Willkommen! And bienvenue! Welcome, encore!
We’re kicking off the year with another of Rebecca’s stories, on this, the most amourous of days. I must admit, not only did it make me miss her, it also made me cry; but alas, I also cried at Toy Story 2 so it doesn’t take much. It needn't be reiterated, as we’re all sick of talking about it, but… it’s a turbulent time, and I spend large chunks of my day reminding myself it’s OK TO CRY* in a global pandemic. Of course, as we all knew, the ushering in of the new year hasn’t changed the situation much. However, I hope you have managed to find some kind of grounding force over the past few months. Getting back into Marigold, I think, might be one for me, and I’m stoked to be here introducing the first issue of the year.
I can’t help but reflect on my own situation after reading Rebecca’s story. At present, I’m living in a foreign land with foreign people - working for a organisation aiding exiles in Calais. My eating habits, much like the protagonist of the story, have been thrown into disarray. My diet mainly consists of stale pastries, black coffee and free food served at the warehouse canteen (‘curry’, lumpy rice), usually eaten at an ungodly hour.
However, in the ‘free food box’ at work the other day there happened to be some plantains, and I jumped at the opportunity to greedily take six back to my caravan. My plan - to simply fry them, and eat with the last of my homemade scotch bonnet hot sauce, which I made last year. While I silently fried, my confused looking French housemates watched on asking “why are you frying bananas?” and “qu'est-ce qu'un ‘plantain’?” They also spent a large amount of time freaking out regarding the heat level of the hot sauce (honestly French people, I love you, but when it comes to heat - can you grow up?). In that moment I felt connected to London, and the past. Frying plantains (in a way that I had been taught to by someone special), paired with the hot sauce which I fermented in my old flat in Hackney, made me feel a little more grounded, and since this meal I’ve slowly managed to re-incorporate old habits into this strange new environment. I hope Rebecca’s story inspires you to rediscover food, and lovingly prepare it for yourself, a friend, or lover. That, and as a reminder to take time to smell flowers. Indulge, it’s International Love Day.
Beaucoup d'amour,
Emily and The Marigolds
❤️ ❤️ ❤️
Cardamom Chocolate mousse
Recipe J. McLean
When challenged to think of a recipe for this love themed edition we all instantly thought chocolate, a cliche but true. Initially I was going to use Bex’s grandma’s chocolate cake recipe but it turns out that the last time anyone made it rationing was still going on, so suffice to say it needs a bit of work to get to a sufficiently indulgent stage. Talk of indulgence led me then to chocolate mousse, a staple of my life since the days of eating a 4 pack supermarket own brand whilst stoned, using the lid top as a spoon. I have been making this Elizabeth David Chocolate Mousse since that teenage indulgence to complete success every time. It’s foolproof. For the sake of research I tried several other recipes and, while by no means bad, none matched up to the simplicity and fluff of hers. Anyone can make this in 5 minutes, bar the setting time, the original has 3 ingredients and it is always excellent. I’ve added cardamom and coffee but Gran Marnier and orange zest for a Terry’s Chocolate Orange twist would be equally delicious. Jooj it up to your preference or leave them out all together and just go for purity; chocolate, eggs, sugar.
For 2
2 large eggs, 2 oz. dark chocolate, 1 tsp caster sugar (honey or maple syrup would also work), ½ black cardamom pod – seeds only, 1 tbsp espresso (the stronger the better), pinch salt.
With all these ingredients I would recommend getting the nicest you can – there are after all only 3 main ingredients so you really notice the difference.
Crush the seeds of the cardamom and add to the hot coffee to steep.
Melt your chocolate in a bowl over simmering water, don’t let the bowl touch the water otherwise the chocolate can burn.Set aside and let cool slightly.
Meanwhile separate the eggs, then whisk the yolks, sugar and salt into the slightly cooled chocolate. Add the coffee and cardamom brew. This will take a while to incorporate and can look a bit coagulated at first – just go slow and whisk together gently till it all becomes a shiny thick consistency.
Set aside and whisk your egg whites to stiff glossy peaks.
Combine a third into the chocolate mixture. Fold through but you don’t have to be too gentle – this is just to get it to a better consistency to fold the rest in.
