A four-man multiethnic team from Israel is heading to the November 20 Expogast 2010 Culinary World Cup international culinary competition in Luxembourg.
Dubbed Taste of Peace, the team is sponsored by Norway’s ambassador to the Palestinian Authority. His personal chef, Arab Christian Johnny Goric, is one of the foursome.
“We are representing peace and coexistence,” Goric, who belongs to the Israeli-Palestinian organization Chefs for Peace, tells ISRAEL21c. An additional team representing Israel is also slated to compete.
Goric (37), executive chef at the Intercontinental Resort in Jericho, will be joined by Charlie Fadida, the Sheraton Tel Aviv executive chef who formerly led the Israeli team in the competition, considered the Olympics of culinary arts.
The other two teammates are Fadida’s sous chef Imad Shourbagi, a Muslim Arab; and Sarkis Yacoubian, an Armenian chef instructor from Jaffa. Joining them will be four culinary students and an instructor from the restaurant at the Notre Dame of Jerusalem Center.
To be accepted for Expogast, they joined both the World Association of Chefs Societies and the Israeli Chefs Union. The men have been training for five months in the Sheraton kitchen for presentations of cold platters, tapas and chocolate and marzipan sculptures.