Just south of Rotterdam lies a special island: the Hoeksche Waard. An island where about half of the surface is used by farmers, primarily for arable farming. Chef Michka Chel loves this fertile part of the Netherlands and has created a beautiful cookbook about it.
First of all; who is Michka Chel?
I am a 38-year-old born in Amersfoort, with a Dutch father and a Slovak mother. My parents raised me in a very adventurous way. They took me on treks through Saudi Arabia, and almost every week I was allowed to ride in my father's private hot air balloon. We also often went on holiday to Slovakia, where we visited my grandmother. She had an orchard and was always cooking, baking, and gardening. In her house, she had a huge cupboard completely filled with jars and bottles of preserved products. The adventure and nature inspired me at a young age to record films during my holidays. This led to my acceptance at the art academy in Breda, where I studied audiovisual arts.
How did you end up in the kitchen?
During my studies, I always worked in kitchens, which allowed me to develop my passion for cooking. After art school, I decided to move to Italy because I wanted to learn to cook better. I lived, worked, and cooked there happily for four years! Once back in Utrecht, I started working as an independent chef at restaurant Puur. There, I used Italian and French cuisine as the basis for my dishes. When I was asked to set up a delicatessen department for Ekoplaza, using products that were past their expiry date or damaged, I found that to be a wonderful new challenge. Once this no-waste department, offering fresh meals, cakes, and salads among other things, was running smoothly, I passed on the baton. After that, I worked for a while as a sous-chef at a vegetarian restaurant and later at restaurant de Klub in Utrecht, specializing in appetizers and desserts. I realized then that I could combine the creativity from art academy very well with the cooking techniques I had learned in Italy. After moving to the Hoeksche Waard, I worked at a cooking studio in the center of Rotterdam on Hoogstraat. This was my first experience at a cooking studio, and I enjoyed it a lot! So much so that I got the idea to set up my own cooking studio in the Hoeksche Waard.
Your own cooking studio… tell me more!
Opening my own cooking studio was a big step, but with the experience I had, I knew I could do it. In the initial period, I also worked at Villa Augustus in Dordrecht, primarily as a rotisseur. I also frequently worked at the wood-fired pizza oven, which I thoroughly enjoyed! A year after my cooking studio opened, bookings really started to come in, and I went all-in. Since then, I’ve been working full-time as a chef and owner of the cooking studio. I organize 3 to 4 cooking workshops and courses per week. I would describe my style as artisanal, modern, local, seasonal, and highly flavorful. Quality is very important to me, and I focus on no-waste and cooking with the seasons. This means we use all scraps like peels, ends, and skins! In the cooking studio, it’s not about making the plates look as beautiful as possible, as if they came from a Michelin-starred restaurant. Of course, I set the bar very high because aesthetics matter, but my guests primarily come to experience various new cooking techniques and ingredients. With me, you learn to recognize flavors yourself and to cook with more confidence and healthily from your own creativity, without too many ready-made products.
The Hoeksche Waard plays an important role in your existence as a chef. Why?
Living and working in the place where our food comes from, that's incredibly inspiring for me as a chef. I literally stand here with my feet in the clay and see what the clay soil does to the growth of the product, and ultimately, to its taste. In the months from February to April, everything is brown and muddy. Then I see the farmer plowing the land with his tractor, and I think; what do you cook with then? How do you store the harvest and what does storage do to the taste? What's the difference between sprayed and unsprayed produce, and can you eat everything as it is? To find answers to all these questions, I'm often out in the fields and talking to the farmer. Living and working in the countryside has brought much more peace into my life. Here in the Hoeksche Waard, there's not as much going on as in the city, and that forces me to engage with my own creativity. Even on my day off, I come up with a flavor combination and then work it out later in the cooking studio. As a cook, you're constantly dealing with new ingredients, sustainability, and flavors. So, for me, it didn't make sense to do this within four urban restaurant walls and not literally out in the clay.
‘‘Cooking from farm to table also means getting dirty boots, scrubbing the soil off vegetables, and realizing that not everything is available year-round, as it is in a conventional supermarket.’’
What’s the best part about running a cooking studio?
In theory, my cooking studio is a hospitality business, but in practice, I notice that the studio has much more of a social connecting function. Over the years, I have had more than 6000 guests in the kitchen, who meet each other, get inspiration, and make new friends. I never could have imagined beforehand how much I would enjoy that! During the cooking course, my guests truly learn to taste and gain more confidence in cooking without a recipe. By the end of the course, I am truly proud of my guests!
“I want to show my guests that it's really easy to make everything fresh and from scratch, without packets and pouches. When I see my guests rediscovering the joy of cooking, I get so enthusiastic that I sometimes dance on the counter!”
‘Cooking on an island of clay’ is your own cookbook. Why did you decide to make this book, and what do you hope to achieve with it?
During the pandemic, I had much more time because I sadly had to close my cooking studio. The idea came about with photographer Harm van den Broek, as his assignments also fell away during that period. Harm has been photographing food for over 35 years, and together we enthusiastically went out to the farmers! For over 2.5 years, we let ourselves be guided by the seasons and visited farmers all over the Hoeksche Waard, both in the fields and in the stables. With the book, I hope to inspire people to cook more with the seasons and not always rely on the supermarket's assortment. Leave the (pre-seasoned) meat and poultry aside and use more vegetables, legumes, and grains... they have so much flavor and diversity!
What treasures does the Hoeksche Waard offer us?
The Hoeksche Waard has many different arable farms, both organic and non-organic. The most well-known products are potatoes (errepels, errepele, aerepels, aerepele), red beets (kroote), onions (juin), sugar beets, carrots, Brussels sprouts, cabbages, and rhubarb. Among the younger generation of farmers, there's increasing experimentation with, for example, soybeans, kidney beans, and quinoa, as well as 'forgotten' wheat varieties and farming methods. Regenerative and strip farming are becoming more common in the Hoeksche Waard. This helps prevent soil depletion, and the diversity in crops leads to fewer pests, thus requiring fewer pesticides. My favorite vegetable is fennel, which is harvested here in the summer. Asparagus, salsify, and strawberries are products that don't grow on clay soil but on sand. You'll find those about a half-hour drive south, in Brabant.
What are your plans for the future?
There are so many exciting plans! The cooking studio is a success, and I hope it stays that way for a long time. I still have plenty of ideas for workshops, but I'm also far from done learning. That's why I'm going back to Italy for two months this spring. In the countryside of Sicily, I have a chef friend who raises sheep, pigs, and other animals. He butchers them himself and creates delicious dishes with them. I hope to gain new preparations and experiences there. Furthermore, this year I will again teach for a few days at an elementary school to groups 5, 6, 7, and 8. Children's reactions to flavors are so pure and unrestrained; it's sometimes a shame that we lose that somewhere as we grow up.
A dream of mine is to combine my audiovisual background with cooking. Presenting my own cooking show sounds fantastic to me. In it, I would focus on teaching basic techniques, giving you more confidence in the kitchen. After all, it's not about the chef in front of the camera, but about the home chef behind the camera.
Furthermore, I am now also an ambassador for Braadbaas! We will be collaborating in various ways this year. For example, there will be a cooking workshop at my studio for Braadbaas customers, and later this year I will hold a knife skills demonstration at the store in Maassluis.
Where can our readers follow you?
You can find me on Instagram via @kookstudiohoekschewaard or with the same name on Facebook. I also have a great website, and you can always send me a message or give me a call if you have a question! Be sure to check out kookstudiohoekschewaard.nl.
