Welcome to The Grapevine – a monthly series from Pink Jinn where we pass the mic to artists, thought leaders, influencers and pioneers from across the Middle East, North Africa and the global diaspora. They’ll be sharing their top arts, culture and lifestyle picks with all of us – from the books and podcasts shaping the way they think, to the music, food, places and brands that bring magic to their everyday.
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Award-winning cookery writer, chef, recipe developer and presenter Dina Macki joins us on the Grapevine this week with a stellar collection of recommendations.
Born and raised in the UK in an Omani and Zanzibari family, Dina’s love for food is exceeded only by her drive to share the culture and hospitality of Oman and Zanzibar with the world. Choosing food as her medium to build bridges and to cast a light on the immense cultural and culinary diversity of the Middle East, Dina tirelessly works to bring the tastes of her heritage to the world. From her new cookbook Bahari, her immensely entertaining social media presence (featuring her inimitable grandmother, Bibi), restaurant takeovers all over the world, and her TV appearances, Dina is everywhere at the moment – you might know her best as @dinewithdina, or you might have spotted her on Saturday Kitchen recently!
Read on for a life-changing book, the ultimate insider restaurant tip, a host of inspirational women, your next favourite podcast and the rest of Dina’s recommendations – they are *chef’s kiss*.
Bahari
AN ARTIST, DESIGNER OR CREATOR WHO INSPIRES YOU
Kamila Erkaboyeva! She’s a creator and through her work she’s the most amazing champion for Uzbekistan. Kamila has taught me so much about Uzbekistan and she’s just so passionate about what she does. She’s the sweetest person ever and what I love about her is that she’s always just trying to bring her culture to everything she does.
Image: Kamila Erkaboyeva | @artynumpty
Kamila moved from Uzbekistan to the UK when she was around 11 and had to try to adapt and live an English life. Now with her work she’s trying to get everyone to know where Uzbekistan is and what her culture is about. I’ve always tried to do the same with Oman, so I really appreciate everything she does for her country. She’s really immersed in it and she has so much to teach everyone. I just love what she creates and shares online about her country and culture.
ALL-TIME FAVOURITE ALBUM
I’m not the biggest music person but I’m really loving My 21st Century Blues by Raye, it’s amazing. I think I’m going to nominate her generally rather than just the album – she recently won SIX Brit awards which is just crazy.
I met Raye a very long time ago when I was working as a personal assistant for a singer. She was just at the beginning of her career and she just wanted to sing, to work, to write, to do it all.
She did this without a record label, she just did it all on her own because she didn’t want anyone to take away her identity. I just love that mentality because she was in control of her own narrative and she really showed that if you work hard, you can do anything.
In every song she makes, you can feel so much emotion and a lot of it is about her own personal life and she’s been through a lot. Incredible music by an incredible young woman doing great things.
A BOOK YOU CAN’T PUT DOWN
I either tend to barely read, or I go through phases where I read a lot, but I don’t tend to read novels. Having said that, one of my all-time favourite books is The Book of Joy by the Dalai Lama and Desmond Tutu. They go through the fundamental things which bring people joy and happiness and break it down and evaluate it, and there’s this fascinating dialogue between them about what brings us joy and how we view things in life.
There’s one section in particular which I think about a lot, which talks about bad things that happen in our lives and how, for instance if someone passes away, we always see that as a bad thing. But then they ask you to consider that actually, if that person hadn’t died, all these other things wouldn’t have happened, maybe even great things. The book looks at sadness and grief but also about what the sadness and the grief has brought you.
I also absolutely have to mention a cookbook that I’m in love with at the moment called Norteña. It’s about food in the north of Mexico by an incredible cook called Karla Zazueta who really shines a light on Mexican food, and it’s full of beautiful stories about her and her family and their life there. I recently went on a trip to Mexico and absolutely fell in love with the food, so this cookbook is the holy grail for me right now.
GO-TO PODCAST
My top podcast absolutely has to be Working Hard, Hardly Working by Grace Beverly. It’s mainly about business, life, and working. I really adore her because she’s young, she’s achieved a lot, and she’s just got such a great business ethic. She did come from a privileged background, as she always says, and she could have gone for an easy life but she’s really taken the high road and worked so, so hard.
