Takeover: Chef Marie Mitchell
Caribbean recipes for the modern kitchen
From AJ:
This week I am so happy to be handing the newsletter over to Marie Mitchell. This is one of the takeovers I have enjoyed reading the most in the past few years we have been doing them.
I love Marie's writing. Poetic, measured, generous and connecting. I have dived into her recent book Kin, connecting with its stories, pictures and drawings with my whole heart in a way I rarely do with a cookbook. It’s a thing of great meaning and beauty in every way.
Sometimes I buy a cookbook for the recipes, sometimes the design or the photography (from Christan Cassiel - so so good), or often it’s the words. Rarely every element of a book is so good I would own it for each one alone. I suppose I should buy it four times. Which I will.
Thank you Marie for this book, for sharing the story of your, as you put it 'little south London family', with the world. The book has my heart. Thank you too for the recommendations you include today, they are so rich.
With love,
Anna
From Marie:
My cooking journey began as one of selfishness, an opportunity to know oneself, truly. I wanted to understand the nooks and nuances that we don’t always quite get about ourselves.
I lost my brother at the age of 23, but he had been sick since I was 9. Richard was hilarious, had a smile that reached the corners of the earth with charm to match. I was lost when he died. After spending my entire youth in awe of him, he was gone. His death was a catalyst for working in food, though it would take me another 6 years to take the leap. A trip to South America a year later saw me volunteering in Pisco, Peru at Pisco Sin Fronteras, a non-profit that was set up after the devastating earthquake there in 2007. It was here, as volunteers, you would sign yourself up for different projects; either building, teaching or cooking, that I got the taste for feeding people. I had hosted dinner parties, cooked for family, but cooking for 80 hungry strangers, who soon became friends, in a country where you spoke little of the language led me to being curious and creative with food. The produce available was incredible, flavourful and vibrant, and seeing the excitement of others faces when they saw I was on cooking duty that day excited me. The combination of food, and community drew me in.Â
The realities of living in London, and not having any professional cooking experience meant I came back to London and worked in fashion for the next few years, because it’s what I knew. After a stark realisation that this wasn’t cutting it, I quit that job, went back to nannying to cover the bills and met the most incredible family who mentored and nurtured me into taking a risk and diving into food.Â
I started with a supper club, Pop’s Kitchen, where my Mum would help me host, while my dad would help me in the kitchen, and I opted to focus on Caribbean food for me to learn more about my culture, and identity. Friends helped serve, ironed tea towels as napkins, booked tickets and then told their friends. This scary pipedream gained traction, and from Pop’s growth, I met my business partners (Joe and Biko/and) launched a united business by the name of Island Social Club. ISC went from supper clubs, pop ups and short residencies, to a year long residency in East London which saw us feed thousands of hungry Londoners rum and roti on the daily and was the chance to not only serve Caribbean food, but to build the community I had both longed for and dreamed of. The plan to crowdfund to open our own bricks and mortar site never materialised on account of the pandemic leading many in hospitality to pivot, me included. I spent a year writing a book proposal and landed a book deal, with my debut cookbook Kin, coming out last month to incredible excitement. It centres so much on the three reasons why I got into food: Caribbean heritage and identity, cooking and community.Â
Things to read
Small Worlds by Caleb Azumah Nelson for the prose, music and food
Vittles for recipes, incredible restaurant recommendations and writing
Dishoom by Shamil Thakrar, Kavi Thakrar and Naved Nasir as it’s still one of my all-time favourite cookbooks
Sweet Things by Benjamina Edeui
Motherland by Melissa Thompson for an incredible and comprehensive cookbook about where I refer to as ‘home’
And for inspiration and education on baking, as I have designs on a patisserie course in my future, Chloe-Rose Crabtree of Sourced and Bake Street, or for the most fun, and drool worthy food it’s Paris Rosina, she’s inventive, knowledge and uniquely her own.
Things to buy
I am obsessed with all things Labour and Wait, presently I’m dreaming of the German Kitchen Knife. I did a pop up in Berlin last year and used my friend’s kitchen for prep, she had a knife similar, and I found it a dream to chop with. I’ve been thinking about it since.
I vowed never to have an air fryer, I have a small kitchen and so I’m strict with what comes in, but Our Place’s wonder oven is so small and as always, beautiful, it has me yearning.
I’m busier with pop-ups and events at the moment, and so I’ve been searching for the perfect chef pants, as my beloved polka pants is on hiatus, so I’ve been spying Service Works, more traditional in design but looks very roomy and comfortable, two key things I need when I’m doing all that lifting and bending.
And the entire menu at Agora in Borough Market, I went recently and lost myself in how good it was.
Things to watch, listen to etc.
Lecker by Lucy Dearlove for intimate and varied food stories
The Bear on Disney, it’s intense, but season 2 really made me want to have a restaurant again…
Mashama Bailey’s chef table, I have watched this episode on repeat, I cried the first time I saw it, and it gets me almost every other time I’ve gone back to rewatch. Bring back Chef’s Table please!
