Zero to hero in just 7 years
Cook learns by experimenting with dishes
SEVEN years ago when she got married, Tarka farmer’s wife Tracy Frost, in her own words “could not warm up a Vienna sausage” and now she is so nifty in the kitchen that she has won the Flavours of Vincent Park competition in East London and some handsome prizes to go with the title.
To enter one had to drop an original, hand-written recipe in the box in the mall and six entrants were chosen to cook their creation for the judges from the hundreds entered.
Tracy says a stove top and convection oven (which she’d never used before) were provided plus a voucher for ingredients. Otherwise they had to take everything with them – utensils, pots and pans – whatever they might need.
On the big day, two of the six cooked at a time, each at their own station. Some made cakes, a roulade, a whole baked fish, there was a smoked chicken quiche, Vietnamese meat balls or whatever they had entered. Tracy’s was a peppered fillet steak on steamed green beans with fried mushrooms and roasted orange sweet potato tossed with micro greens. The steak was topped with a port and sour cream sauce and mini onion rings. But get this – all this had to be prepared and served within 45 minutes!
“I watched the first contestants and saw how stressed they were which was very nerve-racking, but to my huge relief my steak was perfect,” Tracy says.
The judges were led by top South African chef Peter Gough-Wood and they were very complimentary.
So how did this Queenstown-born girl get there? Tracy (neé Langfield) says before she married she had never cooked anything. She married Michael Frost and the first meal she made him was a disaster. They now have two little girls, but until fairly recently her interest was gardening.
But then she learnt to cook by watching TV chefs - Jamie Oliver, Gordon Ramsay and Heston Blumenthal in particular - and this, combined with her love for experimentation, resulted in her becoming recognised for her talent. She caters for weddings, dinner parties and theme evenings and six weeks ago was persuaded to start her business which has taken off in leaps and bounds. She takes orders for just about anything in the food line – convenience foods, ready-cooked meals, pies, Thai curries (she makes her own pasta), desserts, snack platters, cakes – you name it. She delivers to Queenstown every Friday and orders can be placed through chickenlangfield@gmail.com
The dishes she makes are from her own, self-created recipes – “I have to keep up the standard,” Tracy says.