Fold the rest of the egg whites in super gently. Take your time to ensure no white spots.
Pour into moulds, espresso cups, bowls (whatever you want to serve it in) and chill in the fridge for at least 2 hours. This same method also works if you want to scale up and chill in a large bowl to serve in scoops but will take longer to set than if you do it in little cups.
Scale up using the ratio 1 egg to 1 oz chocolate to ½ tsp sugar till you reach however much you want to make.
❤️ ❤️ ❤️
❤️ ❤️ ❤️
The Queen of the Night
Words R. Townrow
A big thank you to Joe Kirton for his illustrations this week, he’s part of a home furnishing duo Selfish, check them out here.
I was Head Chef of a small but well-oiled kitchen when a new deadly flu first made headlines. Initial reports suggested the virus wouldn't hamper western life, but two months after the first case in China, admissions to hospitals with similar symptoms were recorded on British soil. A messy government policy of ‘Keep calm and carry on’ allowed cases to skyrocket. In a matter of weeks, a national lockdown was enforced, non-essential businesses were told to stop trading. Restaurants had to shut their doors and cease service. My last carefree social interaction came after we bid farewell to the final guests and closed shop indefinitely. Cuts of short rib, oysters and expensive wine would spoil if left uneaten, so the whole team feasted. I imagined us as soldiers, one last banquet before we marched at dawn.
The war did come, but for many it was not a frenetic and bodily experience. Instead overworked staff made brutal decisions inside sanitised and sealed hospital wards. The rest of us were told to wash, cover our mouths and hands, distance and stay inside. Extreme measures to ward off this new respiratory infection. My studio flat no longer seemed like a nest of tranquillity but an empty chamber, and I began to miss grubby ex-housemates. The absence of company gave me time to ponder my own shortcomings and I dived into the glow of my laptop screen, watching endless makeup and recipe tutorials, a cyber salve. When friends and family called I summoned some strength and smiled my way through conversations. Then, crumpling into a pile when the line went dead, I would watch the colour of the day change through the gauze of my thin blinds.
After six months restrictions were partially lifted, I was asked to return to the kitchen. I found the concept overwhelming and feigned a drawn out recovery from the virus itself, looking up symptoms online and cobbling them together into a depressing malady. I started to leave the house but only at night; walking long distances in a pair of ratty running shoes, avoiding eye contact and jumping into the road if I felt a passerby had come too close. Two months into my new routine I received a phone call from my boss, the restaurant had been hit hard financially by the pandemic and was changing the menu. Now serving luxury burgers and skinny cut chips they felt my skill set ‘could be put to better use in a different kitchen’ and I was let go with a two-month severance pay package.
Months of reduced salary and now redundancy forced me to take stock. I hadn’t looked in the mirror for weeks but when I did I let out an audible gasp. My cheeks had hollowed, my roots had grown to my ears and a once straight fringe sat in clumps at the side of my face. I took myself to the hairdresser, bought a thick concealer for the heavy grey circles under my eyes and phoned my old sous chef who now worked in the office of a large catering company. The onset of summer and a dwindling economy meant small weddings were now allowed to take place. Their event calendar was full and pleased to hear from me, they booked me in for a job the next weekend.
Severely out of practice and worried I could no longer hold a knife I dressed and shuffled to the corner shop where I chose chicken, vegetables, eggs, citrus and a bag of flour. On my return to the flat I looked at the kitchen and trembled, a wave of nausea passed through me. I pulled together the confidence to make something. Shaking at first, I clenched my teeth forcing myself to work. I started with the chicken, rubbing olive oil and salt into the skin, the closest act to intimacy I had come to in months.
With the chicken roasting in the oven I made a mix of flour, yeast and honey and set the bowl aside. Now committed to the task, I took eggs and made aioli. I drank from an old bottle of wine I found under the sink as I worked and the anxiety that had rattled in me for months dulled. With the chicken out the oven I made pittas, enjoying the soft thud as I placed them onto a rack to cool. I took a lettuce, tore its leaves into a bowl and juiced a lemon over them. I pulled chunks from the chicken and folded it into the aioli and with the lettuce I scooped it into the bread. Intoxicated by the smell of something fresh and the thrill of decisive execution of a task, I inhaled two halves and passed out on the sofa.
