Dishes compete for beauty, taste

A HUNDRED foreign and Chinese teachers and office staff showed their cooking skills and tasted dozens of potluck dishes at the 2007 Potluck & Cookery Contest at TPR American English School in Xiangzhou on December 18.
Three sets of kitchen utensils and appliances were arranged in a triangle in front of the background wall, which reads “Great Food Served Beautifully” in both Chinese and English. Three judges, Sandy, Duoduo and Sherry, comprised the jury, tasting and rating the colourful dishes. Beside them was a bulletin board with the names of participating teams. The audience, or contestants waiting their turn, sat at the other end of the courtyard, talking, laughing and cheering. A row of potluck dishes, in various containers or plates, was displayed
Dressed in red, black, green aprons or other unified colours, the teams went on stage and vigorously yelling out slogans such as, “We’re the reddest, most delicious and prettiest!” “Headquarters Team takes charge of yummy!” “Just do it!” and “Creating Prosperous Olympic and Flying Wing to Wing”.
The male and female cooking teams quickly engaged in chopping, frying and stirring meat and vegetables. The time limit for each team was half an hour. The teamwork led to plates of mouthwatering Chinese dishes served with colourful vegetables.
Eight teams, including New Xiangzhou, Headquarters, English Enterprise, Gongbei, Jida, Doumen, Xiangzhou and Xiawan-Ningxi, displayed their cooking skills in three groups. First prize went to Spicy Shredded Beef cooked by the English Enterprise Team; second prize to Braised Fish With Soy Sauce cooked by Headquarters Team and third prize to Xiawan-Ningxi Team, which contributed Crab Fried With Ginger & Scallions.
Hot Pot Olympic Games, a dish served with mushrooms and red and green pepper slices in the shape of the Olympic rings cooked by Xiangzhou Team, won Creative Award. Pasta with potato, onion and pepper dressings jointly cooked by Americans Scott D Orr Jr and Houston Brittany Dawn and Canadian cousins Nasrin Mashhadi Parvin and Noshin Misaghi won the International Award.
Scott, a young man having worked at TPR for a year, called it cool to take part in the cookery contest. While slicing green peppers and onions skillfully, he noted he had studied cooking in high school and likes to cook at home. However, “I never tried to cook Chinese food,” he said.
Noshin, a young Canadian woman who came to TPR with cousin Nasrin four months ago, called the contest challenging and good. However, she said: “They should have let us know ahead of time so that we could have brought something. And now we don’t know what to do.”
Nasrin said she loves cooking and always cooks at home. “We’ve already brought a potluck, and that’s why we don’t have enough materials,” said she.
Houston called herself a very bad cook. She always eats out and seldom cooks at home. Nevertheless, she helped stir the blending onion, garlic, pepper and potato slices in the pan.
Despite various unfavourable factors, the foreign-teacher team stunned the audience with Italian pasta and dressings.
The Chinese and foreign working staff regaled the potluck and dishes cooked on site before they voted for the finals.
“Out corporate culture lies in the casual communications of employees,” said TPR Principal Simone Xue. The Potluck & Cookery Contest initiated three years ago has become a highly recognized brand of TPR through which teachers and working staff show their spiritual outlook, teamwork and sense of responsibility, he noted. It also strengthens ties between the employees. TPR has been developing vary fast and has become the strongest ever, which is due to close collaboration by employees, he said.