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Private chef Saima Khan explains how she went from banking to cooking - with the help of Warren Buffett and Bill Gates
- Private chef Saima Khan, 45, was working as a banker five years ago
- She had always had a talent for cooking and hosted lots of dinner parties
- A chance meeting with Warren Buffett made her pursue a career in food
Private chef Saima Khan, 45, founded The Hampstead Kitchen in 2012. Single, she lives in North London.
Five
years ago I was a banker, working between London and New York. I’d
always hosted dinner parties and people knew I had a talent for cooking,
but it never crossed my mind to pursue a career in food.
Then I got a phone call from a friend
begging a favour. A big one. That evening, her aunt was expecting 18
guests at her London home for a seven-course wedding anniversary dinner —
but the private chef she’d booked had cancelled on her.
I’ve always
liked testing myself. My businessman father, who came from Pakistan in
the Sixties, taught me to relish a challenge. So I said I’d step in.
The
cuisine was supposed to be French a la carte but I took the lamb, quail
and beef and with handfuls of spice, cooked up Persian and Middle
Eastern dishes instead. Dinner went down a storm, and by the end I had
several guests wanting to hire me for their own events.
Not long
after, I found myself in the departure lounge at Omaha airport in the
midwestern state of Nebraska. I was working for Berkshire Hathaway, the
company run by legendary U.S. investor and businessman Warren Buffett,
and there, sitting reading the paper, was the man himself. We got
talking about work and, after a while, about food. And then he asked me,
very wisely, when I was last truly excited.
In that instant I had the courage to admit that cooking for my friend’s aunt had been the greatest thrill.
A
few weeks later, Warren Buffett invited himself to my apartment in New
York for a curry. He’d asked along another guest too — Bill Gates (who
also loves curry). After lots of buttered chapatti, he convinced me to
set up a business in food.
Since
then, I’ve cooked for famous people from Angelina Jolie to Mark
Zuckerberg. But I’ve always kept in touch with Warren, whom I regard as a
friend and mentor.
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