Bill Varga is a Grade 11 student at Churchill Community High School in La Ronge. (Submitted photo/Connie Haugen)

By Derek Cornet

skills canada

Churchill student competes in national culinary competition

May 28, 2021 | 4:00 PM

It was a big day for Grade 11 student Bill Varga who participated in the Skills Canada national cooking competition.

“I have been practicing and practicing and practicing for nationals today,” he said. “I’m hoping for at least a single digit placing. That’s what I’m hoping for and I feel pretty confident.”

As part of the competition, Varga prepared two dishes including a French omelet with side salad, along with a brown rice pilaf with western curry chicken. He won gold during the provincial competition in April, but he noted for nationals he had to be faster, cleaner and the food had to taste better. He also had to focus more on plating and decorating his dishes.

Varga also spent weeks practicing as he had to prefect skills such as butchering a chicken. He said all competitors in each province are following the same recipe and there’s a lot of mind work involved.

“I know I had to remember a lot of things,” Varga said. “You have to learn, even if you don’t like it, you still have to taste it.”

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Teacher Connie Haugen was Varga’s proctor during nationals and she explained it was particularly difficult this year because it was held virtually. She had to take photographs and video, as well as submit a written assessment. There were 25 trades represented in the national competition.

Bill Varga would like to study culinary arts when he is older. (submitted photo/Connie Haugen)

Haugen mentioned she was proud of how Varga performed, calling him calm and collected. Varga expects to learn how he placed nationally on June 15.

“It was just a lot of extra work on his part,” she said. “It shows his passion for what he is doing. He did all of that on his own. We had that big power outage and he had to practice at home on his own in the dark.”

Only one student who wins gold in each trade are permitted to compete in nationals. Megan Duffy won gold for baking in provincials last month, but was unable to advance.

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derek.cornet@pattisonmedia.com

Twitter: @saskjourno