 So I have a confession to make I Never ever think that I'm good enough and This feeling has pursued me from the first day This is me nervous in the back at Mugaris when they received two stars Don't speak Spanish. No idea what's going on barely know how to sharpen my knife And I was told by andoni that if I couldn't understand the importance of folding the kitchen cloth the right way Then I probably shouldn't be in fine dining Since that day Everything just became like a constant battle with one's selves every night thinking what could I have done better for service? You know these these questions just keep nagging you but also pushing you forward and Em This is my my my master and teacher mr. Bobbeck. I started with him Whoo, I started with him as an apprentice definitely not thinking I was good enough to come back to Denmark and actually have a student career here and It all worked out for the best and then suddenly Opening up guys. I continued with him to follow on that team and then just thinking okay I've never worked in a big restaurant like this before is it possible to change from a little small fine dining going into a Big place like this serving 300 people a night just pushing it out And this was besides being confused for being his wife every time we travel together because I'm a female chef This was obviously the biggest challenge so far So just you know Carefully trying to to blend in and assimilate Then I met this guy mr. Klaus Meyer One of the craziest people I know amazing person And he invited me for an interview about this project he had thought of in Bolivia to use a model where you would take a traditional NGO work and Throw it in the garbage and then do some hands-on work And actually not just go in make a project Which is a horrible name and then get out again, but actually try to see if we could leave something behind and let something grow organically afterwards So I come to his house. He's wearing boxer shorts. He just came from a tennis match It's all crazy. The dogs are running around the interview was cooking a small meal for his family and He liked it. He liked the point of acidity, which is very important for Nordic chefs as you might know and then he asked So 30 people no education. Do you think you can manage that? Can we build a culinary school in Bolivia and my mind is going of course? I can't and you're like, yeah, sure. Yeah, I'll take it on, you know, what can you know, what can you do? And this is anti-kucho anti-kuchera One of the typical my favorite Bolivian dish, but this is kind of what we're competing with so going to a country you risk like Getting in trouble with the whole cultural thing of what is this blonde lady doing over here? And are we not good enough and and then at the same time, this is an amazing but one dollar dish So suddenly you're like meh fine dining. Okay, let's let's do this and This is one of the first teams of Gusto 30 people standing in front of you waiting for you to change their life and be like, okay, so hit me and I didn't think that Brit doesn't rise at 4,000 meters of altitude. You're like, oh So the recipe needs to be modified. Yeah, sure. It's having some Amazonic fish in And this is cancer with the bones of a paeche me standing in front of us of all these people and being like, okay So this is how you do this. I practiced a lot when they weren't looking. There was a lot of baking going on at night And finally we cracked the code together and as much as I was able to teach them, of course I probably learned 10 times as much on a personal level So this is six months in Food and wine magazine comes out with an article that freaked us out. It's a positive thing But are we the new best restaurant in the world and like Jesus Christ stop looking at us? You know, it's you know, just let us be over here in the corner. We'll cook some nice Bolivian food and yeah Just get on with our lives This is of course a big push for the team and it's a super positive thing But it's just one of those things that every time something happens that is good Then you're like, oh my god, there's somebody coming, you know We have we all we receive the civic medal of honor, which is a big thing This is the first time it's been given to non Bolivians This is a medal of honor for pushing forward culture and for improving the country So this was a big thing and obviously we had no idea what it meant But the whole local team were freaking out and they're like, oh my god, this is amazing This is given to precedence. It's giving to a lot of people. So this is again where At least for me Thank you so much, but they are more responsibility, you know This is Manga at one point we grew out of Gusto There were so many interested in having a piece of paper saying that they had graduated In kitchen because it's a I think it's a good way to move on With your career and do other stuff and it's a career that opens a lot of doors Even to a little street food stall or whatever so these are the third generation of Almost seven thousand graduates by now in 14 schools, but then again You see their happy faces and then at the same time you're like, did I even teach them the right things? Is this enough is this what are we doing here? And you know, but it's I mean the things that you receive and the things you give You know, it's it's it's it's a gift, but it also comes with a lot of responsibility This is knowing me and her mother on her graduation day This is one of those moments where I started realizing that I'm representing a completely different culture a country that is mine in and you Suddenly start hearing the parents go my daughter should have a lady's education She shouldn't be a cook and I'm like then what am I you know and This turned out to be a very social thing Homemakers maybe babysitters Maybe a couple of other professions, but definitely this was not for for women. I've never been In a situation where I had to deal with that. Luckily, I know many have but this became kind of a thing for me To say, okay, we need to also fight that fight. So now we're talking equality. We're talking opportunities But now we're also talking female forward There's a lot of things suddenly that you have to put, you know under your umbrella and and help Some of these young people push push forward One day I get a call From William Drew at 50 best saying you are Latin America's best female chef 2016 and I'm like, no, I'm not All these fierce taco mating ladies out in the world the grandmothers of Bolivia all the street food stalls all these thousands of years of tradition going through their hands and then You know, of course again, what a great honor But it just felt so humbling and I