It’s easy to assume that most of my distinguishable attributes I inherited from my mother. As I’ve gotten older, my face has increasingly started to morph into hers – we have the same freckle on the right side of our nose, the same dark eyes, and now the same sprouts of white hair. She passed on her love of cooking and her unmeasured culinary tendencies. I more obviously resemble her – the dominance of her strong Korean genes shows up in my skin. But the freckles I get from my father. A Lancastrian man with Irish roots; once a man with curly ginger hair and a lilting Northern accent; still a man whose heart is bursting with unbounded love.
And while I cook like my mother, I get my all-encompassing love of food from Neil Sarsfield. Mashed potatoes, gravy-soaked roasts, steaks, bone marrow, butter and salt. All the hearty good stuff. When mum would head into London to go to the theatre, she’d leave dad in charge of dinner. Sometimes it was a chilli or Korean chicken that she’d already cooked, with clear instructions on how to heat it up, that he would jokingly pretend he’d made earlier that day. But sometimes we’d sneak off to M&S and pick up two chicken kievs and frozen chips and we’d surreptitiously scoff it down at home, hiding the evidence. We’d smile at each other as we shared the same giddy joy at watching the garlic butter ooze out, mopping it all up with the very last chip.
Foods that remind me of Neil: potatoes, harking back to his Irish roots. A good stew, because he’s a proper Lancashire man. Avocados, which he said he never tried until long after he’d left home and only likes in a sharply dressed salad. Onions, whether they’re caramelised and eaten with a steak or raw in said salad. He’s not someone who’d ever fix himself a salad (mum does have to ask him to eat it after every dinner – at the Sarsfields we eat our salads after the main course. It’s just always been that way), but when I make one at family barbecues, he’ll gaze at it and say, “oh she does make a salad look good”, whilst tucking into whatever meat’s been grilling.
It’s always been a tradition to eschew big birthday gifts in favour of meals out as a family. For my dad’s birthday, we began to book a table at Hawksmoor every year. This lasted a good five years, and although the rest of our family enjoy a good steak, always felt like a particularly personal ritual between me and dad – we’d look forward to it all month and talk about what cut we’d order or which bottle(s) of wine we’d bring because we’d always go on a Monday for the £15 corkage (the Sarsfields love a good bargain, too).
I’ve mentioned the Proustian nature of a McDonald’s breakfast – how it transports me back to hotel rooms in America; but it wasn’t just about the act of eating it, it’s the moments we’d spend before, walking through the streets early in the morning, just us two, while mum and John were still asleep. While the act of preparing and cooking a meal feels like a lifeline straight to my mother, the quiet moments before and after are a portal to my dad.
From my mother comes the hosting of dinner parties, the writing of unmeasured recipes, the loud declaration of my food identity. But Neil has offered me a more subtle love. A simple appreciation of eating something in the company of loved ones, or even alone. Like drinking coffee in the sun or slathering butter on toast. I like to think I’ve inherited my father’s quiet joy of food.
In a few hours I’ll be home and we’ll be lighting the barbecue for the first time this summer. And while Kie Jo is the head chef, there dad will be, filling up our wine glasses and softly telling stories around the table, quietly commanding attention with his kindness. My mum’s IG caption (!!) after their 42nd wedding anniversary dinner at St John pretty much sums him up: may we all find a love as funny and big hearted as Neil Sarsfield.
It’s been too hot to even think of a recipe, but here’s what I’ve been eating that you can find unmeasured recipes for in past newsletters:
Sad Pasta version 340953096 – heatwave edition subs parm for feta and parsley for mint.
Salmon and crispy rice, with every kind of green, either as a sharply dressed salad or charred and soaked in olive oil.
Cold soba noodle salad, using up any leftovers you have.
White beans, mozzarella and roasted cherry toms for the ultimate I-can’t-be-bothered-to-make-anything lunch vibe.
A Greek pazzy sal that’s the food equivalent to a thirst-quenching iced tea on a hot day.