Dislocated - My life away from home - A personal rite of passage

Marja - to distinguish who I am

During my stay in New York I had lunch with friends at a great place: The Kitchen Club in SoHo. The owner turned out to be Dutch. I met her at an event of the Dutch embassy – and she invited me to come back to the restaurant so she could tell me her story.

photo:Marja inside her restaurant The Kitchen Club

Marja Samsom grew up in a small town at the sea in The Netherlands. Her father’s family owned one of the biggest publishing companies in the country. That, and having a German mom made her different from other children. She says: -‘people were opinionated about me. There was nothing I could do about it. I grew up being an outsider.’

-‘People discriminated me for coming from a well off family, which is often judged in The Netherlands. And of course my mom had been on the wrong side during the war. Such nonsense! To top it off, I was the youngest of seven children… I have one sister and five brothers. It’s natural I longed to distinguish who I am, to be my own person.’

After high school I attended the Rietveld Art Academy in Amsterdam. But I felt uncomfortable with rules, even ones there at school. So I quit and started own initiatives. I wanted to break free, search for another way of thinking. I developed several alter ego’s, like Miss Kerr. http://www.deappel.nl/exhibitions/e/15/ I photographed and filmed myself on super-8, and held expositions at Amsterdam gallery De Appel. www.deappel.nl

-‘The Dutch government paid me a monthly artist’s allowance. That started having a negative effect on me. That isn’t freedom, that’s fake freedom. It’s not about survival. I loved being around some Dutch artists at the time, like my good friend, designer Benno Premsela. www.premsela.org But more strongly, I felt I needed to broaden my horizons and leave al behind. When a friend invited me to stay with her in New York I decided to stay here.’

photo: Marja outside her restaurant with her dog Chibi. Marja loves to make comments to people passing by and chat with neighbours. At the same time she keeps a sharp eye on what goes on inside. The people who work here seem to adore her, and so do the customers.

It was a fabulous time in NYC at the beginning of the eighties, a cultural explosion. I started to hang out with the art scene here, became friends with some of them, like Julian Schnabel. But somehow I didn’t fit in there either.  I had no money, no place of my own, and I was illegally here. The whole thing made me dive into a depression. I had to think of something, reinvent myself again.’

I started cooking as a private chef  – and did that have an effect on me! I worked for wealthy families like the Rockefellers. Having people tell me what to do was a huge challenge for someone like me. It freed me from my pretensions, it was simply about working hard – and I liked it! I always liked food, and decided to take that further. At the time I wore white outfits, I looked like a tomboy. Mind you, clothes are extremely important – to identify and express myself. If I don’t look good, I don’t feel good. Then I started making pastries called ‘Linzertorte’., The combination of the way I looked and these cakes worked. Bloomingdales started buying them, and that was the first stepping stone of my career as a food artist. I managed to get my official papers in 1990, and started my own restaurant and bar ‘The Kitchen Club’ and ‘Chibi’s Place’ named after my beloved dog. www.thekitchenclub.com

photo: The Linzertorte that Marja made for Bloomingdales are still on her menu. Her mom from Southern Germany taught her how to make them.

The Kitchen Club is famous for it’s delicious dumplings. Since she was a teenager, Japanese culture has influenced Marja: - My father did business with Japanese, he imported magic markers for example. In the mid eighties, I met another ‘outsider’ here in NYC, a Japanese barber who became my husband for 15 years. We are now divorced, but still good friends.

Will Marja ever go back to The Netherlands? -’No. I love to go back now and then, and don’t get me wrong I love my home country. But this is my home now - I feel very ‘located’!. And where America’s concerned; it is not the Promised Land. But inside New York is where I built my own world. I love my little corner of the world.’