Malaspina culinary arts student Liana Viani wins gold at Foodservice Expo 2001

Malaspina University-College culinary arts student Liana Viani outperformed 30 other student cooks from BC colleges at the Foodservice Expo 2001 held at BC Place in front of a live audience on Monday, March 5, 2001.

The culinary arts students were given a half-hour to prepare, cook and present two salmon dishes, one for presentation and one for the judges to taste, with vegetables plus do a sauce and complete the presentation for serving in the hot food competition.

When the cooking was done and the judges tallied the results, Viani was awarded the gold medal for the hot food competition and as she earned the most points, she was ranked the top competitor in the students' division.

According to Viani she wasn't as nervous as she thought she would be cooking in front of a live audience but she didn't escape the jitters entirely.

"When the judges called out 'five more minutes' I really felt the pressure and, as I did the food presentation, my hands were really shaky. I actually went over the time limit by 30 seconds but I scored well in other areas, so it didn't matter," said Viani.

Malaspina instructor Chef John Hannon said, "All four of our students performed well under some difficult conditions but we are particularly proud of Liana, she did a great job. We find the students really benefit from these competitions because everything must be perfectly organized and practiced beforehand for them to compete at this level."

Before attending Foodservice Expo 2001, Viani had to compete amongst her fellow Malaspina students to win the right to go. The students had a cook off amongst themselves and two from Malaspina's Nanaimo campus and two from Cowichan campuses' Kelsey Senior Secondary facility went to Vancouver to compete.

Viani said, "There was time when I didn't like to cook for myself. But my older sister Rhonda is doing very well as a professional chef and has traveled the world to some exciting places, so I thought I'd give it a try."

Viani graduated from South Delta Senior Secondary in 1993 and then worked in a deli for a while before taking a job cooking for the staff at the Sonora Island Resort, a well-known fish camp on the BC coast. Eventually she moved up to cooking for guests and spent three seasons there before applying to Malaspina for formal training in the 12-month culinary arts certificate program.

"Now I really like to cook and to try all the world's different cuisines particularly Italian which is my background. Also, cooking goes well with travel, which I love. I also love learning at Malaspina. The chefs really try to assist you one-on-one as much as possible. My only fear is that the time here is going too fast," said Viani.