Digicel toasts media practitioners
ELON Parkinson, public relations and communications manager of Digicel, said last Friday’s Digicel Business/Johnnie Walker Live Asian Cooking Experience was his company’s way of lauding media practitioners for their hard work since the start of the pandemic.
“We always look forward to hosting our media colleagues in this way. It’s significant for us because of the conditions we’ve been under for a good, almost two years now. So, this is every bit of us coming out of pandemic hibernation and getting back as close to normal as possible and we’re using food to bring people together. For us at Digicel, we stress the importance of being better together and we feel that we can have better times, better moments, better memories when we come together in this way. We’re celebrating our media colleagues for persevering throughout the pandemic — for keeping us informed, for keeping us aware, for keeping us up to date with what’s happening…we’re forever grateful for their service,” he told the Jamaica Observer.
The event was held at Progressive Shopping Centre in Barbican, St Andrew. The evening’s activities was hosted by celebrity Chef Oji Jaja. This was the first staging.
Parkinson said he was extremely pleased with the success of the evening’s activities.
“The moment I invited my media colleagues here, I kinda figured things would go sideways. They’re not going to cook as planned, they are not always going to follow the rules of cooking, but they’re definitely going to have fun. That’s what we see taking place right now. Everybody in great conviviality; high spirits and just happy; truly happy to be out and having a kind of fun that they can only remember having two years ago. So, this is very important to the mental state psychology,” he said.
The evening’s amateur chefs comprised media practitioners from the RJRGleaner Group, Nationwide, and the Jamaica Observer. They prepared ackee and salt fish spring rolls, breadfruit crusted chicken satay, saffron sticky rice with pan-seared tuna and sautéed vegetables topped with a cilantro fraîche and Scotch bonnet sauce.
Meanwhile, Chef Jaja, who has been a professional for over 22 years, was pleased with how the event unfolded.
“We had so much fun tonight. It was really fun. Working with media personalities is always interesting. They’re so many different, strong personalities in the room so it makes it very interesting,” he told the Observer.
When asked if he’s looking forward to the next staging he replied, “Absolutely! I live for this.”