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Bake Off’s Nadiya Hussain reveals how cooking helps her family cope with sister-in-law’s death-Robert Oliver-Entertainment – Metro
‘What I did notice was that, even in death, food becomes central.’
Nadiya has said cooking helped her family though ‘dark moments’ (Credits: Ken McKay/ITV/REX/Shutterstock)
Former Great British Bake-Off winner Nadiya Hussain has revealed how cooking helped her family cope with the death of her sister-in-law.
Nadiya, 37, has gone on to host a number of cooking shows after winning the baking competition in its penultimate year on the BBC in 2015.
She previously took to Instagram to tell her followers the story of her sister-in-law Ramana, who died in June from cancer at the age of 34.
Ramana was diagnosed with cancer in January – at the time, she was informed by doctors that the disease was at stage 4.
She left behind her two children and husband Akmoul, who is the brother of Nadiya’s husband, Abdal.
Nadiya told Radio Times: ‘In difficult, dark moments like that it is really tough to function normally.’
Nadiya appeared on GBBO back in 2015 and won the competition (Credits: BBC/Love Productions)
She continued: ‘It’s the first time I’ve experienced a loss so close to my family and it’s going to affect us forever. But what I did notice was that, even in death, food becomes central.’
‘It’s the thing that brings everyone together. We were having to accommodate her family, making sure they were fed and looked after.’
Nadiya, who is herself a mother of three, said that food allowed them to care for her sister-in-law’s family during the initial stages of grief.
Nadiya’s family has been going through a ‘difficult, sad time’ (Picture: PA)
She: ‘[We thought] let’s cook, let’s make them things they enjoy. It was all food-centred. It put a smile on peoples’ faces and gave them sustenance.’
Nadiya had posted a video to Instagram in May, during which she said her family was going through a very rough time. She then announced her sister-in-law’s death in June.
In the video, she told her fans: ‘It’s been a difficult, sad time for our family. We have had a huge loss in our family which we were expecting but nothing really prepares you for that.’
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‘Nothing really prepares you for death even though it is inevitable. We lost our sister-in-law who was 34 and it has been a really tough time for our family all around, my brother-in-law and their kids, and just my family as a whole.’
Since winning Bake Off, Nadiya has been a reported for The One Show and has also judged on the Junior Bake-Off, which began in 2011 and now airs on Channel 4.
Radio Times magazine is available now.
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