Award winning Hospitality students honoured
On Friday morning, two weeks after arriving back to the Cook Islands with medals in the first ever International New Zealand Toque D’or , the Hospitality Tourism Training Centre held an acknowledgement and congratulation lunch.
Sam Timau, Head Chef and tutor to the four students, student chef Josie Rattle [silver medal] and Kevin Wichman[silver medal] with students Front of House servers Xenia Kae [bronze medal] and Deana Paiti [silver medal ] had a lot to say on their performance and time together in New Zealand.
“When my team arrived to New Zealand they looked so smart in their pareu uniforms, we also got sponsors for our equipment so not only did we look good in our uniforms, our equipment looked sharp as well,” said Chef Sam. ”we looked like a real team and the way they performed that day did us really proud.” Though the team are training to be top chefs and front of house servers in the Cook Islands, they all chose to dine in old favourite Mc Donalds straight after their arrival in New Zealand.
Front of House server Deana Paiti was the first to take on the challenge and came out with a whopping silver medal and a big smile.” When Deana smacked us in the face with her silver medal, I told the team we had to either get the same or above and when they found out what place they came the look on their faces was just priceless,”said Chef Sam.
The two chefs had a lot of pressure with 15 judges on patrol looking and tasting for the best and the front of house server girls with 6 judges.” Watching the team, they were professional and yet so Cook Island,” said Josie’s Mum Nicky Rattle who added, “second to having my son it was the greatest experience of my life.”
A proud Minister for Tourism, Hon. Teina Bishop said, “We are here to do two things, acknowledge and congratulate these fine young Cook Islanders, you have hoisted the flag of the Cook Islands in the New Zealand tourism.”
In recognition of their achievement, the team will be getting an all paid trip to Aitutaki promised earlier by Minister Bishop. - Tiare Ponini

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