I love eating but we have to be more MINDFUL
Meeting the Queen, baking banana bread and hanging with ‘gentle soul’ Marco Pierre White – there’s never a dull moment for Rachel Allen
ITHE QUEEN WAS SUCH AN AMAZING WOMAN, WHO WORKED HARD ALL HER LIFE
T’S no big surprise to learn that Rachel Allen met the Queen no less than three times; twice on her visits to Ireland and a third time in Buckingham Palace itself.
Rachel is well placed to mingle with royalty, as Ireland’s cooking queen — a title rivalled only, perhaps, by her mother-in-law — a food writer, cookbook author, TV celebrity chef and, obviously, as a member of the Allen family, Ireland’s first family of food.
She may laugh off being referred to as culinary royalty, but if there’s one thing she shares with the late monarch it’s her hard work ethic — and a lineage of strong, influential matriarchs: her Icelandic mum, Hallfridur Reichenfeld; Darina Allen, her husband Isaac’s mother and Ireland’s original celebrity chef; and the late Myrtle Allen, founder of the iconic Ballymaloe restaurant and the first Irish woman to be awarded a Michelin star.
‘The queen was such an amazing woman, she worked so hard for all of her life,’ says Rachel, who is herself juggling many balls when we chat this week. ‘It was great to meet her and such an honour.’
The mum of three has a 15minute window to chat about her role in next weekend’s Festival of Food in Kildare before she goes to teach a class in Ballymaloe Cookery School.
As women, we do so much, I suggest, and she agrees, not that it seems to faze her in the slightest. If anything, you just know she thrives on hard work. She is excited to be back in the thick of it in the demo kitchens at the Taste of Kildare at the Curragh Racecourse, as horse-racing and food combine in a symbiotic partnership.
‘The Taste of Kildare is always such a lovely festival and to be joining up on a weekend of racing is such a good idea, as people will get both great food and lots of fun,’ she says.
‘I think people really missed festivals over lockdown because well firstly they are fun and social, but they are also great at reminding people about what offerings are on their doorsteps when it comes to good, home-produced food — be it restaurants, hotels or producers.’ It’s clear that Rachel is buzzing about the festival, and that’s because she’s doing what she loves — cooking. However, there’s one thing that she loves even more than cooking — and that’s eating. She’s a traditionalist when it comes to dream dinners, she reveals. ‘Sometimes I just crave a roast chicken,’ she says. ‘Oh, and steak. Steak Bernaise. And chips,’ she says, and as it’s close to lunchtime, the thought of this combination is making me hungry — especially if it was cooked by this gourmet goddess. ‘But we are coming into autumn, I’m trying to think of the foods that are in season… roast vegetables, some great white Irish potatoes, beef and, of course, a nice glass of red wine,’ she continues. ‘Oh I love eating. I love eating,’ she laughs, accentuating the verb. ‘I love sharing food with friends, it’s just such a lovely way to get people together.’
Again, that this is what she loves about food is not exactly a revelation — Rachel’s cuisine is crowdpleasing, comfort food at its best.
One of my favourite recipes is her hearty turkey and ham pie using Christmas dinner leftovers — I’d go as far as saying it’s almost better than the main event.
While the rest of Ireland catches up when it comes to food sustainability, Ballymaloe has been leading the way for decades. It’s easier when there’s 100 acres of organic farm and gardens providing a wealth of vegetables and fruits, plus the rearing of free-range pigs, beef cows, about 600 hens and a number of dairy cows that are milked daily for local cheese and yoghurt production.
As an aside, I remember attending one of Darina’s classes while on a day visit to the cookery school. The evisceration of a duck is not for the faint-hearted.
Rachel is empathetic when it comes to an average family trying to reduce their food miles.
‘Of course it’s really important — we need to try but we need to be realistic,’ she says. ‘Being more mindful of what you’re eating is a start. It’s how I grew up and obviously on the farm it’s all about what can we grow and produce there, and for the restaurant we will use local producers’ goods.’
Rachel’s Icelandic mother believes in using all the scraps
SOMETIMES I JUST CRAVE A ROAST CHICKEN. OH, AND STEAK. AND CHIPS
and eating in season too, and Rachel carries that ethos through her cooking. I proudly tell her that I baked banana bread earlier in the week to use up some overripe bananas — even though I swore I wouldn’t ever go there again after lockdown — and Rachel becomes animated.
‘Banana bread, oh I love that smell. Actually, I’m looking at six bananas and there’s a tiny little fly over one of them — I think I know where this is going,’ she jokes, adding that, like many of us, she found comfort in cooking and baking — and food in general — over the dark days of the pandemic and restrictions.
‘It also gave people something to do,’ she said simply. ‘It’s a nice way to spend the time. Also it’s convivial, it gets the family together, so that’s good on all counts.’
