ECA Testimonial: Professionalism is What Truly Counts

How do you feel you benefited from membership in the ECA?


The ECA is what has allowed me to accomplish my level of professionalism, as a working chef; and professionalism is what really counts in the cooking field in general. Chef Markus always emphasized the importance of know the basics. He always says: “Know the basics and then build on that!” Chef Markus and Mirjam and the entire ECA team have led the ECA Competitions. Competitions allow us to come together with  many other chefs for instantaneous growth and exchanging ideas!! I have an idea and he has one, at the end of the day you’ve come across 300 new ideas.
The workshops also are very valuable, as they allow the chef to be academically well-versed in know-how; so generations can be grounded in and professionalism. Finally ECA has taught me that every lettuce leaf has value, we must not throw anything in the kitchen. It has taught me to love everything in the kitchen!

Chef Atef Ibrahim
Executive Chef
LSG Sky Chefs Catering Egypt SAE 

ECA Tesimonial: The Joy of Cooking with ECA

One of the joys of life is cooking. It is a journey through a meal that you should always try to enhance, enrich and diversify. The Egyptian Chef's association (ECA) offers many ways to help you achieve this either through the library they have, the hobby chef club that helps you meet new chefs and amateurs that are seeking new experiences or even through their consultation process. I have been lucky to meet different chefs from whom I learned a great deal. I also find the ECA a channel between the WACS and me, through the magazine and website, where I can find new info all the time about what is new in the world.

Thanks for all your efforts!

Chef Heba El Azab

Street Food with a Twist

Cairo Kitchen is a wonderful new addition to the very limited amount of books available on Egyptian cuisine. It is fun to read and to cook from and, although not specifically written for vegetarians, they will find plenty of inspiration in this book. With its beautiful photography, it is a great gift for anyone who loves cooking, Egyptian food and Cairo Kitchen restaurant.
Do not expect a solid cookery course in Egyptian food preparation, because Cairo Kitchen is more of a fun cookbook to browse through for inspiration. Beautiful photographs and short introductions to each dish make you want to try new things, just like the chefs at Cairo Kitchen do. Yes, we all know Tahina, but why not try the Carrot Tahina or their all-time bestseller, Beetroot Tahina? The dishes featured in Cairo Kitchen are as vibrant in color as the restaurant itself, adding to the joy one gets from trying out new flavor combinations. All dishes have their roots in tradition, but many are presented here with a little contemporary twist, making them often healthier and less fatty than their authentic version.
While the photos of food are beautiful, it seems there would be an opportunity for Egyptian food stylists and photographers to go into this growing field. A drawback of the book is that it seems to be written by good cooks who love what they do, rather than professional cookbook writers. This leads to some confusion when it comes to the order of the chapters and explanations. Sometimes a culinary term or dish mentioned earlier in the book gets explained in detail only much later. For instance, there are different chapters for breakfast, mezze and street food items, while many dishes such as fuul and ta’meya could be placed under all of these headings. This sometimes causes a repetition in explanations, which could have easily been avoided by adding a short glossary or an explanatory introduction to the cookbook.

Culinary terms and ingredients are not always correctly explained either. Couscous is described as tiny dough balls and the author suggests that you can substitute Gibna Rumi (Rumi cheese) for Parmesan cheese, which would make Italians for sure shake their heads in disbelief and any professional chef or gourmand for that matter! Also, the words taste and flavor are used interchangeably throughout the book. Somehow it feels like the book has been published in a haste, while it would have benefited from another good round of proofreading.

Reviewed by Mirjam van IJssel

Med Diet Helps with Healthy Ageing

New research on the Med Diet, published in the Annals of Internal Medicine, suggests that middle-aged women who follow a Mediterranean diet* or similar, may increase their lifespan, with better chance of living past the age of 70, compared with those who did not follow the Mediterranean diet.

These "healthy agers" were also found to be free from 11 chronic diseases measured in the study, including kidney failure, cancer (excluding nonmelanoma skin cancer), type 2 diabetes and Parkinson's disease.
Furthermore, they showed no physical disabilities, no signs of cognitive impairment and no signs of mental health problems. 

Overall, the healthy agers consumed higher amounts of plant foods, whole grains, and fish or long-chain omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids. They also consumed less red and processed meat, and they drank less alcohol. The researchers note that these findings may encourage people to follow a healthy diet in order to increase their lifespan and general health. They said:

"We found that greater quality of diet at midlife was strongly associated with increased odds of good health and well-being among individuals surviving to older ages. These data may have an especially important role in promoting a healthy diet. Maintaining physical, cognitive, and mental health with aging may provide a more powerful incentive for dietary change than simply prolonging life or avoiding any single chronic disease."

Source: Medical News Today
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/268294.php

* The Med Diet mainly consists of high amounts of plant foods (vegetables and fruits), beans, nuts, cereals and seeds, fish and poultry, and olive oil as the main source of dietary fat.

Towards a Sustainable Food Society

Chefs Lead by Example (excerpts)

Food societies all over the world are under pressure due to many different reasons, par example increasing demands, higher resource prices, bio-based economies and richer populations. Food cultures have to change and food societies have to find ways to adapt to new circumstances in order to make sure next generations have access to sufficient, healthy, tasteful and divers food. Of course a transformation does not happen overnight but needs a step-by-step approach.

