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| Saltoniškių g. 58 SOC. TYRIMŲ INST. KULTŪROS, FILOSOFIJOS IR MENO INST. |
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Elvyra, valgyklos vadovė
How many years do you work in this canteen?
In this place? For three years.
And how long do you work in canteen business at all?
I work in canteens since 1981.
Are you the director of this canteen?
Yes, I am.
What is your responsibility here?
Well, everything is included. I am a shareholder and a director in one. I coordinate work, people and catering. That's what I do.
How many people are working in the canteen at the moment?
9 people are working. Three cooks, one assistant, a cleaning lade, an accountant and me.
How many people come for lunch per day?
It depends. There can be a hundred, a hundred and twenty. There used to 150 people sometime ago. People come not only from the institute, but also from the offices nearby, residents of the Žvėrynas district, too.
Do you cook all the dishes just for that day?
Yes. As we have many clients, we can presume the quantities we need to cook. So we usually don't have any food left for the next day.
Could you tell us anything from the history of the canteen? Perhaps you know something?
No, we don't know. As we came here, everything was equipped. There used to be a school long time ago back in Soviet times. And the building used to look better, the lamps used to be nice-looking. The turnover used to be huge, because lot of people used to come hear to learn something and used to eat in this canteen.
What is the most popular dish here?
As always: balandėliai (cabbage roll with meat), cepelinai (traditional Lithuanian dish, a type of dumpling made from grated potatoes and usually stuffed with minced meat). They are most popular and one of the cheapest. Nowadays lots of clients eat half of a portion. For example, they take half of a portion of stewed pork or beef. And the same with soup. People just don't have money. There used to be less this kind of orders earlier. We cannot forbid that, we have to accept the situation. People choose places where they can eat cheaply.
How do you set the menu?
We change the menu everyday. We come early in the morning, or we decide what to cook the previous evening. We try to change something everyday, as we have the same clients everyday. Just when some kind of seminar is happening here, we have some new visitors. If you cook something new, naturally people buy it more often. If you cook the same everyday, they buy less. Earlier there used to be a menu set for the whole week. You always cooked the same on every Thursday, for example. But we don't do that anymore.
Do you recognize your visitors?
We don't know their names, but they feel here like at home. They are like our friends.
What is the most important issue in your kitchen?
The most important thing that the food would be good and tasty, that visitors would be satisfied, that they could lunch quickly and they wouldn't have to wait. Everyone comes and wants to get hot dishes quickly.
Perhaps you try to cook using ecological products?
At the moment it is difficult to make experiments. As people try to eat cheaply, they can eat only soup sometimes. Everything is based on money, they want cheap dishes.
What is your favourite dish?
Sandwiches. I could eat only sandwiches and not to cook at all.
Do you cook at home too?
Yes. My family likes me cooking food. They want home made food.
What would you do if not working as a cook?
I would like some work related with organizing, travels, organizing events maybe. I would like to go somewhere, do something, I wouldn't like to sit at home. I need changes all the time. I am the Twins, so I need something new all the time.
Perhaps you could tell some interesting stories from the canteen life?
I started as a washing lady and then step by step I became a cook, then a confectioner, then a barmaid. I did it all by myself. As I finished a school, I entered a trade school and started to work. So my career began. I work in a canteen in one school, later in Pylimo street. We were frying chicken there.
Do you know a cook named Jamie Oliver? Maybe you try his recipes?
No, not yet. Perhaps we are too old. We are fast food canteen. We don't have time for those recipes. But the dishes he cooks look really good. I saw and episode him chopping outside, picking up herbs.
Would you like to add something more?
We used to work in one factory that was supplying food for a supermarket in all Lithuania earlier. When we came to work here, it's different, the amounts are smaller. We used to work in shifts, in nighttime, too. We used to make tones of salads in huge pots. We used to mix it by hands.