Anjum Anand is the new face of Indian cuisine. Her six-part prime-time BBC2 series Indian Food Made Easy aired in 2007 to a fanfare of positive publicity. Anjum was cited as ‘the Indian Nigella’ and a wonderful advocate for simple, healthy, colourful, low-fat Indian food. The television tie-in book, INDIAN FOOD MADE EASY, published by Quadrille, remained in the bestseller list for eight weeks and was one of the Top 10 cookbooks of 2007. Quadrille has now published ANJUM'S NEW INDIAN, the tie-in to Anjum’s six-part BBC2 television series at the end of 2008. Anjum Anand’s first book INDIAN EVERY DAY was published by Headline in 2003 and remains an Indian cookery ‘must have’.
Anjum lives with her husband, Adarsh Sethia, and their young daughter, Mahi, in north London but travels regularly to visit her family in India.
Anjum Anand grew up in London but has also studied in Geneva, Paris and Madrid. After gaining a European Business degree she decided to develop her interest in Indian cookery and, in particular, making her native food fresher, lighter and simpler to cook in order to fit her and her friends’ young, contemporary lifestyle.
Anjum has worked in the trend-setting Café Spice in New York, and for Tommy Tang and the Mondrian Hotel in Los Angeles, as well as the Park Royal Hotel’s Indian restaurant in New Delhi, but her real love is delicious and stylish food that is simple enough to cook at home. She challenges fiercely the assertion that Indian food is heavy and difficult to cook and is determined to make ‘cooking an Indian’ as common as rustling up a stir-fry. Consequently Anjum’s recipes are easy to follow and have cross-generational appeal. She was one of the first writers to create and write Indian recipes catering for the health-conscious cook and her first book, INDIAN EVERY DAY: Light, Healthy Indian Food, was published by Headline in 2003 and has sold over 25,000 copies.
Anjum has family homes in Delhi and Kolkata (Calcutta) and loves the regional and cultural traditions of Indian food with the passion of a real insider. She was ‘the face of’ Birds Eye for two years from September 2004 and launched their healthy Indian frozen food range for younger, style-conscious customers.
Anjum Anand’s six-part primetime BBC2 television series INDIAN FOOD MADE EASY launched in July, 2007 with the tie-in book, published by Quadrille, selling over 200,000 copies in the first ten months of publication. The second series of INDIAN FOOD MADE EASY began transmission on BBC2 in November 2008 and the accompanying book ANJUM’S NEW INDIAN was published in September 2008.