Rice is On the Hob - Tony & Tami Aftab

The Rice is on the Hob is a collaboration between Tami Aftab and her father. Tony Aftab lives with short term memory loss, that occurred as a result of an accident in operation almost 30 years ago for his brain condition hydrocephalus. Despite his memory loss impacting his day-to-day life, he’s never forgotten the dishes of his childhood in Pakistan. Food and cooking are now for Tony a coping mechanism for living with a chronic disability. The father and daughter pair have long dreamed of co-authoring a photobook-meets-cookbook, in which Tami’s photographs would sit alongside Tony’s recipes. Growing up, Tami found that one of the greatest connections she had to her Pakistani heritage was through food. Landing in Pakistan with Tony in February this year to shoot their latest series was at first disorientating and even overwhelming at times, to be in a space that is so unknown and yet so familiar. “But then I taste the food,” she says with a smile, “and that feels like home to me.” Throughout the book there are 16 of Tony’s recipes, and a multitude of his handwritten memories. Alongside a foreward by Jyoti Patel, and a 4-page interview between the father and daughter.

Self-published, 2024
Hardcover, 160pp
292 x 247mm