Thai priest tattoo adventure

 A few years ago, I spend some time with a Thai Buddhist priest in his home outside Bangkok, this was on recommendation from a Thai friend who was tiered of me asking all these questions about Buddhism why, who, where, howe come, I wanted to know as I am born curios.

To spend time with him was very expiring and full of new insights not only of Buddhism but also from various religions like Taoism, Confucianism and also different aspects of Indian religions, super cool and very educating with new wisdom for myself, such an inspiring person and I could spend so much more time just to have interesting discussions around many different topics, mind blowing.

You who know me also knows that I am not religious in normal since as believing in books written by humans guided by whoever, this is no go but I do believe in higher powers and in universal power that do have impact in all human life, some people find solutions and absolutions by defining a god and some of us do not need it to still pray and believe, what is your opinion regarding religion? share with me.

One thing that I still have on me is the Thai prayer tattoo where chanting and prayers was part of the process when performed with a sharp bamboo stick and hammered into my skin- NO PAIN AT ALL and this is absolutely crazy, all my other tattoos I still remember the pain but this one nothing, I cannot explain why and how but I'm happy to have this as a reminder of this guy.

  

China adventure 1

 I travel a lot and have meet chefs from many places with their own history, challenges and future dreams but have to say that Chinese chefs are from another planet, extremely curios, knowledgeable, determinate to do their best and also very humble, I love to work with Chinese chefs and somehow wish to end my career in China, how cool wouldn't that be!

I was invited by the Chinese government to do 3 special private dinners to celebrate 70 years of peoples revolution and also some masterclasses at the culinary collage of Beijing (another story later)

This trip was amazing and even better because they invited my wife Christina to join me and explore Beijing on her own, she was really touring around while I was doing my thing, lucky her.

The venue is the former Belgian embassy property in center city that was taken over by the government years ago and is now the playground for male population where they can bring party girls nobody knows about, not even the taxi drivers know about this address, very cool indeed.

In the compound is a beautiful garden, very big manor house and other budlings for staff, security and so on, with own canteen and living quarters.

The main building has a super nice lounge areas of curse and a very nice kitchen that serves the small restaurant, exclusive table wear but in totally different style that we are used to, sometimes very tacky! 

The local team was magnificent and so nice to work with, this is my Chinese team every time I go back for more adventures.

What do you think of the menu I provided? let me know in your comments.

XieXie

Dinner last year at Capitol Club

 How time flies so fast, last year in September I did a dinner at the Capital Club in Nairobi, this is a high-profile members club in beautiful setting over 4 floors with great view over Nairobi skyline.

I was super happy to be asked to cook for a bunch of guests including my wife!! I love it and a few other persons that I know of.

The menu was created as a memory lane throughout countries that I like but unfortunately my original plan of 14 curses was cut down to 6 only, but well it turned out pretty well anyway and I gave many Kenyans a challenge with some of the flavors they are not familiar or used to,  

Overall, the dinner went well and I hope to be invited back some day

Asante

Time to vote them out - Du gamla du fria

 Yesterday as I am currently in Kenya I went to vote for the parliamentary election that all free and democratic people take for granted, its not like this everywhere as we all know and corruption is very present in many world countries.

I do appreciate to live in a democratic country but not full of stupid people in our government who encourage 3 world people to use the system that was not built to host them, a total F up 

As a true Swede I took the opportunity to vote at the Swedish embassy in Kenya not to miss out on this, well at the embassy I had a chat with the staff there and asked how many voters they were expecting, she told me around 5500-6000 voters !!! I said WHAT how is this possible? then I asked how many Sweds live in Kenya, the reply was around 150, so what is the rest?

All the rest is Somalis that obtained Swedish right to live in Sweden and by facto have the right to vote, they all get governmental money support but live in Kenya and make so called business here, this is totally absurd that we as country accept this and keep this kind of people using the system,

We have failed as country for sure by letting foreign people using taxpayers' money to support them like this, 

Its time to take a stance like they do in Finland, Polen and Denmark, start sending back and revoke all residencies from people who cheat the system.... I am truly pissed off.

Du gamla du fria finns inte langre.

 

Live fire cooking

 To cook food over open fire somehow brings out our ancient dinosaur brain habit the we all love and flocks around, no matter if it's a fire pit or an electrical BBQ it all appeals to us in a strange and funny way, I know people who basically never cook but when it's time to flip burgers on the grill they are the first to take the lead, interesting with us human.

I enjoy very much to cook over open fire because it demands more precise watch and are very unapologetic if you forget to watch, burning food is another topic.

outdoor camping, cooking, showering is what I love and that have to do with my ancestor's gipsy bloodline, move, change, reroute and never look back is what have always formed me, be brave and strong and adapt to whatever is in front of you, that was my dad's advice when I was young and still feels very much alive today.

To cook traditional dishes is actually much easier over open fire because that have historically been made that way so return to roots can be av very nice discovery for a lot of people, you should all try

Also to enjoy the outdoors with family and friends is so much easier and everything taste so much better, don't you think? 

Who says that airline food needs to be boring?

 I follow a lot of social media people who share the airline meals globally and some are rely bad and some are decent, Turkish suppose to be very good but I have seen terrible photos from t6heir flights, The middle eastern carriers are decent all depending in what cabin class you are flying, high and lows, 

Lufthansa new Fox upgrade is very nice and the first class Alegris is on top of things with a wide selection to choose from and all new cabin.

In my opinion the European carriers are generally far superior from the rest on long-haul flights and business class also the staff is way more educated and professional like the KLM crew and also the older Lufthansa crew, they still understand the meaning of hospitality.

BUT I also need to be honest that IF you receive some dry chicken or chewy beef with gray broccoli and a slightly burned cover this is NOT from the caterers side, this is a crew mistake overheating your food badly, and this my friends are the main reason you will have shitty food on your flight trips including business class flights, 90% of the crew don't care about you for sure and some airlines this is up to 100%

Choose your flights carefully and you will have a nice delicate meal up in the sky.

Here I'm sharing some dishes that we currently uplift from Nairobi, in my opinion not too shabby if not destroyed by cabin crew

Airline food part 6

 A frequently asked question is how do you come up with what you will cater on an aircraft?

So let me try to explain, the whole process is very complex and a lot of departments are involved before it comes on a tray and served onboard, the first thing is that the customer have a idea or request in what direction they want to go, departure time, aircraft type, cabin type, cost, operational needs, equipment

and it goes on forever sometime, from first pitch to serve on board takes usually 10-12 months and somewhere in the middle we start to work and develop ideas where we end up having a customer meal presentation, this can look very differently depending on customer requests and needs.

Most of the time we send suggestions where we get feedback and adjust, after this the customers come visit us and we present the adapted dishes where we on the spot do the necessary changes (always) withe photos taken for reference and future menu grids.

Normally we do 3-4 menu cycles that we use for 3 years rotating with some minor changes during this time, in Kenya there is a raw material issue constantly that we always need to take in consideration when we offer something, this is extremely enjoying and limit us to be too creative sometimes. When all is done, we always do a fit test to see that everything fits in carts and drawers so it can be delivered to the aircrafts, is the sauce sliding? does the prawns stay as plated or moving around? a lot of details that later will be adopted to when we dish out in our kitchen, I hope that this describes a little of how this work and here are some pictures of a fitting trial.

Yes some look messy but we do move around a lot

Hakuna Matata