Governments, companies, ngo’s and other organizations are trying to find new approaches with the main question: “how can we feed the world in the future?” The World Association of Chefs Societies (WACS)- also known as World Chefs (worldchefs.org), the leading chefs association, representing 95 national chefs societies and over 10 million chefs has taken up the challenge to help chefs adapt to coming changes in order to create a more healthy and sustainable food society. World Chefs started the “Feed the planet” program to inspire and engage chefs to take action and facilitate them with tools to change their habits.

Chefs are professional consumers, creating the dishes of tomorrow. Chefs think about menus/diets, purchase food and operate a kitchens, activities a normal household kitchen performs as well. As professionals in food societies, chefs can lead consumers towards new food cultures. World Chefs and national chefs societies want to be partners in transforming food behaviour and making sure we can continue to enjoy the gastronomic beauty of this planet. To make this practical World Chefs and its partners is setting up the following projects and programs:

1.       Feed the Planet

Feed the planet runs in 2014-2015. Subjects are sustainability and health. Management structure is to set up committees and Ambassadors in 10-15 countries, who will lead national transformations. Goal is to reach 100.000 chefs in 2015 and 1 million chefs in 2020. On a global level a communication, training, toolkits and competitions are developed for national chefs societies to use. In addition, every chefs society will also develop their own program. Committees run the national programs, the Ambassadors exchange knowledge and experience between the chef’s societies.

2.       Culinary Capacity building

World Chefs want to strengthen the professional part of African chefs societies by strengthening national chefs societies, adding a chapter for informal chefs and creating a pan-African gastronomic business school to supply tools for transformation and development. This will lead to more healthy and nutritious servings in restaurants, hotels, schools, healthcare catering and on the street. A more creative and diverse food society is the result.

3.       Research schools for gastronomic sustainability

Feed the planet is mostly focusing on increasing agricultural output, although the largest impact is created by changing diets. Chefs are the professionals to lead diet transformations where food security, sustainability and health issues are combined. Gastronomic research has to be done to find a better scope on how to transform diets and keep our diets within earth limits. Therefore research organizations are asked to form the so-called research schools for gastronomic sustainability. The first research proposal is developed in co-operation with the Future earth program and top scientists in the field climate change and sustainable development.

Of course World Chefs would like to help building new projects where chefs lead the food society and help to create a more sustainable and food secure world. For more information about the projects or participation in others, please contact Lars Charas, Project Manager "WACS Feed the Planet" program.

Chef Hassan Mahmoud Ahmed, Le Meridien

"Chef Hassan Mahmoud Ahmed, Pastry Chef at Le Meridien Heliopolis, demonstrating to Management new skills he recently learned in the Egyptian Chefs Association's Cookies workshop. It was this morning, a great success. In photo: General Manager  Mamdouh Farag  (left) and Director of Revenue, Moustafa El Kerdany, standing next to Chef Hassan."

Faten Halim, Director of Training, Six Sigma Green Belt, Le Meridien Heliopolis

 

WORKSHOP: Making the Perfect Cookie (March 1-2)

"I must tell you the feed back of my  participant in the Cookies training conducted  by Chef Abdel Moneim Ghoneim (photo).

First of all the organization  and planning of the event were extremely well done.

Chef Abdel Moneim is a real professional, he helped Chef Hassan Mahmoud Ahmed and encouraged him, he is a real model for the young chefs.

Chef Hassan returned extremely enthusiastic and is planning to give the Management a presentation beginning of next week, he wants to show us all what he learned."

 

Faten Halim, Director of Training, Six Sigma Green Belt, Le Meridien Heliopolis

Mohamed Rabiie

How do you feel you benefited from membership in the ECA?

ECA totally transformed my outlook! It allowed me to have a window on the international scene without having to travel abroad. When I first joined in 2007, I became more aware of modern kitchen skills and international culinary trends. Now I know about the WACS and the international community of chefs. That's in addition to the benefits of competitions and exhibitions. Competing is a very enriching process, it helps you develop self-confidence and learn from each other. Besides many other benefits, exhibitions help create knowledge of new products; they provide a much needed platform for learning and great exposure for Egyptian companies and their equipment and merchandise.
M.R. - Sous Chef - Cairo Capital Club

Mohamed Hussein Nosseir

What do you like about the ECA?

All of the Association's services are very much appreciated! The Chef's Corner news section is great to know what are the new establishments with their new concepts that distinguish them from other places. Right now, we are continuing to evolve the concept of Indigo and constantly striving to improve the offerings, based on the comments of our guests, including HE Mr. Hisham Zaa'zou and Chef Markus who visit us recently. I also like the ECA bookstore where the new books are highlighted, so it's easy to stay updated with the latest arrivals. Another important service is the complete Archive of Past Winners with photos. It's great to have this documented archive online so anyone can verify records of past wins, like Top Chefs did to verify my past achievements.

M.H. - Executive Chef - Indigo Restaurant