think every time that you receive something I Just not lowered my head in a negative way, but you just become more and more aware that you have a lot of responsibility of giving back and so this of course was an amazing thing for all our female team because They see it as if you can do it then I can do it chef and it's like yes, you can go go get it, you know So this is again You know if you can't control it all at least damage control And so The last couple of years I've been able to travel a lot represent a goose to abroad and and also now just myself actually And ended up in Pakistan of all places Doing a dinner for 600 people Traditional Danish food. It was a very very very strange experience This was my team on the first day. This is clearly the first time. They've had a lady in the kitchen It could have created chaos. It was a little bit chaotic in the beginning a lot of men keep being like no I'm in charge. No, I'm in charge. No, I'm in charge. I'm like no. I'm in charge and then Thank you, and then all these doubts just come back, you know, are we actually serving these people tonight? Are we gonna bullshit around you know and this you know We had a lovely time smiles. We made it we serve 600 people We have a thing here called college school and if you've been to Denmark, you will know what it is It's like a dessert milky thing. We did that in Pakistan everybody. Ah, I love this lassi. I'm like, yeah, whatever you want I call it, you know So I've been to Bahrain the Middle East has a lot of female chef students, so that's amazing But then again, you're like am I overstepping? Am I saying something culture inappropriate? Why are you wearing a scarf? You know all these things that suddenly you're like Can I even say this to people? And but I think also We have to just be open and honest. So that's the way forward This is the male chefs of Russia. Clearly. There's a lot of guys there And so this is another approach you speak to them differently, but the results are pretty much the same all this diversity kind of confirms that you know Absolutely something but absolutely nothing so when you travel around you're like, yeah I'm this great chef and then you find out like the omelette and like I want to learn how to do that And I want to do that and I want to do that and you feel empowered but useless This is my this is Denmark, this is my new working area food Organization of Denmark is doing a traveling project where we go around And mostly now we've been on the west coast of Denmark. This is what we call French fry heaven This is all that coast is beautiful beautiful beautiful restaurants filled with French fries and frozen fish and I mean, we have quite a bit of sea so we should be able to cook real food and one of the most inspiring thing is to go into a kitchen with a chef or a Kitchen helper that's been there for 15 20 years And then create a little bit of lemon zest on a couple of fresh shrimp and just see their mind like wow This is delicious. I'm like, yes, I know it is then let's do that instead of that and instead of being Annoyed by it, which I would have thought they would have been but honestly, they're like in the beginning like And then suddenly they're on board and what if we add peas to that and what about spring onion? Should I get some no no no and like yes, that is the spirit if we can just you know With a little microplane a little bit of lemon just incentivate people from cooking for 20 years to go back in the kitchen And just get excited about it again. That is worth all the money This is the place in winter. It's really honestly happening in summer not so much right now On the other side I have a lot of jobs so don't be confused. I am too Somali land is one of them a project called fair fishing where we go into Somali land and There's been done a lot of work with the hardware part So getting them ice and ice machines and all the logistic part and now we're getting into the whole cooking part So you see yellow fin tuna blue fin tuna treated really bad Because it's not I mean if you're not able to keep Fish fresh then it can be the best fish in the world, but after a couple of days. It's really disgusting So now we're trying to Clean their mind from the whole yield with fish and then not deep frying it but actually working on developing dishes a With fish that are nutritious use the whole fish do a stock do this scrape the bones like the whole thing and This is the second day where we had the Homemakers they were super excited a lot of selfies going on but also just seeing these ladies makes you understand that it's not Everything you hear on the news which has for me been very confirming Being able to travel this much but at the same time you're like What if I tell them something completely crazy and they go out and spread the word out in the world and suddenly It all comes back to me. I'm like, I'm sorry about that, you know But for now it all turned out for the best This is the first time in my life. I feel a tuna. I accepted the challenge and I was like, yeah sure that sounds amazing I want to go there. I'll do this and we'll fill a some fish and we'll teach them this and then on the flight there I'm like, I never feel a tuna I'm like shit. This is gonna get out of hand. This is gonna be Completely, you know, I'm gonna be useless in front of these people. I found out they freeze the whole tuna and they Like chopped pieces off with a hammer now for fileting. So it turns out my skills were fine But but you never know and I Have been asked a lot lady lately. Am I opening a restaurant in? and I don't know I Think it's the same Insecurity the same fear the same whole thing Coming back and being like am I good enough? Have you been to Copenhagen? Do you know the amount of amazing restaurants? Do we need one more? You know So maybe it will happen. No, but but but that's the point like it's it's if I can do these things and travel around And I don't want to call them projects but you know helping out with different projects and and and try and Pitch in with the with the little weird knowledge that I have from different places then maybe that's more important Then then having you know said four walls. I don't know. I'm wondering. I hope you will help me salute this For now, I'm very Copenhagen hipster. I enjoy being back So so so for now we're just we're just chilling out and I found this This model a couple of days ago, and I think it's really suiting for how I feel as a person I don't think we should be pursuing perfection all the time I think we should just like fucking you know do the best we can and then try and push things forward So thank you for listening and have a great mat