In the morning, still in yesterday’s clothes, I made strong coffee on the hob and picked the meat from the chicken, submerging the carcass in water for broth. While this bubbled, I made a sign for my window, ‘free lunch’, pasted it text side out and placed a plate of pitas on my windowsill. I had my back turned, facing into the kitchen, but every so often I would hear chatter and someone would shout out a ‘thanks’. Now early summer, the sunshine paired with the proximity of people was an unbalancing intoxicant. I buried this feeling and pressed on with making noodles for a soup.
The next week passed much in the same way. I would rise from the nest I had made on the sofa and create a sign for the window. As my confidence grew, so did the human interaction. Soup and noodles couldn’t be served on a plate and so I was forced to recycle hummus pots and ice cream tubs as receptacles. My sign now said ‘knock glass for free noodle soup’. I kept sunglasses on all day and passed out boxes wearing Marigolds with minimal speech. When the weekend came I left the house, muttering affirmations to myself. I held it together just long enough that, from behind my mask and with minimal eye contact, I managed to complete my shifts at a countryside wedding. Thankfully in a post pandemic world, lack of staff interaction was required and I carried out my prep and then service with my back to the room. I was given a summer contract.
As a catering Chef I would generally spend my weekends boarding a Thursday morning coach with a team of mismatched faces. Unbothered by discussing where I was from or how I’d started cooking, I’d carefully select a seat near the back and arrange myself in a wide legged unapproachable manner. Upon arrival at a stately home or vast country pile, I would get my head down and attend to food prep. We cooked all day Friday, ran service throughout Saturday, stayed Sunday night and would return to the City early on Monday morning.
I began to enjoy the change of scenery as we left the congestion and overcrowding and hedgerows and birdsong replaced streetlamps, but human interaction still evaded me. I found it hard being in the same room as strangers, my mind wandered to where they’d been or who they’d touched. I didn’t see humans with interests and personalities any more, colleagues were simply carriers of an invisible disease. After shifts I scrubbed my skin until it bled. At work though the heat was unbearable I wore long sleeve polo necks and a pair of glasses without prescription, a final defence against microbes attacking the thin membrane of my eyes.
By the equinox, the summer season was coming to a halt, work had become more sporadic and I had decided to take a new job as a private chef to a city worker who spent long hours in the office. My final shift fell on the last weekend of September. It was still warm at midnight when, in high spirits and a blush in her cheeks, the bride of the party came down to the kitchen to tell us to help ourselves to the Champagne store.
Instead of heading straight for bed, which was my usual ritual, I chose to indulge in the end of summer warmth. The changing room backed onto a rolling lawn, I stepped out to the echoes of partygoers and the exuberant chatter of my fellow staff pleased to be finished for the weekend. My plan had been to find a solitary glass of Champagne and toast my last shift, but I found a case abandoned and decided a bottle might be more appropriate. With a sleeve pulled over my hand I took a bottle, rubbing it against the turf and my trouser leg to rid it of any trace of virus. In front of me a small gravel path led to an archway hung with perfumed end of season roses and honeysuckle. I decided to follow it, and find somewhere quiet to sit. The path came to an end at a walled area, where a large ornate glasshouse sat. The door was cracked open, revealing a lush interior lit by the glow of festoon bulbs.
I moved inside where the planting was in a Mediterranean style, citrus and olives trees and pots of fragrant herbs. A large table sat in the middle of the space laid with empty teacups, champagne flutes and half eaten plates of cakes and sandwiches, remnants of the afternoons wedding festivities.
‘Hello?’ a voice said
I froze, a woman moved into eyesight wearing what looked like white cotton pyjamas with the day’s make up still on her face.
‘Are you a wedding guest?’ I shook my head.
‘Oh you must be kitchen staff’, she answered for me, ‘I’m Jyoti, this is my Uncle's house, I’m so sorry I’m not dressed properly, I was just getting ready for bed when I remembered the Queen of the Night’.
