Seasoned cookbook author Marina Mustafa is an inspiring woman. Over the past 13 years, she has written a total of 26 cookbooks. She has recipes for everything from authentic Johor traditional dishes to delicious vintage or nostalgic cakes.
According to Marina, every book reflects a part of her life, memories and culture. But behind the scenes, she has been facing constant challenges.
She has been living with terminal cancer and has gone through various surgeries, treatments, and chemotherapy over the years, but you would never guess her struggles when you meet her in person.
She smiled brightly and spoke cheerfully during our interview with at her home in Kelana Jaya.
The self-taught chef, who has been suffering from terminal thyroid cancer, revealed that she wrote her first book, Memorable Recipes for Malay Occasions, at the suggestion of her son, shortly after she was diagnosed in the 1990s and had to close down her restaurant, Cafe Dania, after 16 years of operation.
“I wrote this book for my children so that when I am gone they can use these recipes as a guide in their life. I wanted to reflect on a stage in my life in the book. I wanted a cookbook to show the cycle of life,” said Marina.
The book contains her personal stories, including childhood memories, as well as authentic Malay recipes for special occasions, from births to deaths.
“For example, when their child is born, what do you cook for the ‘Potong Jambul’ ceremony, Aqiqah (sacrificing for the child’s birth), wedding, funeral, and ‘Tahlil’ prayers,” Marina said. “Appropriate dishes that suit each occasion in our cycle of life.”
She did not expect much from the first book, but it got people talking, and eventually, the book was a success.
Recently, she discovered that her cancer had spread to other parts of her body.
“I feel disappointed that I am not responding to the medication. I realise this and I told my husband that I don’t want to think too much,” she said, wiping away tears at the corner of her eyes, discreetly.
“When I first found out that I had cancer, I prepared myself to go. If I go at any time now, I have to accept it. So, I don’t want to think too much about my illness. I still put on my lipstick and I go out and do good things. I think I am okay with it. I try to do good things,” she said, putting up a brave face.
“Sometimes it’s hard,“ she admitted openly, but she never fails to keep a positive outlook on life.
With a smile, she added: “As long as the cancer does not disturb me, I can still walk around; I am grateful and I am blessed.”
Despite all the difficulties, Marina has never let cancer stop her from achieving what she loves most: cooking and sharing, and raising her two beloved children.
For Marina, it’s never been about the cancer, it’s about celebrating life with great food.
She doesn’t want people to focus on her health. Instead, she wants people to look at the things that she does. The experiments, the tools, and the taste of the food she lovingly and creatively makes.
A culinary adventure
During hard times, Marina turned to religion for solace, but even in religious books, she found inspiration for cooking.
While reading the Al-Quran, Marina picked 11 ingredients mentioned in the holy book, and created modern recipes around them. This resulted in her second book, Hidangan Sunah.
“I want to tell youngsters that ingredients used thousands of years ago are still applicable and relevant now.”
A few years later, she got a little busy. She did not have much time for elaborate cooking due to her work commitments, and that prompted her to write the third best-selling book, 5 Rencah 15 Minit, filled with easy recipes to cater to those living a hectic lifestyle.
She soon realised that she had been branded the ‘local food specialist’ due to her talent in mastering local cuisine.
Hence, Marina wrote another book titled 100 Makanan Timur dan Barat to break free from the tag.
Actually, Marina is very familiar with Western cuisines. She picked up cooking skills, while studying at a high school in Australia, at the age of 15. There, she also learned cooking a wide variety of Western dishes.
Thus, in the book, she explored making local dishes with Western flavours and ingredients and vice versa, for example, using mee hoon in the traditionally Italian aglio oglio dish.
A recipe for success
Marina’s books are popular as she uncovers original or authentic recipes, reinvents or modernises them with new ingredients, shares insightful information and step-by-step guides for a wide variety of incredible and tasty recipes.
Furthermore, she does in-depth research, and provides tried and tested recipes that actually work.
“My priority is my recipes must ‘work’. If one of the books does not work, people won’t buy the other books,” she said. “I must have that reputation, first and foremost, that my recipes work!”
The Hari Raya Classics cookbook is also special to her. In that book, Marina explored many varieties of rendang recipes, conducted research, and wrote a whole chapter on rendang recipes from every state in Malaysia.
From her research, she found that Rendang Tok in Perak has a variety of spices, while rendang in Sembilan has more cili padi, as the people there prefer spicier rendang.
One of her most significant books is Everything Sambal, for which she won the French-based Gourmand International Cookbooks Award in 2018.
The most challenging cookbook
However, writing cookbooks was not all smooth sailing. For instance, when she wrote the 12 book series, she felt stressed and was even hospitalised, but she recovered and continued to finish the book.
Another challenge she faced was that she had to prepare ingredients for at least 25 dishes for each of the books in the series.
“I felt a bit tired doing the cookbook. Just imagine having to buy ingredients for 25 recipes. My fridge was full and my kitchen was filled with ingredients everywhere.
“I had to cook and photograph every one of the dishes for a ‘step-by-step’ guide, and all this was done while I was standing on my feet all the time.”
Connecting with others
In her books, Marina pours her heart into her recipes and many people feel connected to them.
She can be easily called a ‘celebrity chef’ but she prefers not to be, instead she concentrates on learning every aspect of cooking, from preparing, developing recipes and styling, including for famous food companies.
“I want to integrate the culture that we have in Malaysia in my cookbooks. My cookbook reflects my childhood, culture [and] dishes that which we forgot and don’t do anymore.”
Though, the Johor-born chef has cooked an array of dishes, her favourite food ever since she was a child is ‘jemput-jemput’, a traditional sweet delicacy that has a sentimental value for as it’s her family favourite.
Apart from that, ‘nasi dhall’ holds a special place in her heart because her father used to cook it every Friday.
We began to wonder, who are her favourite chefs?
She replied that she admires both international and local chefs for their respective talent and expertise. For example, she loves Ina Garten for her motherly and homely nature, Jamie Oliver for his sense of family and culture, Gordon Ramsay for his preciseness, Chef Florence Tan for her Nyonya cooking, and Chef Datuk Ismail Ahmad for his love for authentic Negeri Sembilan cuisines.
Looking to the future
Marina said that these days, the trend is to search for recipes online.
“My recipes are shared on a local application called CookX App, and I trust this app. My recipes are posted in a systematic way with pictures, ingredients, tips, step-by-step videos, and my own videos,” she said. It should be noted that Marina is also the brand ambassador for CookXApp.
The scalable social cooking app allows users to discover new recipes and purchase pre-packaged ingredient kits.
The app sells eco-packs comprising a precise number of ingredients for easy cooking. Among those currently available is Marina’s cinnamon roll eco-pack recipe.
“It’s very convenient and the app is constantly evolving. There is so much space to grow,” she added.
The app provides a platform for new chefs to share and monetise their unique recipes and to earn at least 85% revenue from each sale made.
The app also has a pre-order feature, which allows creator-partners to pre-set the availability of their selling date or periods and take orders up to 13 days in advance, catering to any type of business model.
Most of Marina’s recipes, whether savoury or sweet are gradually being uploaded in the app. Currently, Marina is busy re-creating and finding new recipes for her latest culinary obsession – biryani gam.
