Cook
My journey
My name is Collins Onyango Omondi, I am 27 years and a final year Business Management, International Marketing with IT student. I am a Kenyan, born, bred and raised in Kenya currently residing in the capital city, Nairobi.
I am partly self-taught chef after dropping out of my culinary school, Siaya Institute of Science And Technology due to lack of school fees.my love and passion for food begun at a very young age. Having lost my mother at the early age of 6yrs,my siblings and I were now to start fending and doing our chores by ourselves and that included cooking as well hence me going to the kitchen for the for the time. I rem my first time cooking our local ugali/kunde (polenta and green peace leaves) and it backfired on me hence everyone in the family having to go back to school without taking lunch. at the age of 16, I visited my sister who works in one of our local universities kitchen department and I managed to meet some of the cooks there, what struck me the ,most was the speed at which they were working and the clean chefs jackets they were having on. Later in the evening I had a chat with her and she agreed to connect me with one of her, MRS. ROSEMARY ANGOTE cateresses who started grooming me into being who I am today, and I am forever indempted to her.
Having half knowledge in the culinary world made life in the industry not easy because most of the employers were looking for skills and experience and that made me hustle allot. I rem having worked for bakery where I would bake, supply and be the cashier and at the end of the day be paid 1$.i worked my way up and later joined one the best tourist hotel, Sosa cottages Gisambai in a small town called Kakamega as a waiter and later promoted to lead reception, this didn’t fulfil me and I felt I was losing a lot. I resigned and later teamed up with my adoptive mum, MRS TERRY ODONGO, who was by then running an outside catering firm, I was given the task of leading the whole team and I was so fascinating. I later got a job to work with kakamega golf club as a chef de parte, there were a lot of challenges I had but this didn’t make me stop to yearning to want to know more, I later got a chance to go for a TV cooking competition which was an eye opener for me.i met various chefs who inspired and encouraged me to keep working hard through the ladder. During this competition, a lot happened, I met with the one chef Rubbia Zablon whom up to Date have remained to my close friend and mentor both in the culinary industry and social life. I have managed to climb the ladder through determination and never looking back attitude. I now work in Kenya as a consultant chef for Uni Industries East Africa.
I am a private chef too and my vision is to share the African ingredients by creating distinct flavours through creative recipes that gives a client robust and attractive twist if touch.my main concern is the experience my clients both cooperate and individuals have.
I have added interesting twist to already existing Kenyan recipes, I am currently working closely with groups of chefs in Kenya to help improve and market our local and readily available ingredients not only in Kenya but also within our east African region.
To improve the future of African gastronomy, I want to come up with as many African recipes that utilises our own ingredients to create the best fine dining meals that wows the anticipated clientele because I believe we have the freshest and most amazing ingredients that with a twist of flavours can give us the best meal.