Creative Cooks top-three surprise

[caption id="attachment_236534" align="aligncenter" width="630"] SPAR's food ambassador Khaya Kepe,left, and SPAR Sherwood's Daron Forlee with first place winner Krystal van Vuuren[/caption]

Out of 113 Eastern Cape winners of SPAR’s Creative Cooks Local Legend cooking competition, a surprise announcement of the overall top three winners was made last Friday.

SPAR Eastern Cape held a gala evening at the Boardwalk Convention Centre to celebrate more than 100 customers from various Eastern Cape SPAR outlets who won the competition.

Sherwood SPAR’s Krystal van Vuuren, SUPERSPAR Lady Frere SUPERSPAR’s Gcobisa Papiso and Martin Lackay of Camdeboo SPAR were announced as the top three overall winners of the competition.

Van Vuuren, who came in first place, made a rosemary, garlic and red wine lamb shank potjie.

“I definitely didn’t expect to be at number one especially considering the tough competition at the cook-off at my local SPAR,” she said.

Papiso, in second place, also did not expect her savoury pap and mutton stew dish to land her in the top three.

“I didn’t expect to be in the top three. It was an amazing surprise, because I really love cooking,” she said. Lackay’s spicy lamb curry and roti landed him third place.

“I’m really happy to have made it to the top three of the competition. It feels good because I didn’t have my own transport to Graaff-Reinet and had to hitch a hike, but it was all worth it,” Lackay said.

Each store winner walked away with a R10000 SPAR voucher.

The competition forms an extended part of the Eastern Cape’s #chooselocal campaign which promotes local products.

The Creative Cooks competition challenged the public to enter their favourite family recipes at their local SPAR stores.