She paused and this time I forced a word from my lips ‘Sorry?’ I managed.
‘Queen of the Night’ she repeated, ‘She only blooms at night - come and have a look’,
She turned and pushed a palm leaf aside. I didn’t move, she took my actions as shyness and tried again.
‘Come on! The smell is gorgeous, you’ll love it!’
She led me through to the back of the glasshouse where there was a small pool shimmering with the reflection of the party lights. I was hit by a waft of rich floral and powder pollen scent. It was so intense I drew a breath, failing for a moment to see its source. Above our heads on a ledge in the roof of the glasshouse, tumbled a plant with zigzag shaped succulent leaves. From these leaves beautiful white flowers poked their heads, at the centre the petals sitting tightly but fanning out at the edge, like the mating plumes of a bird of paradise.
The whole experience was so overwhelming; the white flowered constellation and the musk of midnight holiday blossom, I felt something falter in my defence line against human interaction.
I turned to Jyoti and said ‘Thank you, it’s beautiful’,
‘In India these flowers are special’ she said, head tilted gazing up at the blooms, ‘if you pray in their presence your prayer will be answered’,
‘I’m not religious’ I said.
‘You should speak directly to the flowers then.’
I looked at her bewildered, she met my eyes and nodded with a smile.
Under my breath I whispered an incantation. I started small; I wanted a kiss on the cheek, a hug, a handshake. Then spurred on by the sound of Jyoti making her own prayer, I asked for a return to normality; a dance floor, a sweaty restaurant service, a lover, a relationship, a lunch with my friends. I wanted to touch and be touched. Lightness transcended me and for the first time in months I cracked a smile.
‘Should we toast the Queen with your bottle?’ Jyoti said.
I looked down at my hand and remembered the Champagne.
‘Yes’ I said following her back to the table stealing one final look at the flowers.
I’d forgotten the wedding breakfast debris and couldn’t help picturing a stack of dirty plates as festering petri dishes. I put the bottle down and chose a seat pushed back from the table. Jyoti tipped the contents of two half drunk glasses onto the floor. Without cleaning or disinfecting them, she set them on the table, popped the cork and poured two large measures.
She took her glass and lifted it high into the air
‘To body, beauty and the senses!’ she said, taking a drink from her glass.
I faltered, the thought of touching someone else's glass consumed me.
‘Aren’t you having any?’
‘Oh sorry’ I said.
I forced my hand to reach for the glass, my ungloved fingers curled around the stem and raised it to my lips. I smiled at her and she took another sip, I counted to three and drank until there was nothing left setting the glass back on the table.
‘You deserved that after cooking for all those guests’ she said refilling my glass. ‘Here I picked this before you arrived, you can take it with you for luck’.
She passed me a carefully folded napkin, I unfurled it and inside lay a perfect scented white bloom. This act of kindness mixed with the alcohol now coursing through my bloodstream hit me suddenly and, without warning, I began to cry. At first silently and then, as the feeling matured, with my whole body. Jyoti didn’t say anything, she just moved forward and held me.
❤️ ❤️ ❤️
Happy Love Day, from Club Marigold, and thanks for reading! As always send pics, comments or love letters to our instagram. To round things off here are our first links of 2021, see you next month!
*The Passing of SOPHIE- As mentioned in Emily’s intro, it’s been a weepy month, made worse by the passing of icon, SOPHIE. Fans have petitioned NASA to name a star after the artist, we shed a collective tear.
The Soong sisters- three women who married into the Chinese elite and helped shape the countries policies on power, money and people. An interesting listen in line with lunar new year celebrations. Here’s to all the Oxen.
Petition to get tips included in furlough scheme - its seems bizarre to Marigold that although restaurant staff pay tax on their tronc (tips), this vital part of their wage has not been included in Sunak’s pay out. This petition has over 31,000 signatures and counting.
Zoe Adjonyoh’s Yam and Plantain Peanut curry- The Romani name for February is ‘Kaulay Staur Kurkay’ meaning ‘four dark weeks’. If these arctic conditions are making you miserable we can’t recommend this recipe enough, spicy, vibrant and full of sunshine.
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