"My first cooking memory was as a four year old
mixing up fresh yeast for bread with my Mum. My Mum’s extraordinary creative skills have been my biggest influence – I
don’t put pearl barley in bony stews or grow all my own herbs and vegetables
but I do have a pretty bad leftover habit which in the main is a good thing but
(the redcurrant jelly leftover pulp and pips body scrub) can get out of hand. Somehow I followed a career in finance always
cooking for friends & family, always cooking at midnight always cooking
gifts of jams and chutneys until triggered by
personal loss the light bulb came on and I decided to follow my
dream.
My
first cooking memory is standing on a chair with a shiny blue apron (shiny was
big back then) and
mixing up fresh yeast to make whole meal bread with my Mum- I was four. Mum grew all manner of
vegetables
and herbs, scoured hedgerows for berries, woods for mushrooms and bottled and
canned everything in sight – she still does.
While my friends took white
“Sunblest” bread sandwiches to school, crisps and cola I had to endure the
embarrassment of eating my brown (“dirty”) sandwiches, dried apricots and
nuts. This sad packed lunch situation
pretty much summed up British food in the 1970s.
I was
taught to cook with a time line and a plan (after all Mum was a teacher of
professional chefs) but encouraged to experiment, to create and I was allowed
to fail (I’m still upset about my home made chocolate bar not setting age 10).
I was expected to cook a family meal once a week. I learnt how to cook with (precious)
leftovers and on a tiny budget when we had no money…which was quite often. Mum
took me along as her helper to cookery demonstrations at cold village halls where
we helped the Milk Marketing Board spread
the word about all nine British cheeses. She bought olive oil (“does she have
earache dear?”) in tiny vials from Boots the Chemist and she put wine not gravy
granules in beef stew.
Holidays
were always camping and always in France.
Mum, sporting an orange tie dyed headscarf and hoop earrings, would shop
at the gutsy open air markets (a revelation) not speaking a word of French but
chattering excitedly to all. Live crabs in Concarneau, drunken smelling melons
in Marseilles, giant stuffed tomatoes in Nice, moules in Quimper, sweet jambon in Biarritz
and huge never ending plateaux of fruits de mer with funny seaweed which we loved
to “pop” with our fingers, in St Jean de Luz and a cheese so rank and runny it
had a real live maggot crawling out of it – magic! We were expected to try wine
(with water) to develop our palates and I remember my little sister then age
two snoozing off after inhaling the vapours at the Martell plant happily.
As soon as
they could my parents sent me off exploring on holidays of my own. At thirteen
I spent an entire summer in the Basque country of Spain and I kept a diary of
what I ate: huge chunks of liver “that hung right over the plate”, fresh
sardines at the sardine fiesta “I ate seven but Ana managed eight”, cola mixed with red wine “we drank Kalimotxo
with Ignacio”, tuna and chick pea stew “Ana’s mum makes it in the morning so it
tastes better in the evening”, membrillo with cheese “I will make this when I
get home because its my favourite” , tortillas in bread “we took the omlettes
in bread up the mountain but they don’t put butter in the sandwiches” and fresh
crayfish “we caught quite a few but I was bitten by a fly and now my ankle is
swollen”. I still adore the hearty
honest flavours of Spanish food and yes I do indeed make my own membrillo.
The
following year I was sent to France and although it was more familiar I was
entranced with making the “fromage frais” every day with fresh milk on the
window sill and with the wine cellar of my French pen friend’s father. Her mother was thrilled because while her own
daughter was fussy and fickle I not only ate everything, including prunes, but I
helped in the kitchen and wrote down the recipes too. I can still taste the “epinards a la crème” the “riz au veau” and the “tarte aux pommes”
-there was no better introduction to French classical food (or French boys but
that is another story!)
