The community’s own food store

Nazuk Turdieva, the 30-year-old newlywed from Boden, has been a success on TV. She emerged as the winner of both SVT’s “Bäst i köket” and the long-running “Sveriges mästerkock” on TV4. Now she works with food full time, runs two businesses, and has a lot of projects going on.

Lisa Hansson lives in a nice and well renovated Älvsby house on Torpgärdan. She has been Nazuk’s friend for a long time and is now also a partner in their new joint company Niza, an event and conference company where they want to invite people to theme nights.

and offer conferences with “that little bit extra”. In addition to working with Niza, Lisa also has her own company and plays handball for Boden in the women’s Swedish league. We met the two entrepreneurs and heard about their future plans in Boden.

Nazuk sees Lisa’s bright, modern kitchen as her second pantry. This is where she records her inspiring cooking videos that are available on Youtube and Instagram. Despite her two wins on TV cooking shows, Nazuk doesn’t want to call herself a chef, choosing instead to call herself a cook. She corrects herself a few times as she tells us what’s going on, while stirring up a delicious noodle wok and the smells spread through the house.

– I work with food full-time now, and I hire myself out as a private chef, or private caterer, to those who want me to come and cook.

She runs her own company (Nazuk Turdieva AB) in addition to the company with Lisa. There she hires herself out as a cook for individuals or visits companies and cooks on site. She is also a recipe creator, coming up with new ideas for dishes and posting recipes on her Instagram(@nazukturdieva).

She also says, with a smile on her face, that it doesn’t feel like work, but more like one long vacation where she gets to do what she loves and has dreamed of. At the same time, she chops up a garlic and says that she hates garlic presses, “it just gets bitter and mushy,” she says.

LIVING IN CLOSE PROXIMITY TO COOKING

After his success, Nazuk has chosen to stay in Boden because of the good conditions here.

– We want to contribute to the development of Boden,” adds Lisa, who walks around the house and brushes her teeth while Nazuk cooks.

– Everything is here, I can cook with entirely local ingredients. I buy clothes and furniture locally, and the forest is close by when you need to relax. Everything you need is here, and it’s close to everything,” Nazuk continues.

NEWLYWEDS AND THE SUCCESS OF THE WEDDING

During a trip to Italy last year, Nazuk proposed to her Tobias. They were in a restaurant together and had prepared the staff for the proposal, and wanted to do this through food in some way because food is a big part of Nazuk’s life. When the dessert came in and the waiter lifted the bell, there was a gold ring on top of the pastry. Nazuk gently asked him to marry her, and the wedding was a huge success.

In July this year, the ‘big day’ finally arrived. In an otherwise very rainy month, the couple managed to squeeze in two days of glorious weather. Almost the entire top 12 from “Sveriges mästerkock” participated, along with a very moved and proud family. Nazuk shows us the video of the proposal in Italy and talks about the wedding euphorically, with tears in his eyes.

– It was so nice. And all the speeches made by the guests, it came out of Tobias’s eyes, who almost never cries. I would recommend anyone getting married to have a two-day wedding if they can, it was the most beautiful thing I have ever seen.

We also take the opportunity to ask what a master chef eats on a daily basis. It turns out that Tobias is not the kind of man who wants a high-class master chef’s dinner every day; on the contrary, he prefers home cooking.

– Sometimes he wants falukorv on weekends, so I put my foot down and say that we don’t eat falukorv on weekends. Even if my life is not so typical weekday-weekend, I still want to make it a bit more luxurious on the weekends,” Nazuk smiles.

FUTURE PLANS

The cookbook idea promoted during ‘Sweden’s Masterchef’, where Nazuk and her niece Milla cook together, is on hold for now. Other projects have had to take precedence. For example, Nazuk has been on tour this summer cooking for companies. The entire tour ended at Almedalen Week, where she cooked in Region Norrbotten’s tent on site. She says the calendar is full right up to Christmas, where she will be a guest chef and has written four-course menus that can be booked.

With a continued focus on developing his own business, and moving into the event and conference industry with Lisa, residents can expect to see a lot more of Nazuk. She is living her dream and the ideas are many, only the imagination (and time) is the limit for the young chef – or food storekeeper…

TEXT: ROBIN SÖDERLUND