🍅 on meat and murder
A Substack recommendation, and gazpacho
21 October 2023 | Vol 2 Issue 28
I have been having adventures. Don’t worry, I shall be regaling all soon enough. Several times over probably. Making a meal of it. Which... meanwhile... segues nicely into a recommendation, to hold over until this column returns to a more scheduled output.
I'd like to recommend a newsletter by Matthew Marke.
Short reads about cooking and murder.
I suspect I know what you're going to say. Isn't that what the Sainted Anthony Bourdain wrote about? You would be right. Cast aside easy comparisons. I first met Don Matthew Marke in 1988 or thereabouts, long before Bourdain's star rose [1 ]. All the signs of impending meat 'n' murder were already nascent.
It was my first visit to what has become my favourite city, Barcelona. My yoga instructor, James — ok, this is a lie, it took another twenty years of gentle persuasion for me to actually partake in a yoga lesson with him — rephrase, my yogi in waiting, James, said you must look up my dear compañero Mark. Matthew is Mark, Mark is the aforementioned Matthew, just go with it, it will be easier.
So I found myself knocking on a door in a narrow alleyway just off Las Ramblas in the dead, dry heat of a Barcelona afternoon, when the only people venturing out in the baking white sun are even whiter, or very pink (or very white and very pink striped) Englishmen.
To be greeted by a hombre who I can only describe as being entirely enrobed in the manner of Wyatt Earp. Replete with hat 'n' boots. Possibly spurs. I was shown the sights. Assuming the sites of Barcelona are a nightclub I remember little about, except there being an outdoor courtyard at the back where you could smoke. Later, a bar that opened solely for serving drinks to homeward bound clubbers in the crepuscular hours. Then central market at sunrise for brandies and tortilla, post bar, post club. And another nightclub that featured more Billy Idol than I am used to when dancing, and lots of leather trousers. Aside from Mark of course. I did get to see the Gaudi gas lights on the way out of the Billy Idol goth-centric club.
Over the years I have had the good fortune to infrequently become inveigled with Don Marke. Smoking something illicit behind the speaker stack at Boodles Gentlemen's Club at a wedding reception. For those of you not heralding from the upper echelons of British society, stop imagining something akin to Peppermint Rhino. This is a Private Members Club, thank you very much. The very opposite of a pole decorating ladies salon, an establishment where women are strictly prohibited from entering the premises, not even a glass slipper over the threshold. The only reason we were allowed into the sanctum was the club was technically shut for refurbishment, thus permitting the bride to attend her own reception. Mark still dressed as Wyatt Earp, but as a concession to decorum, his ponytail held in place with a fetching piece of silver gaffer tape.
Being catered for at one of James yoga retreats, and indeed, a cooking lesson at Mark's home, when he lived in Jesus, Ibiza. This rather long rambling (having started our journey on Las Ramblas naturally) introduction is really to allow me to impart the knowledge he gave me, while he rendered lardons over a frying pan.
It's this. Don't bother making gazpacho.
While watching him knock up a delicious lunch (I can't remember what it was, sorry, but reasonably sure there would have been lardons), I opened his fridge to find cartons of ready made gazpacho lined up in the door, alongside the milk and white rioja. I expressed surprise that a chef would buy factory mass produced soup. "You can't make it any better than the stuff in cartons, do yourself a favour and buy as is". Advice I have kept to, to this day. I strongly suggest you take it on board. (You still have to make your own croutons and chopped veg.) [2 ]
So, it was with great delight that I received this week, an Insta' message from James publicising Mark now has a newsletter. I have chosen as an amuse bouche his Last Supper "The Last Time I Cooked for Ernest Hemingway".
I was torn between this, Cormac McCarthy, or Sergio Leone, in honour of Señor Marke's dress sense. But Hemingway seems a good allrounder and scene setter. Enjoy.
🍅
You’ll have noticed I did a voiceover. Should I bother to continue with them? Leave me a comment if you think so. Or indeed if you think it’s an appalling idea.
Buy me a coffee at www.buymeacoffee.com/vfnIE9P0Ta
References
Had the newsletter been structured in a slightly different way I could have squeezed in a Sheriff Star joke here. You’ll see.
Huge fan of the voiceover! Yes!!!!!!!
It's great to have you back. I didn't listen to the voiceover. Perhaps I've heard to much. But will check this out.