FOOD FOR THE SOUL

DOMINI KEMP ON DIET, FAMILY AND HARD WORK AFTER CANCER

I’m so grateful; I was diagnosed early. The team was fantastic. I came out of it really well. I was bloody lucky

UNWITTINGLY, as she scours the penthouse of Dublin’s Beacon Hotel, Domini Kemp is revealing the many guises she embodies. She has just finished an hourslong cover shoot requiring various costume changes, yet not a hair is out of place as she walks around in her own outfit – which itself could have been chosen by a stylist. The rest of the team has left, and she’s busying herself with checking the room for untidiness and forgotten items. She finds a tiny, unidentifable spill, a discarded bronzing brush, an entire makeup kit. She has the brusqueness of a catering manager cleaning up after an event; she has the eagle- eyed, responsible air of a mother to both teenage daughter and seven-year- old girl. Most of all, she has the poise and confidence of a self-made businesswoman and dogged managing director.

What is more subtle is the identity which arguably could have affected her most of all: cancer survivor.

But that’s not how Domini, who turns 45 this month, remotely defines herself.

‘You just look back and you’re kind of going, it really is just such a blip,’ says Domini. ‘I’m just kind of, it’s done.’

She was diagnosed with breast cancer three years ago and underwent a mastectomy, enduring a very difficult year – but committing to eating healthily and exercising to help her through her recovery. She swears by it, and she’s the picture of health today. Her short blonde hair, styled in perfect waves, is just about long enough to get into a ponytail, a necessity for her work in the kitchen. She’s in fabulous shape. And her outlook – not just her appearance – is nothing short of inspiring.

‘I’m so grateful; I’m really, really grateful,’ she says. ‘I was diagnosed early; I had an oncologist, surgeon, the whole team of nurses, they were all incredible. It was fantastic. I came out of it really well. You know, I was so bloody lucky. I’m not in a tent in Syria as a refugee; that’s hideous. What I went through is not, I think. Yeah, it was tough, and it’s not to make light of anyone going through any treatment – but I felt very grateful where I was and how I was able to deal with it and get treated.’

She says that, while she gives advice to anyone seeking it and has just written a book, The Ketogenic Kitchen, with fellow cancer survivor Patricia Daly focusing on high-fat, low- carb diets for cancer patients, she previously had some trepidation about using her own story to encourage others.

‘I think I was a bit reluctant, initially,’ she says. ‘I thought, does it seem like you’re taunting people when you come out the other side? I thought no, actually; I did find it very useful to talk to people who’d been through it who maybe weren’t very close to me – because, again, people that have a sort of stakehold in your life, sometimes it’s hard to discuss things that are very much about your own mortality and your situation. So when you can talk to people slightly outside of that who will be honest with you and tell you what it’s like and what chemo’s like and what to expect, that’s very comforting.

‘And for me, it was looking at certain people who’d been through it all, and I was like, I could be like them in a year. Their hair is growing back. I found that really useful. Again, it’s clinging onto that thing. You can’t guarantee it’s going to happen or going to work out for you, but it’s just something to project onto and that’s, I think, why I felt such an obligation to, if I could, be any help to people. I think that was something I felt strongly about doing.’

She adds: ‘It’s not to criticise the health service or health system or anything, but you are left a little bit to your own devices. There’s plenty of support and plenty available, but at the same time, you do have questions that you’re wondering about and your partner and your loved one can’t necessarily answer them. And you don’t necessarily want to talk to your sister. And you go to appointments and the words “survival” and “outcome” are mentioned and they’re very difficult words to hear when you first hear them.

‘You hear the words “survival rates” and “this gives you a better chance” and “the survival rate is better” and this; you’re sitting going, “Oh my God, is there a question I won’t survive? Why is this word even being mentioned?’” It was initially, she says, incredibly frightening. ‘ Then you just realise, this is the parlance; this is their vocabulary, this is how they communicate with patients. And you know it’s just trying to soothe those kind of anxious moments for other people – just saying, this is what you’re going to hear and this is the type of thing, this is how you get through it, don’t be too scared of that bit.’

‘ Things like “mastectomy.” I think you hear a lot of people saying, “Aaaah, it’s part of you,”’ she says, referring to many patients’ horror at the tought of removing a breast. ‘I was like, I don’t care, you know? It’s like, there’s cancer there, go, shoo, shoo! So you know, again, I guess we all ➤

➤ view things differently, but I would much rather lose a breast than a leg. ‘I sound like a chicken,’ she laughs. ‘It’s like, if I was to lose a hand … this wasn’t important to me,’ she says, gesturing towards her chest. ‘Whereas, you know, if you had a choice of not being able to walk or something like that, that really would impact your life, I think those are bigger things.’

In addition to giving experiential and general advice to others diagnosed with cancer, it was perhaps only fitting that the chef write a book specifically targeting diet, co-authoring it with fellow survivor Patricia Daly, with whom she had mutual friends. The Ketogenic Kitchen is divided into two parts, offering low- carb recipes and fully ketogenic (low carb/high fat) recipes, centring on healthy fats, vegetables and protein.

‘What we wanted to do is write the book we wished we had had when we were diagnosed with cancer,’ Domini says. ‘ That’s what I wanted to actually write. I think that’s what we did write.’

