Pictures: Josh Griggs
She’s a bestselling author with two cookbooks to her name and thousands of social media followers, but there’s one person Polly Markus would love to cook for – her father.
Polly, 34, lost her beloved father Les to cancer in 2016 and admits she’d “do anything to be able to feed him again”.
“In my dream world, we’d be in our family home, listening to Elvis, and laughing together as we cooked and ate good food,” shares Polly.
The Auckland real estate agent is well known for her Instagram account @miss_pollys_kitchen, started during 2020’s lockdown.
“Like so many others during the pandemic, I lost all my work,” tells Polly. “I was at home and didn’t know what to do, so I started cooking and posting recipes.”
Polly’s fun, down-to-earth approach soon struck a chord with Kiwis. That eventually led to her first publishing deal, for 2022’s Miss Polly’s Kitchen cookbook. This month, Polly followed that success with Seriously Delicious, a collection of 74 recipes she spent a year creating in the Ponsonby kitchen she shares with her partner Matthew Gordon. As with Polly’s first cookbook, it was inspired by her father.
“Dad loved all kinds of food, but I think he’d probably like my second cookbook more. My tastes and the flavours have evolved so much over the past few years,” she says. “Dad would have adored my chocolate raspberry tart from the latest cookbook. Because he grew up in the UK, with lots of Middle Eastern flavours, he’d definitely also approve of my recipe for za’atar lemon chicken.”
Although Polly’s parents separated when she was 18 months old, they remained good friends. Polly and her two siblings split their time between them.
“Dad was a great cook and way ahead of his time,” she recalls of her father, who worked in the fashion industry. “He’d feed us things like sushi before many Kiwis were eating it. While other kids took sandwiches to school for lunch, Dad would send us off with chicken cacciatore.
“We were a great match because Dad loved to cook and I loved to eat, so much so that he nicknamed me the Labrador!”
After leaving school, Polly toyed with the idea of opening a café but instead sat her real estate licence and worked as a PA to a property agent. She eventually found her way to the food industry via super-yachts.
“I spent three years as a crew chef on the boats, cooking breakfast, lunch and dinner for 18 crew,” she tells. “We were based in Spain but sailed all over the world.”
Polly was working in Miami when she got a fateful call from her father.
“Dad rang to say that he’d been diagnosed with stage 4 bowel cancer and non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma – two aggressive cancers,” says Polly. “I packed up my life and two days later flew home.”
Polly helped care for her father while he underwent chemotherapy, including cooking his favourite food.
“I’d make him paella and sushi, but often he couldn’t eat anything, which was heartbreaking.”
Her father passed away on Valentine’s Day 2016.
“It’s ironic that Dad died on a day that’s all about love because he was a hopeless romantic,” she reflects.
A week after his death, Polly flew to Indonesia, where her father had lived for a while. “Dad had a house in Bali, so I had to sort through his financial and business affairs. I was still in shock from his death but had to get on with things. To be honest, I felt like I grew up overnight.”
Having burnt out while cooking on super-yachts, Polly was initially reluctant to make food a big part of her life. But cooking for her followers, family and friends has made her fall in love with food again.
That includes the many dishes she whips up for her mother Kim, older sister Lucy and younger brother Jack.
“We’re so close, it’s sickening!” Polly laughs. “I talk to Lucy every single day on the phone without fail and we all do dinner once a week. It’s a given that I do the cooking, which can sometimes be a bit frustrating. Occasionally I’d like someone to cook for me! But my family knows I love to cook and can be a bit of a control freak, so they leave me to it.”
When she isn’t feeding friends and family, Polly works in commercial real estate for Bayleys Realty Group.
“I enjoy having the two different aspects to my life. It helps me not get too obsessive about either.”
And if there’s one lesson Polly learnt from her father, it’s to make the most of life.
“Dad lived life to the fullest and didn’t let anything stand in his way,” she says. “He encouraged me to do the same, so I hope I’m doing him proud.”
Seriously Delicious ($50, Allen & Unwin) is on shelves now.
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