Style Crush: Shelina Permalloo

Ahh Shelina, the woman with the sunshine smile.  Her very face conjures up a beautiful sun drenched beach festooned with palm trees.  Her eyes sparkle, her skin glows and she radiates warmth and cheer.  From the very first moment I saw her on Masterchef back in 2012 I was smitten.  Her food is vibrant, zingy, aromatic and it literally oozes sunshine being inspired heavily by her Mauritius heritage. Fittingly her first book is called 'Sunshine on a Plate'.  Take a look at this video, she looks great, she sounds great and her food looks knockout ...

It's no great surprise that Shelina - the name alone make me want to victory punch the air - went on to win Masterchef that year and has never looked back which is good news for all of us.  Shelina opened a Mauritian street kitchen down in Southampton last year, Lakaz Maman (Mum's House in Creole) and the dishes on offer look every bit as mouth wateringly beautiful as you'd expect.  Crispy coconut prawns?  yes please! Sticky corn pops with tamarind and chilli?  Rude not to! Deep fried pineapple with salted caramel?  Does Gregg Wallace like a dessert? So many delicious things to choose from.  Unfortunately I don't live in Southampton, boo! but I do live in London, hurrah! and the fast train from Waterloo to London only takes 1 hour and 14 minutes.  I could squeeze that in between school hours right?!

As well as being an all round ray of sunshine and provider of totally tropically taste she's got sartorial style in buckets.  Last night's Masterchef was testament to that, not many people can don a headscarf without looking like Hilda Ogden (RIP), but Shelina OWNED it and offset the look with some big chunky gold curb link earrings.  The colour of her lipstick sat somewhere between pink and mauve and if you look carefully at her headscarf you can see that it is a very near match to what is (presumably, it's a little difficult to tell) part of the floral pattern.  Everything below the neck was kept simple which is perfect when you've got a lot going on up top.  I can't ever recall seeing a picture of Shelina where she doesn't look good and a lot of that is, in my opinion, down to confidence - it just shines out of her and you can't get more attractive than that.

I mean, come on! Tell me you don't want this woman cooking dinner for you?

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