The project took two and a half years – but now that it’s published, Domini still shows no signs of slowing down. Not only is she the managing director of Itsa Ltd and the 15 associated businesses such as Alchemy; she’s fully committed to exercise (three hours in the gym a week, jogging, boxing, yoga, you name it); and she’s, of course, dedicated to healthy eating (she’s ‘militant’ about getting home to cook family dinners).

So has the culinary bug bit her two daughters, Lauren, nearly 19, and Maeve, 7?

‘She’s pretty self-sufficient,’ says Domini of her teenage daughter, who is studying in DIT. ‘I take the job of being a parent is, you’re trying to teach them how to live and how to fly the nest at some point. Cooking is a really important part of that.

‘Lauren can cook, and she does. What I have to try and do is not nitpick like all mothers do – “Don’t chop like that! No, lower heat!” So I have to try and be a bit more tolerant. It’s like osmosis when you’re around cooking and you see people cooking and the person who’s cooking is a bit of a pain in terms of teaching. You just pick it right up. You’ll pick it up, and you’ll be able to do quite well on your own. She’s well capable.’

Her other daughter, she says, is also trying to follow in her the footsteps of her mother and big sister.

‘She’s hilarious,’ she says of Maeve. ‘She’ll sometimes go off, she’s very independent, and I think always trying to impress her older sister, as well. There’s an element of that, where she’s trying to narrow the age gap. So every now and then, she’ll be like, “Can I make …?” And I’m like, “Yeah, yeah, whatever.” And you’ll come down and she’ll have made these concoctions. There’ll be yoghurt and apple sauce and then like two inches of chia seeds and something else. She’ll make these sundaes, sort of healthy sundaes.

‘I’m like, “What are you doing? You’ve used all the chia seeds!” Ah no, it’s great – but you have to eat it. She is trying, but it’s hilarious. She’ll talk about her signature dishes and all those things.’

The 12-year age difference between her daughters is significant, but Domini says the three women in the household are inarguably alike (her husband Garvan is definitely outnumbered.)

‘My husband would say all the bad traits – the stubbornness, the determination, all those things’ were inherited from Domini, she says, laughing. ‘It is interesting; Lauren and I were born on the same day, as well, and I definitely see loads of me in her. And so it’s funny – whereas Maeve, I can definitely see plenty of Garvan in her.

‘It’s funny seeing the traits in yourself and the good and bad traits and then how those might manifest themselves.’

She can see herself, in fact, turning into her own late mother, she says.

‘I mix up their names sometimes,’ she laughs, referring to her daughters. ‘I call them the wrong one, and she used to always do that. And I’m like, “I sound like my mother!”

‘My mum was so great, and she was such a positive influence, and she was so close to both of us as kids,’ she says of herself and her sister, Peaches. ‘And I think that’s something we really try to emulate. I think that closeness is really important – that sense of being able to go to a parent with any problem, no matter whether it’s going to land you in more trouble by going to your parents. You have to have that sense of dialogue. So that’s really important.’

Fostering the closeness between her own daughters, she says – despite the age gap – is equally paramount.

‘ They have to remember that, you know, hopefully we’ll be long gone before they are; they will be family,’ she says. ‘And that’s really, really important. And I have that closeness with my sister.’

She says that, while she rarely reflects on her own cancer and doubt it figures heavily in her children’s minds, it will hopefully have a positive impact on their lives. ‘I think they hopefully will be more aware, and they I hope have more tolerance as to why I am naggy about certain things,’ she says.

Those things include getting sunburnt and, most of all, avoiding cigarettes.

‘Smoking was the one thing I kind of said, “I can tolerate an awful lot of stuff, but the smoking’s just really one of those things.” It’s such a pain for people to try and give up. It’s so hard, and I see with people, it’s just better not to ever start.

‘I think 99.9% of teenage girls smoke, because they think it makes them look cool - and do you know what? They’re probably right amongst peers. It probably does. And that’s the problem. It has that caché which is why it’s so successful. And you have to pull out all the stops to really get them not to. And in saying that, I do think this generation’s more savvy. A lot of them are into sport and everything; we were total spanners. We all smoked. We really were idiots.’

Of her daughters’ generation, she says: ‘ They’re so well informed. People lament all sorts of things about younger generations, but I look at young people now, and I think they’re brilliant. I really do. They communicate much more about a lot of things. There’s other issues going on, but they’re quite a caring, well-informed bunch. I’d feel very confident that the world is going to be passed on to better hands.’

Her own hands, in the meantime, are undeniably full with her various food enterprises.

‘I suppose, because I’m MD of the company, I’m overseeing kind of what everyone’s doing,’ she says. ‘It’s kind of just keeping everything moving. You feel like a conductor, really, and you’ve got a lot of musicians. You’re just trying to make sure we just keep moving forward.

‘Part of my job is always to grow the business and keep developing the business. I love the part of being able to come up with the brands and the ideas behind that and stuff.’

She adds: ‘I probably type faster than I chop now. I’m kind of jack- of-all-trades.

‘I’m not particularly brilliant at anything,’ she laughs, explaining how she’ll be working at two upcoming catering functions.

‘ Things like that – I’m kind of like a trained body,’ she says. ‘I will go wherever I’m sent, gun for hire. Different people manage different departments, and they’ll say, “I need you to here and here.” It’s like, fine. You know – have chef’s jacket and apron, will travel.’