19-01-2014
A close up of Colombian chef Maria De La Paz. At 18 she won the competition for best young chef in her country, then she moved to Italy in 1999, to work at Casa Vissani in Baschi (Terni). After a long series of experiences in Europe, today she runs a kitchen staff made entirely of women at restaurant La Locanda in Montecchio (Terni), +39.0744.951017
My life as a woman chef is as challenging as that of a man in the same profession. This job involves mind, body, soul and time. Private life is limited, and you learn to take only the best it can give you and to carefully appreciate everything you do in your spare time. Over the years, this job wears you out and only leaves you enough time to enjoy the emotion of a family, a party, a journey. Only people in the field, both women and men, can understand what we do and why we do it. Every day we are in contact with the magic of transformation and we create feeligns. These are life-choices. Mine began as a teenager, when my father asked me: "What would you like to do? What makes you feel good and happy?". "I love cooking ", I replied. I was born and raised in in Colombia, in the mountain area of the Andes, in a family that has always paid lots of attention to self-affirmation. I had already experimented a little while playing at home and cooking dinner and, when I was even younger, at my grandparents’ house, where we spent the holidays in the countryside. We used to make excellent food, with fresh milk, cocoa to mill, hens still alive, hanging upside down, completely drunk before being killed. There was an old cook called Lilli. She was silent, grumpy, and would prepare special things that touched you. As I used to say, they were “magic”.
Women who, for a moment, leave pots and pans to tell us their experience and point of view
by
born in Colombia, she's the chef of La Locanda restaurant in Montecchio, Umbria region
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The alliance of women in the food sector