After only 20 days of having started what I have called “The culinary adventure of my life”, I woke up at 5:00 AM and got ready to head towards the train station and ride on the high-speed route to the second most important city in France, Lyon. Known as the greatest French culinary city in the country, it is in this place where the most important professionals in the hotel and restaurant industry gather every two years. All professionals and apprentices in areas like cuisine, bakery, cheese and dairy producers, pastry; tools, uniform, and machinery vendors; everyone goes. The list is endless, just as that with all the names for judges, assistants, contestants, and exhibitors who go. Thus, I decide to summarize the event, therefore, as so:
With such an introduction, I guess you can imagine the high expectations arisen to attend such an event, since two years ago, I saw some news bulletins on the local television, but buying a ticket at over 100 Euros without taking into consideration the traveling expenses did not seem viable to just go look around what everything was about, even when the World Pastry Cup or the prestigious contest of the Bocuse d’Or take place there… at least not back in 2013. But history has changed, as this time I was able to attend as the student of one of the exhibitors, and I didn’t have but to register online and pick up my badge in the school’s reception. Attractive, isn’t it?
I decided to meet with a friend to not travel all by myself the two hours of high-speed train. We met, without having foreseen so at the Line 10 terminus in Gare d’Austerlitz. We crossed the Seine’s river bridge together and avidly rode the TGV to take us to our first international salon related to world-class gastronomy. To top it all, we were lucky enough to travel in the same car with one of the school’s administrators, so, we were surely not going to get lost on our way to the Exhibition Center. We had the day ahead of us to visit the entire place. We walked until we couldn’t any more. We made a stop on every contest we found; baristas, barmen, all of them… until we sat down for more than an hour before the pastry chefs. If only we could stay longer and see the one with the cuisine chefs. Impossible, at least this time. Maybe in two years.
Undoubtedly, this is one of those opportunities one has to take. What if it’s one of those we have only once in our lifetime?
