April 25, 2020
So I’m still at home. I haven’t seen my friends in over a month. But in some ways, these challenging times have become a season of checking in and reconnecting. This time, I called up my friend Mindy in England, whom I haven’t seen in five years.
Mindy from East London
“My name is Mindy, Mindy Lericke. And I am from London, but originally born in Saint Lucia in the Caribbean. I’ve been in London for the last 18 years.
I’m an East London girl. In London, people do tend to identify what part of London they are from. In East London, we’ve got things like one of the most famous soap operas, EastEnders, and you get the old Cockney accent. I’m down in the east where some of the new developments have gone up, where you’ve got Stratford and Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park. They built a whole area where they had the 2012 Olympics. Yeah, I’m an East London girl. Always have been, since I’ve moved to the UK.”
I met Mindy in 2014 in South Korea on a teaching program. I was a college student excited to try out teaching while traveling in Asia, but Mindy was an actual teacher from England who had decided to do her teaching project in Korea.
The Korea Connection
Mindy recalls visiting Korea for the very first time. “When I was eighteen or nineteen, one of my friends I went to college with was Korean. She went back to Korea afterwards, and I visited her just hoping to see somewhere new. And I also always loved Korean culture, especially the food. So the first time I visited, I fell in love with Korea. Thought it would be nice to teach there, to check out how life was there.”
Fast forward to 2014, Mindy came across an opportunity to teach English at an elementary school in Korea. Soon enough, she was on her way off to Korea, and was placed at a school on Jeju Island.
Jeju’s humbleness
“I loved Jeju. The humbleness of Jeju reminded me of back home in Saint Lucia. It’s an island place with the farmers driving trucks. And it’d be the same in Saint Lucia. I love the whole atmosphere of Jeju. You see the ajummas arguing with the bus drivers. You see that same kind of thing in the Caribbean. In these rural areas on Jeju, people would be really interested, really curious about you.”
“Another thing that really caught my eye was that one minute you see Korea so developed and they’ve got everything, and suddenly you’d be squatting in the middle of nowhere in a pig toilet! And it’s the same thing in the Caribbean. I love to be able to be in the city and go down to the country as well. When you go hiking, you have a glass of soju. We have that same atmosphere. You go down into the banana plantation, or go catch some crabs. And then you get these pots and you cook out in the open.
In Jeju, you see some ladies down at the river washing and stepping on the clothes. I was like damn, this is amazing, I used to do that! I love that authentic kind of culture that is not forgotten in them. There are these certain things that are still kept, even though Korea’s very developed.”
Jerk chicken and fried dumplings
After eight years as a music teacher, Mindy left teaching last September to start a business of her own in an entirely different field. She started a street food business.
Before she went into teaching, Mindy had been a chef for seven years. She always wanted to have her own restaurant. And Mindy decided to get into the booming street food scene in London first.
“I do West Indies, so Caribbean food. What’s really good in London is at the Carnival, everyone opts for jerk chicken. Once you have the grill going, everyone’s running. You can’t go wrong, really. I decided to do jerk chicken and fried dumplings. A fried dumpling is like a donut – in Saint Lucia we call it bakes, Jamaican people call it dumplings. And the rest of the Caribbean has johnny cakes, which are much bigger.”
“Jerk chicken mainly comes from Jamaica. One of the most important things is having the pimento sauce, cinnamon, and ground seasoning of cloves. That will give you a really good jerk. You put it on the grill, and you get a nice authentic flavour occurring, and it’s just really good.
In the Caribbean, we eat lots of beans and lentils. You have things like rice and peas. There always needs to be peas in our food if you are in the Caribbean! And lots of grilled meats. Caribbean cuisine is also heavily inspired by Indian cuisine. You’ve got things like roti, daal curry, and curry chicken and goat and lamb. I’m getting hungry!
I left Saint Lucia when I was twelve years old. And my grandparents also had their street food stall. Every Friday and Saturday you’d have what’s called a fish night, or where you just have local street food that is really awesome. You’d have things like fried chicken, jerk chicken, grilled lamb, grilled pigtail, all of these things. You’d have lots of these lovely treats.”
Launching a business
“I decided to move into street food around October, and it was going really great. It was really, really challenging, with a lot of money invested, and lots of moving around and lifting equipment, setting up, and things like that. It was beautiful.”