Of boys I
was bored. I had plenty of them being the only girl at a Boy’s school between
the age of sixteen and eighteen. I had
wanted to study engineering at University and I was at a Girl’s school with
limited science compared to the results and good university places the Boy’s
enjoyed up the road. So I had petitioned
the local education authority, gone to visit them by bus and explained my
belief that I did not have an equal opportunity and could I go to the Boy’s
school please? It was around this time my lifelong battle with chronic
migraines started…entire days of pain and a brain so addled that at times it
was hard to speak let alone think. I put
on a brave face….still do.
At
University in London I spent way more time exploring food markets, esoteric
shops and cooking than I did attending lectures. I was busy discovering authentic
Italian delis (the taste of those sausages still alive in my mind today), Greek
shops in North London for taramasalata and vine leaves, Turkish kebab joints, the Chinese
supermarkets of SoHo , the curry houses and market of Brick Lane, “Little
Spain” where I could buy dried cod and eat little custard tarts and my
favourite Iranian shop with the fruit and veg impeccably arranged, polished and
freshened with water. I cooked for anybody and everybody that would eat my
food. My extravagances were a Le Creuset casserole dish and a copy of “Larousse Gastronomique” while I took great
pleasure in cooking delicious food from humble ingredients: chicken livers,
lentils, chick peas, pasta and tinned tomatoes featured heavily.
Having
graduated I started a serious career in a serious company for I was bright,
educated and expected to use my brain, make a contribution to society and
generally be sensible and responsible. I guess eldest children often are. I liked the competition, I liked commerce, I
liked my colleagues and I especially liked partner lunches (where I could
choose the restaurant…something that would consume me for days) but accountancy
bored me rigid. It was however a
fantastic chance to travel abroad and explore a part of the world that had
always fascinated and scared me: Eastern Europe. Maybe it was reading too many books on post
war history and the Cold War; “When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit”, “I Am David”,
“The Silver Sword” were well thumbed and then I precociously started on
Solhenitsyn’s Cancer Ward age 13 and so
it continued. I needed to get the whole
thing out of my system. I needed to go
and make a difference and so in 1994 there I was in Belarus: working for one of the Big Four Accounting
firms and starting to understand and unravel gaping cultural divides and
expectations.
I first visited Bucharest in a hot and dusty
June in 1994 while working in Kishinev and still remember trying to find
restaurants but settling for room service at the legendary (for all the wrong
reasons) “Hotel Bucuresti”. Still I
wasn’t escorted out of the premises for meeting clients in the lobby so that
had to be a good thing. And my colleague
and I found a retired trapeze artist named “Coco” whose commentary on our
relationships and what we were doing wrong was almost as entertaining as her
unorthodox exercise moves. My Romanian
teacher (a retired professor) shared blow by blow accounts of her trysts with
her four lovers. Bucharest was hot and steamy
and I was learning a lot but I was
eating revolting cardboard cheese sandwiches every day for lunch. And so I started visiting the food markets
and everything changed.
As I worked around the region, I was
privileged to work with some of the brightest and most open minded minds with a
hunger to learn and earn their right to play on an international playing
field. Never mind the deals, the
“firsts” in auditing regional banks to International Standards, the satisfied
clients and the overnighters pulled to finish a report, those pale into
insignificance compared to nurturing such talent. I have to pinch myself sometimes to believe
that I played a small part in opening doors (in fact almost being fired in the
process but that would have been a small price) so a sister could receive life
saving medical treatment in another country,
believing in a dream to attend Harvard Business School and watching it
come to fruition, clapping from the
sidelines as the first ACCA qualified
accountant from Moldova went on to a top US business school, visiting a girl
who dreamed about going to Wharton in Philadelphia and hearing how she did it
and many more.
But I was able
to do this and pass on the mentoring as I had the good fortune to work for and
then with in my own company an extraordinary person who was my best friend, my
mentor, my chief supporter and a rock. Geoff not only was one of the most
intellectually gifted people I met but he combined it with being kind and
kindness is not always in plentiful supply in the world of finance. He had a way of seeing things from 360
degrees, of being reasonable and being patient…very patient. In fifteen years of working together we never
had a fight merely “strong opinions” and he never said “I told you so” no
matter how many times I tripped up having failed to heed his counsel.
