I recently was introduced to a Nigerian woman who as it turns out is opening a Latin American restaurant here in Accra. The food is to be a mix of Mexican, Cuban and Brazilian. The person who introduced us, the dutch owner of the store where we buy all our carved furniture, raved about my cakes and so this woman's interest quickly was heightened. It all makes perfect sense: she is Nigerian and owns an optics franchise, her husband is a Ghanaian banker, neither have ever been to Latin America, and both are opening a high end latin retaurant - only in Ghana! Low and behold, she said she had not found anyone to do her desserts for the restaurant - and by the way, her Brazilian chef could not make it either into the country, so the only Latin thing the restaurant had 3 weeks ago was the name. I was not expecting a phone call but she did in fact call a few weeks ago and so I agreed to meet with her. She asked me to make some samples of the desserts she had already decided she wanted and perhaps would ask me to bake desserts for the restaurant's launch party which was this past Friday. Excited I was but also completely overwhelmed,as she had invited 200 people (mostly diplomats and expats) for the launch and the desserts she wanted were not even in my normal repetoire...cheesecakes, mousse cakes, truffles...
I got to experimenting and had her over for a tasting 2 weeks ago. This was after some desperate emails back and forth to my mother-in-law and aunt-in-law who run a large bakery operation in Colombia. On the menu were Alfajores de Dulce de Leche cookies, Tres Leche cupcakes, Chocolate Chili Truffles, Chocolate Mousse Cake, Chocolate Mexican Brownies, and a Chocolate/White Chocolate Cheesecake. She seemed to enjoy everything and we agreed to correspond about prices and the order. The funniest thing of that afternoon came when she hinted she might want the alfajores with another filling, not dulce de leche - I had to tell her the only latin flavor of all her choices was the dulce de leche.
A couple of days passsed and I never heard from her as planned so decided she must not have wanted to make an order. And then the phone call came this past Wednesday afternoon...she explained that her emails were not going through to me nor were the phone calls but she'd like 200 truffles and 100 mini cheesecakes! By Friday!! After taking some deep breaths I decided I could do it and just would cancel anything and everything scheduled for the next two days. I proceeded to send Frank off to buy groceries for me but since he doesn't read I had to send him also with all the containers and packaging so he could find the items at the store. He did quite well with the chores which left me available to start melting chocolate and rolling truffles. I managed to finish everything but was left totally spent by Friday morning. After some inner strugling, I took a leap of faith and gave Frank the restaurant's map for him to take the order - Frank doesn't read maps or believe in them. He came back about an hour later with a big fat check written to Africake... what?! a check?? I don't have a bank account in Ghana! All this work for a check I can't cash? 95% of Ghana's economy runs with hard cash, everybody carries wads of cash to pay for everything... why do I get a check?!?!
Anyway, she did call me the day after the launch to tell me all was wonderful. She came to my apartment and wrote me a check for cash instead of Africake. She also wants me to do all her desserts for the next two weeks before I take off on vacation and then home for 6 months. I'm holding my breath. If and when I pull this one off, it will definitely be a feat.
I got to experimenting and had her over for a tasting 2 weeks ago. This was after some desperate emails back and forth to my mother-in-law and aunt-in-law who run a large bakery operation in Colombia. On the menu were Alfajores de Dulce de Leche cookies, Tres Leche cupcakes, Chocolate Chili Truffles, Chocolate Mousse Cake, Chocolate Mexican Brownies, and a Chocolate/White Chocolate Cheesecake. She seemed to enjoy everything and we agreed to correspond about prices and the order. The funniest thing of that afternoon came when she hinted she might want the alfajores with another filling, not dulce de leche - I had to tell her the only latin flavor of all her choices was the dulce de leche.
A couple of days passsed and I never heard from her as planned so decided she must not have wanted to make an order. And then the phone call came this past Wednesday afternoon...she explained that her emails were not going through to me nor were the phone calls but she'd like 200 truffles and 100 mini cheesecakes! By Friday!! After taking some deep breaths I decided I could do it and just would cancel anything and everything scheduled for the next two days. I proceeded to send Frank off to buy groceries for me but since he doesn't read I had to send him also with all the containers and packaging so he could find the items at the store. He did quite well with the chores which left me available to start melting chocolate and rolling truffles. I managed to finish everything but was left totally spent by Friday morning. After some inner strugling, I took a leap of faith and gave Frank the restaurant's map for him to take the order - Frank doesn't read maps or believe in them. He came back about an hour later with a big fat check written to Africake... what?! a check?? I don't have a bank account in Ghana! All this work for a check I can't cash? 95% of Ghana's economy runs with hard cash, everybody carries wads of cash to pay for everything... why do I get a check?!?!
Anyway, she did call me the day after the launch to tell me all was wonderful. She came to my apartment and wrote me a check for cash instead of Africake. She also wants me to do all her desserts for the next two weeks before I take off on vacation and then home for 6 months. I'm holding my breath. If and when I pull this one off, it will definitely be a feat.
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