We arrived to sunny and warm Kenya on Friday evening after a long flight. First we experienced some cultural shock, but we were lucky to have a few extra days before starting work at the Finnish embassy. We started Saturday by shopping for some essentials and recovering from the flight. In the evening we went to a beautiful restaurant called Beit E Selam, which served local delights and delicious cocktails. We were super honored to have journalist Päivi Arvonen at dinner with us. On Sunday before sunrise we traveled to Nairobi’s National park to take a tour with Bush Track Safaris. National park offered its best to us, because we got see lions only a few meters away from the car. We also found white and black rhinos, giraffes, zebras, very old tortoise and hippos etc. The National park tour was definitely a once in a lifetime experience. After arriving back to the hotel we started to pack the ingredients for next week and planning the first workday at the embassy. We made mice en place list, work schedule and created a menu for vegans, vegetarians and pescatarians. This was the first challenge for our kitchen team. On Sunday we didn’t know how many guests we would be serving on Tuesday and Wednesday so there were many questions still to be answered. Monday…so it begins. The embassy building was even prettier than we could have imagined. We met the Finnish ambassador Pirkka Tapiola and his beautiful wife for the first time in person. We started the day with a short meeting with Tuomas who is in charge of the security in the Finnish embassy. After a quick lunch break Maija, Tomi and the private chef Nancy went to market to buy missing ingredients for the day. In the meantime Arttu and Isabel started mice en place and the rest of us joined when we got back from the shopping trip. We had a successful first day and we bonded with Nancy and other staff. We are so grateful to have Nancy’s help and support and have the privilege to bring the message of Finnish gastronomy to Kenya. We will be posting more about our week so stay tuned!! Good night to all
Raseko International 
Vastaa