By: CHRIS GRAEME
THIS YEAR’S garden party thrown by the British Ambassador to mark the Queen’s Birthday was hotter than usual and not just because of the Portuguese sun!
Ambassador Alex Ellis invited Seema Khade, founder of innovative, award-winning Indian food specialist company Pasco Spices & Herbs (Curry Express), to serve up their hot and spicy Indian curries to the 700 invited guests at the Ambassador’s residence in Alcântara on Thursday, June 19.
Pasco Spices produce natural Indian cooking sauces, pastes, chutneys
 British Ambassador to Portugal, Alex Ellis, gave a witty speech. |
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and pickles and have been involved in the manufacture of quality Indian recipes for two decades at its Wigan-based family business.
Seema came along with her two daughters, Nina and Nita, to serve up Jalfrezi, Chicken Balti and Chicken Dopiaza curries.
“We served the curries up with beer because people seem to like it with that,” said Seema Khade, whose business supplies UK supermarkets Asda and Sainsbury’s and shortly will produce ranges for Tesco.
Gold Awards
The company, winner of nine Great Taste Gold Awards, has a large client base of ethnic retailers and Indian specialist supermarkets and is in Portugal with a view to expanding here, particularly in the Algarve, where they already have a presence.
“Our 100 per cent natural sauces are recipes that come from all over India and the beauty of them is that you can put virtually anything in them and create great dishes,” explained Nita Khade.
“Portugal is a big market for us and we did the Algarve Food Show a few years ago and it was our friend Richard Turner who works at the Embassy who invited us along to this year’s party,” she added.
Alex Ellis gave a witty speech before toasting the Queen’s health to the national anthems of both countries. “I’ve already had the experience of several people walking past me and then coming back and saying ‘Oh, you’re the Ambassador!” he joked.
“David Miliband, our Foreign Secretary, said when I started ‘I want you to represent Britain’. Nine months later he said, ‘I don’t want you to represent Britain, I want you to represent the Best of Britain’.
“We can see a little bit of the Best of Britain here this evening in terms of tradition and innovation, association and civic duty – some of the companies represented here are world leaders in innovation.
“George Orwell said we were natural at wanting to associate, we are great formers and believers of clubs, and civic duty is a very important part of being British and the work of companies such as Glaxo Smith Kleine on the civic side is very impressive,” he said.
Thanking all the providers and sponsors including BP, Logica, Jaguar, Barclays, Sage, Colt, British Airways, Glaxo Smith Kleine, among others, many of which invested tens of millions of Euros in Portugal, providing tens of thousands of jobs he joked, “I’m encouraging you to visit Britain and fly British Airways, if you’re a bit nervous you could take something from Glaxo Smith Kleine to help you on your way, while there you may well want to have John Smiths beer after your Pasco Spices curry but whatever you do leave the Jaguar at home!”
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