When I was
incapacitated in 2003 with a brain hemorrhage that I was lucky to survive it
was Geoff who managed the recovery.
While I fought inner demons of feeling as if I had let people down and
left my colleagues unsupported he
stepped in and highlighted what a stroke of management genius it was giving
them all so much responsibility. While I
fought the frustration of being physically unable to walk far, sleeping and
sleeping so much it was incredible, not reading, not listening to music
and much less use a computer he joked
how many people would love to have the opportunity to be so lazy - himself
included. I know now that he spoke to
family and friends and that together they “plotted” how to support the
unwilling patient make a recovery. Recover
I did with only mild side effects, ironically one being the inability to stand
the sound of glasses clinking!
I had
always been interested in healthy food and natural food but after this episode
I started to see food as a way to nurture, love and recover yourself. I started to listen to my body and is it a
coincidence that I love eating fats and the brain is 60% fat? Who knows but I
do believe in a few fundamentals and these shape how I cook: Good food rebuilds
us, Nutrient rich food fuels us, Favourite foods make us happy, Sharing food
creates memories and Cooking is an act of love.
By this
time I was living and working in Istanbul a city that oozes food and
hospitality at every labyrinthine turn. Turkish food is rich, varied and
extraordinary. Turkish people are a food
obsessed nation in all the right ways: recipes are guarded jealously, regional
dishes dominate and there is no tolerance for second rate food. From the smallest street car serving rice and
chick peas, to the “durum” stall to the artichoke man cleaning artichokes and
serving them in small bags of acidulated water
(is that not civilized?) to the “kokorec” stalls to the “meyhane” to the
freshest fish caught in the Bosphorous to the pudding shops to the patisseries
and the hand made “yufka” paper thin pastry to the spice bazars the nuts and
the dried fruits …this list could go on and on forever. The kilos I gained are testament to some of
the most wonderful food I have eaten in my life.
And so I returned
to Bucharest and to finance. I was always cooking for friends, making jam at
midnight in my hectic life and baking cakes for special occasions for
people. Many times my friends asked why
I didn’t do something in food and I never took them seriously or considered the
idea…follow what you do obsessively as a hobby full time? what kind of mad idea
was that? Finally, prompted by one of
those friends emailing others about my bread and being forced suddenly to make
thirteen loaves of bread one Saturday morning, on a whim I decided to start
baking every Saturday and to see if people would come and buy the stuff. And they did!
Although it was an exhausting rush and I would often go to the market
myself and carry back heavy bags of all kinds of great things I loved it.
Geoff
encouraged me every step of the way and one day he was able to come to one of
my Saturday bakes and afternoon teas and was able to see for himself what I was
doing. And then a couple of weeks after that he died. Just like that…he was gone. My life as it was crumbled apart. But he had only been a positive influence in
my life so I gave thanks I had known him and thought about what to do. Life was short as had been painfully
demonstrated to me and we only have one.
I decided to try and follow my dream.
And so I
managed to extricate myself and handover the financial consulting business to
people way more capable than me and I set up a restaurant. The first location was a disaster. I had
lovely and wonderful reviews but nobody could find the place. What a painful lesson that was. It was with a heavy heart I closed it and
thought I had lost my dream. I felt
terrible. But slowly that flame or that streak of craziness burned again and I
was able to find a new and better location and importantly work again with some
of my original team. The administrative
burden is heavy on small start ups and sometimes I felt swamped and wanted to give up but something inside me
kept going…insanity…stubbornness…who knows what? So here I am…serving home made
food, creating new recipes, making everything from scratch, using local
ingredients in different ways and making Romanian ingredients “sexy” – for this
is a country rich in heavenly produce . And when I see smiles on people’s faces
or receive a “thank you” its all worth it."
Now that you know Rachel's story, go and visit her kingdom on Putul lui Zamfir 15. You must try all her mouthwatering recipes!