The podcast has some really fascinating stories and for young women, I think she’s probably the best person to listen to right now. There’s so many other podcasts out there with people talking about business, about life, but because she is a young woman herself, I find her so inspiring to look up to and we’re almost always on the same wavelength. Grace has been through it all, she understands it all. I definitely recommend giving Working Hard a listen!
FAVOURITE DISH OR RESTAURANT
My restaurant choice is actually all the way in Mexico, in a place called Izamal. The restaurant is called Kinich and it was started about thirty years ago by a Mexican woman called Miriam Azcorra, who had left her hometown to study tourism at college in the main city called Mérida in the state of Yucatán. But she was from a really small village, and after her degree she ended up going back and her whole family told her, “Don’t come back, there’s nothing here for you, how will you build a future here?”. They didn’t believe her when she said she was going to open a restaurant.
And despite all that, she started this tiny restaurant in her village. She actually didn’t like cooking when she started out, but she was just so determined to get people to come and see her village. Three decades later, she has this incredible restaurant and it has loads of Mexican men and women working there who really know their food and their culture. Miriam is still the driving force behind it and has turned it into this amazing business, and I love that it’s all family-run with her daughter and everyone getting involved.
The restaurant is just so beautiful, and they’ve had people like Eva Mendes, Salma Hayek and George Clooney come visit, so it’s definitely very loved. So Miriam really has brought tourism to her village. People specifically now come to that town to see her and to go to her restaurant. We had the best Mexican food EVER when we were there.
Image: @kinichizamal
A SMALL BUSINESS MAKING WAVES
My favourite small business at the moment is a brand called Goly Natural. They’re based in Portsmouth and they specialise in sensitive skin. I first found them when my mum had a really bad reaction after Covid-19 and having the vaccine and ended up with an awful rash over her whole body. Doctors weren’t able to get it under control but Goly Naturals have all sorts of remedies and aim to get to the root cause of things and they really helped her! Their founder Estefania knows so much about health and skincare and which products are right for you and your particular concerns. Overall just an amazing brand – would highly recommend.
Image: @_goly.natural
FAVOURITE PLACE ON EARTH
Without a doubt, I’d have to say Oman, it’s just such a special place. One of my favourite places in Oman is Salalah, a beautiful town in the south within the governorate of Dhofar. It’s an incredible place with white beaches, and it’s coming up to monsoon season there now, so there will be amazing waterfalls too. I adore the camel meat you can get there, and just being in that gorgeous, bright blue sea, because it reminds me of Zanzibar! Oman in general is just a perfect, perfect place, the people are wonderful, so kind and hospitable, there’s amazing culture, and of course amazing food!
Salalah, Oman
WILD CARD
I don’t generally watch much TV but I do fly a lot and I love an in-flight movie! I saw a film while on a flight recently which just has to be my Wild Card as it’s really stuck with me. It’s called Past Lives and is abouttwo Koreans who were childhood friends. They grow up and drift apart and lead different lives; she moves to New York and gets married, and he stays in Seoul. In the film he goes to New York to find his long-lost love from when he was young. But they spent so much time together as children and the idea is that they’ve got a really powerful connection from their past lives.
The movie is based around this Korean phrase, ‘in-yun’, which is the idea that we all live many lives and that your interactions with people are driven by your meetings in past lives. As the lead explains it in the film, if a stranger accidentally touches you as they walk past, it means that you’ve had some kind of link with that person in a past life.
That phrase has really stuck with me because I just love the idea of deja-vu and thinking about our lives now, our lives before, our lives in the future and the connections between them. The concept really made me wonder, and parts of the film also made me think back to the Book of Joy!
Dina’s debut cookbook Bahari, released earlier this year, has already scooped multiple awards and propelled her to the No 1 spot of all books on Amazon! From breads and dips to show-stopping main courses and desserts, Bahari is a deliciously comprehensive deep-dive into Omani and Zanzibari cuisine. But far more than just a collection of recipes, it’s a love letter to Oman and Zanzibar. Packed with the stories behind the dishes, Dina uses Bahari to show just how much of our identity, heritage and community is woven through the food we eat. Get your hands on a copy here!
