Honestly, I have never been in the situation where I should have cooked for a big team. I am not an excellent cooker and I hardly can manage to achieve a good result. Moreover, I never follow the instructions. Usually I read some recipes and then I put together the informations and I shape them according to my imagination, idea and skills.
Before I came here, I thought that there will be a chef and I will help. But it is more. For one week one of us working in the kitchen as a chef and prepare the food not only for the volunteers but also for some people from the village. When it is 12 o`clock, around 10-20 people are heading to the community hause with the feeling of hunger and with curiosity about the meal.
So this is my second turn. My first week in the kitchen was not so brilliant, but after all it was a good practice and I could see, how is it works. At second time I could manage better. I decided to come up some hungarian dishes with a twist. The idea was to make a couple of things from our traditional kitchen like stuffed cabbage, dumpling (nokedli), hunter`s sauce; adding the seasonal vegetables and a bit international species to them.
I dared to choose dishes I have never made, so I was very excited. Fortunately, I have seen my mother several times how she do them and I could recall her movements easily. I enjoyed every minutes and I felt confidence because I carried out something challenging and it made me satisfied and happy. Last but not least, people complimented the food and I could hear the finnish sentence ´hyva ruoka` /good food/, after every lunch, as the best part of the day. And it should be also noted that I had a helper sometimes who could join and help in the preparation or cleaning.
I am grateful and proud why I could cook and share the partly traditional hungarian food for an international team here, in this beautiful Kurjen Tila, in Finland!
