Madhur Jaffrey

Madhur Jaffrey
Madhur Jaffrey at a book signing in Vancouver in October 2010
Native name	मधुर जाफ़री
Born	Madhur Bahadur (1933-08-13) 13 August 1933 (age 83) Civil Lines, Delhi, British India
Residence	New York City, US London, UK
Education	Miranda House BA English, 1953 Royal Academy of Dramatic Art Acting Diploma with Honours, 1957
Height	5'2" (158 cm)
Spouse(s)	Saeed Jaffrey (1958–1966) Sanford Allen (1969-present)
Children	Zia Jaffrey (b. 1959) Meera Jaffrey (b. 1960) Sakina Jaffrey (b. 1962)
Website	www.madhur-jaffrey.com
Culinary career
Cooking style	Indian
Current restaurant(s) Dawat, New York City (1986 to present)
Television show(s) Madhur Jaffrey's Indian Cookery (1982), Far Eastern Cookery (1989), Listening To Volcanoes (1990), From Manna to Microwave (1990), Madhur Jaffrey’s Flavours of India (1995), Friends for Dinner (2001), Ready, Steady Cook (2001), Cooking Live (2001)
Award(s) won James Beard Foundation Award * 2006 Cookbook Hall of Fame An Invitation to Indian Cooking * 2004 International Cookbook From Curries to Kebabs * 2002 International Cookbook Madhur Jaffrey's Step-by-Step Cooking * 2000 International Cookbook Madhur Jaffrey’s World Vegetarian * 1994 Cookbook of the Year Madhur Jaffrey’s A Taste of the Far East * 1994 International Cookbook Madhur Jaffrey’s A Taste of the Far East Guild of Food Writers Award * 2004 Cookery Book of the Year The Curry Bible * 1999 Cookery Book of the Year Madhur Jaffrey’s World Vegetarian International Association of Culinary Professionals Bert Greene Award * 2003 Best Food Journalism in a Magazine Passage to Pakistan, Saveur New York Women in Film & Television Muse Award * 2000 Outstanding Vision and Achievement Governor's New York State Division of Women Award for Excellence 1999 Food Arts magazine Silver Spoon Award 1998 Taraknath Das Foundation Award 1993

Madhur Jaffrey, CBE (born Bahadur, 13 August 1933) is an Indian-born actress, food and travel writer, and television personality. She is recognized for bringing Indian cuisine to the Western world with her debut cookbook, An Invitation to Indian Cooking (1973), which was inducted into the James Beard Foundation’s Cookbook Hall of Fame in 2006. She has written over a dozen cookbooks and appeared on several related television programs, the most notable of which was Madhur Jaffrey's Indian Cookery, which premiered in the UK in 1982. She is the food consultant at Dawat, considered by many food critics to be among the best Indian restaurants in New York City.

She played an instrumental part in bringing together film makers James Ivory and Ismail Merchant and acted in several of their films such as Shakespeare Wallah (1965), for which she won the Silver Bear for Best Actress award at the 15th Berlin International Film Festival. She has appeared in dramas on radio, stage and television.

In 2004 she was named an honorary Commander of the Order of the British Empire in recognition of her services to cultural relations between the United Kingdom, India and the United States, through her achievements in film, television and cookery.

Her childhood memoir of India during the final years of the British Raj, Climbing the Mango Trees, was published in 2006.

Madhur Jaffrey was born Madhur Bahadur on 13 August 1933 in Civil Lines, Delhi, into a Kayastha Hindu joint family. She is the fifth of six children of Lala Raj Bans Bahadur (1899–1974) and his wife, Kashmiran Rani (1903–1971). Madhur's grandfather, Rai Bahadur Raj Narain (1864–1950), had built a sprawling family compound, named Number 7 Raj Narain Marg, by the Yamuna river amid fruit orchards.