Tags
A Taste of Greenland, caribou, Chris Coubrough, electric car, hydro-power, Kuupik Kleist, Nuuk, prime minister, reindeer, Sarfalik
It’s 9 a.m. We’re at Sarfalik, one of the fanciest restaurants in town. Here we’re going to film a chef-to-chef talk. As this restaurant normally doesn’t open for breakfast, we brought in our own guests to make the scene more natural. Jan from Pro Greenland and Annamary from Nuuk Tourism came to help us. And our team members Mikael and I took another table. Thanks all!
So, these fake guests were provided with apple juice and salad, as the picture wouldn’t be pretty if they just sat and idled there. Though, the guests had to eat and drink very slowly as some food had better be left on the plates until filming is done. In fact, near the end of the filming, the crew asked Jan and Annamary to drink their juice but none was left in Jan’s glass. He acted pretty good though. He managed to drink the “juice” (or air), TWICE!
So while the guests were restraining themselves from jumping to the food, Chris was talking with the hotel restaurant chef over the dishes he creates using Greenlandic ingredients. The chef said cooking in Greenland can be challenging because the ingredients are not supplied steadily. It’s quite understandable. The same happens with everyday’s grocery shopping. Here, sometimes you will find no eggs in stores and at another time you won’t have any onions or leeks. You just have to live with it (or be creative!)
As soon as we finished with the hotel restaurant scene, we hurried to the house of Hans Egede where Chris is going to cook with Prime Minister of Greenland. (Note: Hans Egede is Norwegian-Danish missionary who founded Nuuk in 1721.) This yellow house is one of the oldest houses in Nuuk and PM is using it as a guess house and/or a meeting place.
At 1:10 p.m. Prime Minister Kuupik Kleist arrived in the house in casual wear. We’ve been told that PM has been interested in A Taste of Greenland project and very supportive. He just returned from a business trip, but he didn’t mind spending over three hours for the filming. As you may already know, filming requires patience. People starring in it should do the same scene over and over again until the producer/director says okay, and also for different angles. And there are usually more than one scene. We had four scenes here: PM welcoming Chris to the house; cooking with Chris; having a coffee with Chris in the garden; and sending Chris off in an electric car—not necessarily in that order. It was great to have PM in the program because that can show how much Greenland cares about tourism and wants to let the world know more about the country.
So, today’s menu: reindeer or caribou. (FYI, reindeer hunting season begins in August. It’s perfect time to cook the meat.) While PM was helping Chris grilling reindeer, they talked a lot about the future of Greenland: mining, green energy, all that represent the pioneering aspects of the nation.
I loved the last scene, which Chris drove away in an electric car. He pulled out the car, he stared at the camera, which was on his left side, with a funny smile on his face. Check it out yourself in the Behind the Scenes:
+ Electric cars:
There are three electric cars in Nuuk whose batteries are charged by hydro-power. I drove the one Chris used for the scene, and it was pretty amazing. Nearly no noise, great acceleration for such a small car, long enough range with one battery charge (maybe not for big cities, but in Nuuk, you don’t need to charge the batteries more than once a day.) What I didn’t like about it though was the steering wheel, which is very stiff to make turns.