Sitting down with Fehmida Jordaan, better known as Fehmz, is, excuse the cliché, like catching up with an old friend. We’ve been in touch online for a couple of years but had never met in person, and yet she is exactly as she appears on her hugely popular Instagram account: funny, smart and incredibly friendly.
We’ve met to dive into her gorgeous new cookbook, Damn Good Food (Jonathan Ball), billed as “fool-proof recipes that bring joy to everyday cooking”. Inside, you’ll find chapters like “Crunchy Surprises”, packed with inventive takes on chips and biscuits; “Family Treasures”, a celebration of Fehmz’s rich cultural heritage through authentic recipes; and “Fakeaways”, the kind of crave-worthy dishes that might just have you deleting your delivery apps in favour of homemade options like loaded fries.
Damn right!
The recipes range from the incredibly simple, like the Zoo Biscuit ice box cake, a deliriously colourful, easy-peasy ice cream cake, to medium-level dishes such as prawn coconut curry, Nani’s mutton akhni, and a whole array of aromatic pastes to cook with later.
Bursting with flavour and splashed in fuchsia pink and sunny yellow, the book is a vibrant, feel-good collection and an absolute no-brainer for festive-season gifting. Describing the book’s deliciously maximalist design, Fehmz puts it simply: “This is not a less-is-more book. This is a more book, more colour, more pictures, more everything.”
And the book’s somewhat provocative title, Damn Good Food? “I wanted somebody to see this on a shelf and walk past and go, ‘Wait a minute, did she just say … damn?’” Fehmz explains. “Yes. I did just say Damn Good Food. And yes, it’s all damn good food inside.”
The book’s debut caused somewhat of a storm on social media and then, in the “real world”, launches were booked up, followers flocked to buy it, and the dynamo spent weeks zigzagging across the country meeting fans and signing copies.
From Lenz to bestseller lists
That said, it’s clear that despite her fame and success, Fehmz’s feet are firmly on the ground. Family (her husband, kids, parents and siblings) remains incredibly important to her. Growing up in Lenasia in a Muslim family, she speaks fondly of the role food, family, heritage and faith have played in shaping her life.
Her mother Fatima’s influence was particularly significant. She always said the kitchen is the heart of the home, and Fehmz has vivid memories of sitting at the kitchen table with her, folding samoosas and talking about life and love.
Having been unable to go to school past grade 6, her mother found her education in magazines. “My mom would devour magazines, cut out every recipe and every motivational quote. By the time she was done, no magazine was left,” Fehmz recalls.
But her lessons went far beyond collecting. “She taught us to try the recipes, to fiddle with them, to scratch out what didn’t work. She even gave us hardcover books to write down the recipes that actually worked.”
The entrepreneur emerges
Who would have imagined that a long-time passion for food would lead to a career as an influencer with more than 300,000 followers and now a bestseller?
Trained as an interior designer and having worked in exhibition design, Fehmz initially posted her baking experiments on Instagram just for fun. The breakthrough came when she flipped the camera, showing the cooking process instead of just the finished dishes. She began talking directly to the camera, explaining recipes step by step, and her major viral moment came in 2021 with a San Sebastian Basque cheesecake video. Her audience loved it.
Her success is anything but accidental; it’s built on hard work, heart and an innate entrepreneurial spirit. She credits much of that drive to her upbringing, particularly her father. “My dad was a businessman, and I think it gets into your blood. His attitude was always: if there’s an opportunity, you say yes, and then you figure it out afterwards.”
That mindset carried into Fehmz’s own ventures. In 2017, she founded the Halaal Goods Market in Joburg after noticing the lack of diverse Halaal options at local markets. It quickly grew into a platform designed to support local entrepreneurs and showcase a rich variety of Halaal cuisine.
Her entrepreneurial streak didn’t stop there. Fehmz Mocktails began simply as something she loved doing, long before the mocktail trend took off. Spotting a niche, she entered the space in 2011, turning fun weekend workshops into a small-batch artisanal bottled range with flavours like fireball, passion hurricane and pina colada.
Making it personal
While Fhemz’s entrepreneurial drive is strong, she firmly believes that personal convictions and faith should guide one’s actions, even if that means facing financial repercussions or professional setbacks, including turning down brand deals. She has been vocal and active about the humanitarian crisis in Gaza and Palestine. “It’s lost me brand deals and viewers, and I don’t care. Principles over bills. At some point, you’ve got to put your principles first.”
We wrap up our chat with some just-for-fun rapid-fire questions, and she answers in her chatty and down-to-earth way. It’s a yes to pineapple on pizza, a constant supply of chilli paste in her fridge and condensed milk in her pantry. Add in a guilty love for trashy reality TV while she cooks, and it’s impossible not to root for Fehmz.
As she continues to grow her ventures and share her love of food with the world, one thing remains constant: her fearless creativity and unwavering commitment to her values. Whatever she cooks up next, it’s bound to be compelling and very, very delicious.
Get ‘Damn Good Food’ from good booksellers and online at Fhemz.com, priced from R420. Check her out on Instagram, TikTok and YouTube. Also see Halaal Market Goods and Fehmz Mocktails.
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Images: Supplied.
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