Anjum Anand is cooking up a spicy career

Her story reads like a foodie version of Bend It Like Beckham: London girl grows up dreaming of becoming a cook but her traditional Indian parents want her to study hard and marry a nice boy. She marries the nice boy but also winds up kicking goals with seven cookbooks (with another on the way), two television series and her own line of authentic Indian curry sauces, The Spice Tailor.

It all began with too much cheese and chocolate. Although born in Britain, when Anjum Anand was four her family moved to Geneva, Switzerland. "Growing up I was always overweight. It wasn't because of [my mother's] cooking. We ate well but I ate a lot of junk. If we had a hamburger there would be a hamburger, and fries, and a milkshake, oh, and dessert."

Ten years later she moved back with her family to North London. After high school she continued living with her parents while studying European business administration, with languages. But at the end of her course she found herself at a career crossroads.

"I was spending more and more time in the kitchen cooking for myself and [realised] this was something that I do enjoy. I thought: I don't have any financial burdens, I didn't have a mortgage, I was living at home. I thought, this was the time to make that career change and see where it goes before it gets too late."

Her parents were "really disappointed" but she didn't stop working and cooked only in her spare time, writing up her mother Santosh's recipes as she went, but tweaking them to make them lighter and easier to make. In her mind she was preserving her family's culinary heritage in case she had children of her own. Her parents looked on, expecting to "pick up the pieces" later.

"When my first book [Indian Every Day: Light, Healthy Indian Food] got published, that's the turning point when they thought, 'Oh,OK'. I joke about it but I'm sure it's true that my mother walked around with my book in her handbag, so whenever she met any friends and they asked she'd go, 'This is my daughter. Look, she's an author!'"

Which is not to say it was a cinch to get published. She received 30 rejections from publishers before hitting it off with an agent who recognised her talent.

"I didn't have a profile but I had a story and the story was that I was really quite overweight and then I lost weight cooking my mum's food and making it healthy. But it was a genuine story and I think publishers liked that."

The book led to her first appearance on live television but she wasn't an instant hit, feeling self-conscious in front of the cameras. By the time her next chance came along she was married, pregnant with her first child and due to give birth in three weeks.

"I had these pregnancy hormones, there was something so momentous going on in my life that I just didn't care about the camera ... That changed a lot because I got very comfortable and I was myself. After that I did a lot more telly."

Cut to today and Anand has long shaken off her early moniker as "the Indian Nigella" and finds herself recognised in the street "fairly regularly". The mother of two (daughter Mahi, eight, and son Adi, four) has been to Australia three times already, including on her honeymoon with husband Adarsh, and is looking forward to visiting again when she appears at the Melbourne Food and Wine Festival.

Her favourite Indian restaurants in Melbourne are Tonka and Horn Please. "When I come it's such a quick trip I don't get to try every [restaurant] but I always eat very well. You're very lucky in Melbourne, I have to say."

- Anjum Anand's flatbreads workshop tomorrow at the Melbourne Food and Wine Festival Artisan Bakery & Bar in Queensbridge Square has sold out.