By December, the business was really picking up, Christmastime being a big season. On top of starting a business and being a single mother to her eleven-year-old daughter, Mindy was also taking care of her brother’s children while his family navigated an intercontinental move.
“It was very stressful. I’d finish the store and be so knackered. I had no time for myself. And I would get home and prefer to eat really sugary. I would have an entire 12-inch salted caramel cheesecake all to myself. My health and my back started to give way.”
Once the holiday season ended, Mindy gave herself six weeks off. But rather than truly using this time to rest, she kept working on her computer, taking care of administrative aspects of the business.
“And right now, this whole virus situation across the world has gotten me to sit my butt down and sleep. Everything will be there for you once this is over. If everything is not there, that’s kind of okay, too. Right now, I really am resting.”
Restaurant ideas
Mindy hopes to expand her business into a Caribbean fast food franchise in the future. And as for a proper restaurant, Mindy has a different idea.
“Actually, I’ve been eyeing around the space where I live, which is rather quite new and which has got lots of spaces and lots of new businesses. I actually want to get Korean food in on this side in East London.”
Mindy says Korean food has been gaining popularity in London in recent years. But at most of the Korean places she’s been to, Mindy was quite disappointed to learn that those cooking the food and running these restaurants had never been to Korea. They knew little about the the history or the culture of the country.
“Everybody now knows Korean fried chicken. Korean food is becoming a thing in London. I want to actually make a Korean Samgyetang and Juk restaurant. And I think that’d be nice for British people to know. I want to introduce that to London because that’s one thing that has not been introduced about Korea. Especially Samgyetang, and its bubbly presentation, with the whole chicken boiling away. It also has its health benefits with black garlic and ginseng. It would be good for those looking to have a good workout, and it would be good for the people here.
I want to go back to Korea for a little while, and learn from the chefs there. If I could have both my Caribbean fast food franchise and also be able to create a Korean restaurant, that would be really great. I love Korean food a lot.”
Mother-Daughter time
But for right now, it’s a season for rest and quality time with her eleven-year-old daughter.
“We are doing things together. I’m trying to create a timetable for her, most of which is at home. She’s also got school work to do online. I also try to use this time to teach her music, and we’ve got a piano and different instruments in the house.
Last couple of months, I’ve been trying to teach her cooking, her survival kit. So teaching her how to do some traditional veg and ground provisions, like yams and green bananas. How to peel and cut them up. Yesterday, she made spaghetti by herself.
Whilst teaching her to cook, I’m turning it into an English subject. So I’d ask questions like, tell me the steps you made in your cooking, tell me what you think went well about your cooking and what was so not so great about it. And maybe how might you change the ingredients to make it your own, and things like that.”
The baby girl’s growing up
Currently, Mindy is witnessing her baby daughter grow up to be a person of her own.
“Oh, she’s not a baby anymore. She’s probably going to be five foot six in the next three months. She’s also finding herself now. She’s going through that whole puberty stage. She’s trying to associate herself as a teenager and she’s starting to show these different attitudes and emotions of teenagers at the moment.
She’s a really wonderful child, it’s been a blessing having her. She used to be this cute, wobbly toddler, but now it’s a different season. She’s a person and now she’s trying to identify herself as a person. I’m trying to get her to be disciplined and grounded in the kind of person she is becoming. She’s still amazing.”
Quarantine reflections
For Mindy, being in quarantine at home has been a time to reflect on what’s important for her.
“Watching our government, talking to friends and talking to my daughter, I’m noticing things that are important to me about cultivating time for myself and growing. But I think the most important thing is growing with a kind of value system and standards.
So I want to become a person who is ready to talk about who I am. I’m very determined and driven, but you see in politics and in our leaders what it looks like when you’re driven but don’t have a strong stance. You want to be a person with a strong value system where people can trust you and support you.
As someone handling their own business and having employees to assist, I’d have to be a person that people can trust, and I think that is very important. I’m on the ladder climbing to the 40s, and it’s a whole turning point of what you are believing in and what you are expecting, and know where you’re going.”
Mindy – it was so good talking to you and hearing about the things you’ve been doing, and I’m already excited for all the wonderful things I’ll hear next time we connect!
