In March, Ashia Ismail-Singer was all ready to launch her third cookbook, The Laden Table. The venue was secured, guests were invited and Ashia was putting the finishing touches on the dishes she wanted to serve. But a call from England changed everything.
“At 4.30am on Saturday, March 15, my twin sister, Anjum, called to say Dad had collapsed and it wasn’t looking good,” recalls Ashia, 53. “He’d been fasting because it was Ramadan, but he’d been feeling fine. He went out to do some shopping and put petrol in the car, got home, opened the gate and collapsed. He didn’t even make it to the door.”
A passer-by saw Hamid, 81, on the ground and alerted Ashia’s mum Zarina, 71, who called an ambulance. By the time it arrived, the whole family was present – sort of.
“I’m in New Zealand – Mum, Dad, Anjum and my youngest sister Nishat live in England, and my other sister Farah is in Abu Dhabi,” explains Ashia, whose husband Graham was away on a fishing trip at the time. “We went on FaceTime so we could all see what was going on.
“We watched the paramedics do CPR on him for half an hour, but Dad had already passed. It was so harrowing.”
Ashia’s son Adam, 22, comforted his devastated mum and booked flights for her to go to England that day. “Adam was amazing,” she tells. “I was shaking and sobbing. But I needed to go – it was my way of saying goodbye.
“I have a lovely relationship with Mum, but I had such a close bond with Dad. When I moved overseas, I’d ring him daily on my way to work for a five-minute chat to say hi,” she says shakily.
“I’d tell him where I was going and what I was doing – he was so proud of me.”
Being overseas when her dad passed caused extreme guilt for Ashia. A feeling the busy school nurse and real estate agent is all too familiar with.
“Graham and I realised when our daughter Zara was quite young that something wasn’t right,” she shares. “As a nurse, I knew she wasn’t hitting her milestones – she couldn’t walk properly by the age of two – so I took her to our GP who referred her to a physiotherapist.” But nobody expected what came next.
“We were sitting on our deck, Zara was wobbling around and the physio said, ‘Have you thought about putting Zara into a nursery that supports kids with extra needs?’” tells Ashia. “I’ll never forget that. I was like, ‘What are you saying?’ Something like that hadn’t even crossed my mind.”
While Ashia and Graham, 56, took Zara, now 19, to a geneticist soon after, it wasn’t until 2021 that Zara was diagnosed with MED13L, a chromosomal development disorder that affects her motor skills, and delays speech, language and learning. She has funding to attend school until she is 21 and has a personal trainer to help with her muscle tone.
“It was a big relief to get the diagnosis,” admits Ashia. She adds that Zara is quite lucky as others with MED13L have more significant issues, including heart problems.
“As she was growing up, I went through some very dark times. I carried so much guilt. I always felt it was my fault that Zara was born the way she was.
“After the diagnosis, I realised I had to accept it wasn’t my fault and started focusing on what she could do – not what she couldn’t.”
And Zara is clearly thriving.
“She does need our help, but she’s happy,” smiles the doting mother.
With a heritage that spans continents – Ashia was born in Malawi, Africa, to Indian parents, and grew up in England before moving here with her Kiwi husband – the recipes in The Laden Table are “a piece of me”.
She explains, “My mum was an amazing cook. She did fusion in the 1970s before it even really existed. There are recipes in the book from her and all my sisters.”
Ashia reckons her dad would be very proud of The Laden Table.
“My food incorporates beautiful flavours that make everything taste better. This is my family on a plate.”
