Spicing
Things Up
T
aste of China Head Chef
Geoffrey Donde may not
know how many safurias,
the Kenyan version of a
wok, he’s got in his kitchen
back at home, but he sure knows
how many choppers, woks and
other cooking utensils he’s got in his
kitchen at work. This master chopper
can’t count them on his ten fingers
though. Not that he hasn’t got them
all, which he does, but because they
are too many of them either hanging
from the Taste of China kitchen ceilings or hidden in the cupboards to fit
on the fingers of his two hands.
“I don’t cook at home. In fact I
don’t know how many safurias I
22.
have,” he says.
The fact that after 16 years of
chopping and stir frying Chef Donde
still has all of his ten fingers and no
obvious burn marks on his hands
and forearms, are tell tell signs of his
dexterity. In all of his years at Taste
of China not once has he set fire to
the kitchen.
The Kisumu native who started his
career as a kitchen helper at China
Plate and slowly climbed the chef
ladder to his current Head Chef gig
working side by side with Taste of
China owner/chef Arty Lakhani, insists he is passionate about Chinese
cuisine.
Cooking Chinese food allows Chef
Donde to use fresh, local ingredients.
It also requires precise chopping and
loads of stir frying and tossing which,
although looks easy at a glance,
actually requires knowledge and understanding of the precise moment
when the oil starts ‘singing’ to the
perfect tune for the ingredients to go
in. O [ [\\