Everyday champions

With the arrival of the fall and the chilly mornings, with the ever shortening days, I’m craving more often for a hot soup, for a home cooked meal. But who wants to prepare it: to clean the carrots, sauté the onions, to stay for hours in the kitchen, in one word – to cook? I suppose, not too many. It’s so much easier to sit down, enjoy the food and afterwards to say a polite “Thank you!”, and just simply leave.

Fortunately, there are a few people who really enjoy staying in the kitchen and working for hours just to prepare a meal. Yes, you guessed it, they are the real cooks! Some of them are so passionate about their work that they are willing to wake up in a Sunday early morning, pack up their dishes and go to a cooking championship.

That’s what Gheorghe Lingurar, Florin and Florin C. did on a Sunday morning, in September when they participated at the International Open Air Cooking Championship at Polus Center. The team did it’s best and won the second place.

We asked them about their experience:

Blythswood România: „Which part of this championship was the hardest?”

Gheorghe: “Organizing the whole process – more precisely the teamwork. We had to organize ourselves in a way that the three different opinions and ideas of the team members become one. This is not always easy.”

BR: “Looking back at the whole day, which was the happiest moment for you?”

GL: “There were two distinctive cases. The first one: after the jury finished the evaluation and went to another participant, a whole crowd gathered around our stand and wanted to taste our food. There were a few people who came for a second portion. It really made me happy that so many people enjoyed the food. The second case: when I walked up the stage and got my medallion. It has a weight; you can know that it’s not just a toy.”

BR: “What do you hope this will bring to you?”

GL: “A job. I hope that someone out there will appreciate it, it really wasn’t easy.

BR: “What is your personal gain from this experience?”

Florin: “It gave me courage to continue on my way, a feeling that would allow me to cook for 1500-2000 people, without feeling tired at all.”

BR: “What have you learned from this experience?”

F: “I’ve learned to take pride in my work and to be appreciated by others.”

BR: “What message would you like to transmit the readers?”

F: “It would be great if one would appreciate the cooks, one can never know how much work is behind a cooked meal.”