Finding joy in Persian food after fleeing my homeland

Available for over a year

Atoosa Sepehr never spent any time in her mother's kitchen growing up in Iran. She focused on her studies and always knew she wanted a successful career. By her mid-twenties she was a high-flyer in the male-dominated steel industry. But at home she was stuck in an unhappy marriage. Overnight, she fled Iran to make a new life for herself in the United Kingdom. She turned to family recipes to stave off homesickness and found a new lease of life cooking the food from her home country. Joseph Dhafana was living in South Africa as a Zimbabwean refugee and down on his luck when he discovered he had a rare talent for detecting aromas in wine. He went on to take the wine-tasting world by storm and took the first all-black team to the World Blind Wine Tasting Championships. This interview was first broadcast in August 2022. Get in touch: outlook@bbc.com or WhatsApp +44 330 678 2707 (Photo: Atoosa Sepehr. Credit: Brian Kavanagh)