a spice they’ll never use again. You can make every recipe in the book using just four ground and four whole spices and I think that’s pretty special."
Nadiya’s Simple Spices airs on Wednesday at 8pm on BBC Two