How Remi Idowu’s Cookbook ‘Sugar & Spice’ Blends Cultures, Recipes, and Storytelling Through Food

Born in the United Kingdom 25 years ago to a Ghanaian mother and a Nigerian father, Idowu has spent most of her life enthralled by different types of food, watching her mother add twists and spices to dishes. Recently named one of Forbes' 30 under 30, Idowu is set to release her first cookbook,Sugar & Spice, on Thursday, July 3, 2025. One of the most important aspects for her is the element of adding "immigrant twists to classics."

"I found that I learned how to cook different cultures' food by having takeaways. But when I think of food, I think of it as my mum cooking for me," she tells OkayAfrica, "My mum's never going to make me a typical British pie. She can throw things together, and I'd be like, 'What is that you're throwing in?' That's how I learned."

Growing up in England as a second-generation immigrant, Idowu has since come to realize that there is a niche, often overlooked market for food that caters to the African diaspora caught between two worlds. According to her, second and third-generation African immigrants who grew up substituting ingredients to make their traditional meals have a different taste palette that should be duly accommodated.

She is not isolated in her experience of receiving backlash for the way she prepared an African meal. In 2022, Nigerian American Onyi Udeh was criticized for cooking Nigerian beef stew, posted on BuzzFeed Food, the "wrong way."

"I think something that people forget is that when you're an immigrant child, and you're a second generation or third generation, the definition of African food is different. Because I've seen it made by my mom, I can only do what I can do," says Idowu.

This belief in doing her best has guided her throughout her journey. She began by experimenting with baking while attending university, transitioned to becoming a recipe developer while working full-time as a software developer, and then two years ago, she left her job as a project manager to pursue a career as a full-time food content creator.

She's always had a passion for food since she was a little girl, spending her days glued to the TV watching the Food Network. With the recipes and tips she learned from the channel, she became the only one in her family who could bake and the go-to person for pastries and desserts for family get-togethers.

"As an African child, you have to know how to cook. It's like a mandatory thing," she says. "But baking was kind of like a new thing in my family. None of my family baked, but I was curious about it. So I used to spend all my time watching TV, just learning about baking."

Eventually, her sisters encouraged her to start an Instagram page, and she launched Bakes by Remi, a small online business where she sold cookies and brownies - until the COVID-19 pandemic. After about a six-month hiatus due to the lockdown, she rebranded her business but continued to sell baked goods.

However, the real change came when she posted an Instagram reel of her cooking, and her followers requested recipes. She recorded and posted the recipe tutorials, noticing that they gained more traction, which is how Food by Remi began.

"I did a video that didn't get loads of likes or views, but it got loads of saves. Which meant that if people were saving it, they would come back to the recipe to make it," she says. "Then I was like, 'I'm just gonna keep posting in my spare time while I'm working my full-time job.' And it's grown from there into now becoming my full-time job."

In the past five years, Idowu has been introducing her blend of Ghanaian, Nigerian, and British recipes to an online audience of over a million followers across Instagram and TikTok.

Explaining why food tourism is an integral part of culinary development, Idowu says it was part of her inspiration for writing a cookbook that reflects her lived experience of multiple cultures and diverse food from around the world.

"I love being able to combine different cultures to make a dish a bit better. The best way to open your palette is to see and try the food from where it's from because then, you know it's been made properly," she says, "Whenever I travel, I like to take at least one cooking class over there to see how they do things, and how I can make my cooking a bit better."

According to her, writing Sugar & Spice has made her a better chef, cook, and baker. But she doesn't regard herself as a fine dining chef because it would be restrictive to her everyday cook persona. She says food should be accessible to anybody in a tasty way they would appreciate, without fancy wording. While it was an exciting achievement for her cookbook to be picked up by Ebury (Penguin Random House), writing it was the most crucial part because it enlightened her.

"I think it's so important that when people think of their traditional food, it's different for everybody. It made me realize that everyone's interpretation of what a certain dish should look like is different," Idowu explains. "My Ghanaian side of the family will say there's a way jollof rice should look. My Nigerian side of the family will say otherwise. And none of them are right or wrong. It's just people's opinion."

Sugar & Spice reflects these differences and combines them. The 85 recipes featured in the cookbook are a cross between the sweetness of certain European desserts and the spiciness of some African dishes.

"I wanted a cookbook for someone who has friends coming over. What's for dinner? What's for dessert? You don't have to go through six different books to find that. I wanted it to be one book together," she says, "The Childhood chapter was really important to me because I developed it with my mum. And it's just West African recipes that I grew up eating that I wanted to help other generations be able to make easily at home."