Since then, cooking for and hosting people have become career-defining passions for Markus, who has not only amassed an impressive 65.7 thousand followers on her Miss Polly’s Kitchen Instagram account, but also, has a second cookbook on the horizon.
For Markus, beyond her dad’s significant influence, it was early jobs in hospitality as well as the industry’s vast potential for travel that showed her how she could segue her passion into work, from making sauces at Hell’s Pizza to waiting tables at her local cafe to working in the event team at Britomart Hospitality Group, to the formative years she spent working as a crew chef on a superyacht in Europe. And while Markus’ trajectory in hospitality has been somewhat non-traditional, it left her with a deep respect for the industry — its people and its opportunities.
“I fell into the job of being a crew chef on a superyacht, even though I wasn’t formally trained,” Markus tells me. “And it was such a crucial time for me, it really opened my eyes up to the world of food because I had the opportunity to go to places I had never been before and to learn about produce and cooking seasonally and how to be practical in the kitchen.” She continues, “I was cooking for anywhere between 15 and 20 of the crew and would help the head chef do the guests’ food too.”
