Kitchen aid: left, Olia Hercules. Right, clockwise from left, Patricia Trijbits of Where The Pancakes Are, Joe Laker of Fenn, Big Mamma’s Group’s Victor Lugger, Santiago Lastra of Kol and Shuko Oda of Koya
(Picture: Joe Woodhouse/Collected press handouts )The Ukrainian-born, London-based chef and food-writer Olia Hercules is speaking in the torrents that come with someone who, in their own words, is “running on mad adrenaline”. Two Sundays ago, it was business as usual, as she proudly shared news of husband Joe Woodhouse’s debut cookbook with her 111,000 Instagram followers. By Friday, she was outside Parliament protesting over Vladimir Putin’s invasion of her country. In her hometown, Kakhovka, her mother and father are holed up; her aunt Lyuda, cousin Alyona and other family all are staying nearby. When Hercules speaks to them on the phone, the sound of bullets whistle down the line. Her elder brother Sasha is in Kyiv; he has joined the territorial army.
“How do I feel? S**t,” she says. “How do you think I feel?” She adds: “My first thought was just a very powerful feeling of being powerless.”
