What’s Cooking, Rachel?
Celebrity chef Rachel Allen talks to Andrea Smith about the highlights and challenges of her year.
She’s a classic Nordic beauty thanks to the cool Icelandic blood running through her veins, but celebrated chef Rachel Allen positively oozes warmth and friendliness in person.
While she is synonymous with the Ballymaloe food empire and cookery school in Cork, Rachel actually grew up in Dublin with her Icelandic mother, Hallfridur Reichenfeld, dad Brian O'Neill and older sister Simone. Rachel is very close to her family, but her dad sadly passed away two years ago. He had a benign brain tumour that was removed some years earlier but caused problems for him. In retrospect, Rachel is thankful that Brian passed before Covid struck. “It would have been very hard if he was still in the nursing home with all the visiting restrictions,” she says.
Rachel went to Alexandra College and while she loved school, she admits she “wasn’t really there for the work.”
“I was quiet when I was very young, but from about the age of 10, I was probably a bit naughty, causing a bit of trouble at school and trying my parents’ patience,” she confesses.
Rachel was always baking, but thought of it as a hobby back then. Her plan was to travel after school, so her parents told her she would need to have a skill to enable her to work her way around the world.
“That was a bit of a shock to me as I presumed they would just pay for me to go travelling, but it was a very good wake-up call,” she admits.
Her parents suggested she did the Ballymaloe cookery course, so Rachel went down to check it out when she was 17. She spotted Isaac on that occasion, the man who would ultimately become her husband, and is the son of the equally famous Darina Allen and her husband Tim. Rachel returned to Ballymaloe aged 18 to embark on the course, and fell in love with Isaac, which wasn’t part of the plan. “I had just broken up with my boyfriend of a few years and had planned to be single for a while,” she says.
“When I got to know Isaac, I found him very different to a lot of the guys I knew and I was like, ‘Damn it, I like that one.’ He left school very young and had already sailed around the Greek islands and across the Atlantic to the Caribbean, so he had a lot of life experience. He was quite a free spirit with open views and I liked that.”
SIGNIFICANT BIRTHDAY
Rachel and Isaac both recently turned 50 and are together 32 years and married for 23. They had hoped to celebrate by going to Japan to spend time with their 19-year-old son Lucca, who is out there motor racing, but with Covid wreaking havoc with travel, they had a more low-key celebration.
“I went for lunch with my husband and some friends on the day, and then my great girlfriends brought me out for a night,” Rachel says.
Isaac works on the business side of Rachel’s career and with Lucca around sponsorship. Rachel admits that the secret to their happy marriage is that they never work on the same thing and make time for each other. “I think we really respect each other and we also have great fun together.”
The couple have two other children, Joshua (22) and Scarlett (12), and Rachel adores being a mother.
“It can be physically and emotionally tiring and it can test you sometimes, but above all, it’s absolutely amazing having this pure, unconditional love for these three beings,” she says.
In February 2020, her son Joshua was jailed for 15 months, with 15 months suspended, after he pleaded guilty before Cork Circuit Criminal Court to possession for sale or supply of more than €22,000 worth of cannabis. There was a subsequent two-month sentence this year over a 2020 offence which, at the time of going to press, is being appealed.
When asked about the challenges of 2021, Rachel admits that the situation has been difficult for her as a mum. “Things didn't go very well for Josh this year, which challenged me, but you realise that we’re healthy and still standing and lots of people don't even have their children because something has happened,” she says.
Joshua was so young when his troubles began, and the TV chef says she feels guilty that her public profile amplified the attention drawn to his offences. She was also heartened by the supportive letters she received from people around the country, with many sending medals and prayers.
“The letters were filled with incredible kindness, and they were from people whose children have been through similar situations or worse or even not at all,” she says.
Rachel says she is pleased that Josh is working hard on turning his life around, and has embarked on a stone-carving career. Her eldest son is really artistic and is producing great work, and he is also enjoying success as a mixed martial arts fighter, having won a couple of fights recently. “The guys at the gym have been so supportive,” she says. ”I love seeing Josh’s smile when he comes back from training every night, and seeing an easier look on his face.”
Mind you, while she knows she has to allow her children to follow their passions, Rachel is unable to watch Josh’s fights or Lucca’s races.
She admits to being “constantly worried” for their safety, and even horse-riding fan Scarlett has been known to put the heart crossways in her mum when she sees her jumping. “Why can’t they play golf?” Rachel jokes. “Although they’d probably get hit by a ball if they did.”
CHRISTMAS AT HOME
Lucca will be home this Christmas, and Rachel is looking forward to having her family all together. They usually join Isaac’s large family at Ballymaloe House, although they’re unsure whether this will take place this year due to Covid. Rachel loves table-scaping, and says that including beautiful things found in nature like flowers, twigs, pine cones, moss and lichen can really make a table lovely. She also adores adding nightlights and candles, big and small, for atmosphere.
When it comes to the highlights of 2021, she is grateful to be alive and healthy with good energy. Great genes aside, Rachel looks fabulous, and she draws strength from going swimming in the sea every morning, which sets her up for the day.
“I love sitting down at the end of the day and having a drink and a giggle, and I maybe have a few more gin and tonics or glasses of wine than I should have some weeks,” she says. “I try to balance it with healthy living, good food and a good night's sleep.”
Rachel spent Covid writing her 15th cookbook, Soup Broth Bread, which is aimed at home cooks of every level. It features recipes for all seasons and occasions, including soups, broths, homemade breads, garnishes and stocks. Given that there have been a few challenges in recent years, what are Rachel’s hopes for 2022? "I’m a ‘glass half full’ person and have my fingers crossed that everything will be good,” she says. “I just have to keep positive and keep dunking myself in the sea and having my gin and tonic at the end of the day.” WW