Mum's the word for Zahir Isaacs, the winner of this year's coveted Woolworths TASTE Culinary Bursary.
The first thing 20-year-old Zahir Isaacs did when he learnt he'd won the Woolworths TASTE Culinary Bursary for 2012 was call his mom. “She encouraged me to apply,” he says fondly. “She’s always told me I can do anything.”
Zahir credits his love for cooking to the time, when in high school, he helped his mother run her small catering business. “I realised that cooking was what I wanted to do for the rest of my life,” he says.
However, his first crack at the bursary, which gives promising students the chance to earn a chef’s diploma at Cape Town’s Silwood Cookery School, was unsuccessful: “After failing to get in the first time around, I spoke to the people at Silwood and told them my dream of becoming a chef,” he recalls. “They then spoke to Evan Faull at Knead Bakery who gave me a job in his scullery.”
At Knead, Zahir's willingness to learn impressed his employers: “When there was a lull in the scullery, I’d stand by the kitchen door and watch. One day, Evan saw me and said I was ready to start cooking.”
Today, a fully-fledged member of the Knead team, Zahir often arrives at work at 3 am to start baking: “It’s hard work, but I love it."
For Zahir, the bursary means the chance to finish his studies and hopefully open his own restaurant one day. "I'll ask my mom to join me in the kitchen," he says, "That way I can give something back to her.”
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