African
CUISINE
CELEBRITY TABLETALK
All The Goodness of Africa
PAULINE LONG
Founder, BEFFTA Awards
P
AULINE LONG. An amazing
woman. A compendium of
experience. An energe?c
campaigner. An icon. When we
mooted the idea of se?ng her
a table in the African Cuisine
Magazine Celebrity Table Talk,
li?le did we know that we were
engineering an exci?ng encounter with so many
di?erent dimensions. During two and half hours,
we explored a range of issues, ?ee?ng between
subjects that relay the struggles of black people
in the Diaspora to the culinary tastes of African
children, juggling being mum and mentor and
trying to squeeze the last second out of each day
doing the best possible to make a di?erence.
That’s Pauline Long.
pe?te frame and the charm of her smile belies
the enormous energy that know infuses her
mul?dimensional array of work in the community.
She says she wants to give to people what all
her talent and ?me can o?er. She situates her
promo?on of black ar?s?c achievement in the
mirror of self-promo?on and accepts that charity
begins at home. How did she get here? What’s
her story? Pauline was born in Kenya but came to
study in England because her father said sound
educa?on was the passport to success. She built
up a career in the hospitality sector and was Guest
Rela?ons Manager at up-scale Mandarin Oriental
in London’s Knightsbridge before venturing out
to become mum and mentor.
Pauline says she grew up in a family of eleven
siblings with a working Fashion designer mum
The ?rst thing that strikes you on seeing is her who had loads of sewing machines at home and
size. And then her smile. The combina?on of her s?ll did her best to look a?er the home. She
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Magazine Celebrating the Best of Africa’s Food & Drink in the Diaspora