The pandemic may have adversely affected our hospitality industry, but it did force us to think more creatively when it comes to how we serve and enjoy food, says Rachel, with the growth in mobile food outlets, food trucks and street food providers, and also the increase in more cottage industry style food producers and flavour makers. For Rachel though, who spends her
days preparing food, nothing beats going to a restaurant and being wined and dined.
‘I love sitting in lovely surroundings and being served up a meal,’ she admits. ‘I must say though I did really like the food boxes from restaurants. It was the best we could get for a while. When we were allowed to have a gin and tonic with the neighbours, that was great.
‘The reality is it was just so hard on so many people and I felt grateful that we had it relatively easy. I just felt so bad for elderly people who couldn’t hold their grandchildren — like when you think about it now, it’s just crazy,’ she says.
While other food businesses struggled, Ballymaloe was in a good position as it was still selling produce through the shop. ‘I felt really lucky because we could work — we could cook for the shop,’ she explains. ‘About six or seven of us chose to go into work, and I’m really glad that I did.’
But of course, Rachel wasn’t just cooking for work and pleasure during lockdown, she was also writing a cookbook, Soup Broth Bread, championing the ultimate in comfort foods. Add trying to homeschool her daughter, Scarlett Lily, through her last year in primary school — oh, and moving house out of their home in Shanagarry to a temporary home while their dream home is in the making.
‘It was really hard going, really hard going,’ she recalls. ‘It was very interesting trying to do all that. At least we came up with some sort of solution for the home schooling. My cousin-in-law Bree has a daughter the same age so the girls used to FaceTime their schooling together in the morning and that turned out really well,’ she says of Scarlett, who’s nearly 14 and in second year. ‘It was tough for her to be away from her friends, so it’s great that she’s back.’ Scarlett is the youngest of Rachel and Isaac’s children and the last school-goer in the family. Lucca, aged 20, moved to Japan last year with the Japanese Albirex RT team to compete in the Super Formula Lights League.
Their eldest son, Joshua, 22, a mixed martial arts fighter, has had a much-publicised and turbulent four years, first being charged with drugs offences in 2018. He spent three months is a residential treatment centre for drug use in late 2019 and this July he was jailed for seven months, again for drugs offences.
Speaking with TV presenter Lucy Kennedy, in Living With Lucy in November last year, Allen opened up on the ordeal. ‘With Josh, with the whole drugs thing, it’s brought home to me that parenthood is so hard,’ she said.
‘He’s still so young, I know we still have a distance to go, but anyone who is a parent knows you are there for them, you will literally put your life on the line to support, to help, to do everything you can.
‘You just have to be there and try and throw all the support that you can into trying to get to a better place,’ she said at the time. ‘I’m fine, but I do get into the sea sometimes and shout underwater.’
It’s a heartbreaking situation for a family to be in, I suggest, as all a parent wants to do is protect their child. The media glare was harsh for Joshua as a member of a privileged and successful family.
‘I don’t want to talk about Josh as it’s not fair, he is a private person. I am fine,’ she says, a little haltingly. ‘People have gone through so much worse with their children.
‘People — and parents — have been so good, they’ve put pen to paper or sent us an email, there’s just so many lovely supportive people. I think in Ireland we are very good at that, showing kindness.’
One fellow parent who has her back is her good friend Marco Pierre White, who she’ll be back on our screens with next month in Virgin Media’s new series of The Restaurant.
He has been effusive in his praise of Rachel, saying that she was ‘without question, the kindest and the nicest and most wonderful person’ he’s ever worked with on TV.
The feeling is mutual, as Rachel is equally complimentary about the former ‘enfant terrible’ of the culinary world — and that’s a misnomer for starters, she says.
‘He’s a really smart, gentle soul actually — people have a very different perception of him,’ she says. ‘I always thought he had led a wild life when he was younger but he told me that cooking was his addiction,’ she says, referring to conversations they had while filming over the summer. One of Marco’s sons, Marco Jnr, also had trouble with the law, appearing in court on various charges and being imprisoned three weeks ago for shoplifting and racial abuse.
‘Some amazing food came out of this run, and great cojudging,’ says Rachel, a regular on the show, of her fellow co-judges, which include guest Galway restaurateur JP McMahon.
With that, our time is up — Rachel has to get teaching and one of the family dogs, Charlie, is barking and setting them all off.
Rachel, ever the pro, takes it all in her stride, and says a warm goodbye, but not without the gentle reminder to get people to the Taste of Kildare.
‘Most of the stands will be inside in the Champions Hall at the Curragh so even if it’s lashing rain, it will be fine. The cookery demo area is also inside which will “weather proof” us.’
Even if the heavens are opening, you just know that Rachel, our cooking queen, will keep calm and carry on.
MARCO PIERRE WHITE TOLD ME COOKING WAS HIS ADDICTION
■ THE Taste of Kildare during the Autumn Festival of Racing will take place at the Curragh Racecourse on September 24/25. Early bird price is €15, see tasteof kildare.ie