Today I’m sad. I cried. My friend Alicia Maher from LA sent me a message at 5:58 am French Time :

“Chef, our dear Marlena Spieler passed away”.

I couldn’t believe those lines… But it was heartlessly true..

Delicious Marlena. The last speech of Marlena Spieler at Umea Food Symposium, hosted by Gourmand International, was about DELICIOUS… The meaning of delicious. What is delicious? Marlena is and was the meaning of delicious.

A juicy and tasty cherry tomato grown under the sun of Italy was delicious for Marlena. Pickles were delicious. Ice creams, delicious. Simple and tasty things were delicious for her and could make her day.

I met for the first time Marlena in Paris, at the 104 Cookbook fair. I was told she was a massive food writer. Currently, she wrote more than 70 cookbooks. I didn’t realized that I already knew her through her books, especially with Grilled Cheese: 50 Recipes to Make You Melt or La cuisine juive traditionnelle etc.

Filming for my weekly food show in Daxing, China, I asked her to describe herself. She answered:

“I’m a food writer. I travel and eat the world”.

Indeed, she travelled the world, writing cookbooks about Mexico, Italy, France, Japan, Poland, Russia etc. We travelled together to China, Germany, Sweden, France, Macao. And even if once she missed a connection in Beijing to Yantaï, got stuck at the airport for more than 24h without help because of the language barrier, she arrived at the Gourmand Awards event with her big smile. She was always smiling and happy.

She was a crazy foodie. Everyt meal was a feast. I remembered in Yantaï, James Mc Intosh, Michelle Brachet, Simon Liu, Marlena and I decided to visit Penglai and eat those famous “penis fish”.

This experience was one of the funniest lunches I had. On the way back, we stopped for gasoil and shopped in the small market. We bought huge crazy chinese lollipops and share them and laughed together during all the final drive. Simple festive moments. So funny.

My last demo with Marlena was in Macau, one year before covid.

I must say that for a massive writer, I have never seen someone so simple and humble. No assistant, no PR… She travelled alone, with her two coquetries: her red lipstick, very important for the pictures, and her green bag with white polka dots. Once in Paris, I told Marlena: “we should do a food series with your bag, like Mary Poppins : what’s in your bag Marlena?”. She was so enthusiastic. That was one year before COVID…

Back to my demo story. She came on stage to make a grilled cheese sandwich. From her bag, she took some cheese that she had had for breakfast at the Paris hotel in Macau. Marlena always filled her bag at hotel breakfasts, to give that food to the people she loved or to the animals she met in the street. She loved animals, raising 2 Jack Russell. In Beijing, she fed animals she found mistreated every single day….

But she didn't just put breakfast things in her bag. She slipped in the products that she bought to markets to taste them with friends, or surprises that she bought because she knew that it would make you happy. Even if it’s boiled eggs or Roquefort. That was Marlena.

On stage, at this demo, she used that breakfast cheese from her bag, but also all the leftovers of the other chefs to make to best grilled sandwich I had in my life. Delicious!

Last time in Sweden, she offered the audience a funny show taking out of her bag all kinds of treats related to the coronation of King Charles III to share her joy of this event with us…

She was funny, humble, and incredibly talented. Her newsletters are worth reading, she could turn a little fork found on the road into a thriller.

She had so many awarded cookbooks. In her latest newsletter, she was happy because she knew that Edouard Cointreau, president and founder of The Gourmand Awards, was the only one in the world to read from A to Z her texts, manuscripts and publications.

She was an inspiration for every food writer, and a very good friend. I didn’t know her house, her husband, or her family. Just the little she distilled. But the weeks we spent together abroad, with all our friends from the Gourmand Awards, were just magical. I’m grateful to Gourmand International to have made me known Marlena Spieler.

She came once in Paris in winter to visit me, just because I told her that I loved ice cream in winter. And we had the largest one !

Today, I will eat a lot of ice cream. Because it’s delicious. I will miss her…We think that the people who have talent and that we love are immortal...Life is unfair when the best leave.

All my thoughts to her family, she was a wife, mother, grandmother and mum of 2 Jack Russell : Jake and Lambchop.

Marlena Spieler (1949 – 2023) was born and grew up in California, based in the UK till her death. . For over ten years Marlena wrote a travel and food column for The San Francisco Chronicle, The Roving Feast. It too was nominated for a James Beard Award as well as winning numerous Association of Food Journalists awards. She wrote more than 70 cookbooks mostly awarded, all over the world and especially about Jewish Cuisine Heritage.

She was part of “the club of best seller cookbooks in the world”n such as Vefa Alexiadou, Chef Wan, Ckaudia Roden or Mireille Sanchez.