Tuesday 21 December 2010

Are we being served?

So you’ve decided to come to our restaurant. We’re delighted and hope that you’ll leave happy at the end of your visit.

Of course, the food has to be good. It helps if it’s as least as good as expected and is a definite positive contribution if it exceeds expectations. However, if the service is poor, product quality counts for nothing – or so I believe, with absolute conviction. It’s something I’ve believed in ever since I started my professional career – any part of it, be it as an engineer or restaurateur.

So, isn’t it an absolute shame that so many products these days are backed by little or no respect for the person that pays the wages? That’s you, that is; the customer.

While writing this I’ve my phone on speaker setting while I wait in a queue for customer service with one of the nation’s favourite, or at least largest, communications companies. Luckily I got them to call me at first because for the last 45 minutes I’ve had to put up with a repeated message that my call is important to them and it’ll be answered as soon as possible.

Now, there are at least three lies in that last paragraph. First, that my call is important to them - it obviously isn’t. Second, that the call will be answered as soon as possible - it’s well within the realms of possibility that my call could be answered much more quickly if they put more, and better trained, staff on. And third, that I’m actually on hold waiting for customer service – which by definition is patently not so.

If I hadn’t been able to put the phone on speaker and spend the time that I’m on hold writing this column, it’d have cost me a fortune in respect of how else I could have been earning money for our business plus the cost of my mobile phone call.

It’s coincidental that this battle has coincided with the column because I was about to write about how many things require less customer service these days because we often do the service bit ourselves. Obviously, some decades ago we were introduced to the concept of self-service by the supermarkets. But nowadays, it’s the more specialised areas where service is less likely needed.

Once, if you’d needed a new telly, you’d take the advice of the expert in the TV shop. But now, one Wakamachi HD 32” plasma TV bought over the internet from an online supplier is just the same as another Wakamachi HD 32” plasma TV from another. As long as you’re confident that it’s going to be delivered on time and largely unbroken, you’re going to buy the cheapest, aren’t you? Actually, when searching online for something, I’m frequently surprised that some sites get any business at all when, immediately next to them in the search engine listings, there’s another company selling the same thing for less. But it seems that some people actually like paying more than they need to.

However, if we ever come to decide that, when we’re out for a meal, service is unimportant, I guess that it’ll be the end of the restaurant industry. It’s the service that makes the icing on the cake of the food so to speak and is generally the real reason why people go out to restaurants.

It’s obviously not why they buy their services from telephone companies. There’s no icing on the product from them so it all comes down to price, right?

Well not in this case. I’ve just cancelled the contract and gone to someone more expensive. Now I need to go out for a meal and be looked after so as to lower my blood pressure.

September 2010

Why oh why oh why

“Because Y is a crooked letter and you can’t make it straight” was one of the most infuriating phrases of my childhood. My grandmother lived with us and she was a very old, venerable lady, brought up in the time when children were to be seen occasionally but definitely not heard. So my annoying propensity to question everything no doubt particularly irked her and every time I asked “Why?”, she’d answer with those 12 words; knowing full well that it made me want to explode.

But if she thought that it would stop me always asking why, she was very much mistaken.

I remember being in the first year of grammar school and being told that as things got colder they contracted. The teacher didn’t like it when I asked him why water, when frozen to make ice cubes, overflowed their trays. I don’t think he knew. But someone with greater knowledge soon told me because I asked them why. And so I learnt why pipes burst.

I remember being made to feel like a racist when we were encouraged to embrace, without any questions at all, multiculturalism. When it first started, the few times I suggested it was ill-thought out I was treated with suspicion. So I kept my views quiet; guiltily nurturing my feelings that a lack of integration went against everything I’d been brought up to believe (when in Rome, etc, etc) and harbouring a fervent but secret support for multi-racism. I should have questioned it more openly and watched as the rest of the country caught up with me!

I question whether climate change is man-made and whether we really have the powers to prevent it happening or slow it down. I don’t necessarily disagree with it; just question it.

And the same questioning extends to more recent arguments about meat-eating causing global warming and being bad for the environment. Is that really the case? Are eons of development about to be swept under the carpet because we now realise that all of this time we’ve been feeding ourselves the wrong way?

Last year, Lord Stern, who was the government’s advisor on climate change, told us that “meat is a wasteful use of water and creates a lot of greenhouse gases” and “a vegetarian diet is better”.

Ok, I think to myself, that’s an interesting stance. I could, like many others, embrace it wholeheartedly, cut out the meat and feel worthy as I contribute towards the saving of the planet. But my first reaction was to question it. Too many new ideas that seem conveniently to fit some modern morality are adopted like new-season’s clothes. Ankle warmers were never a good idea but denim jeans were not just a fashion; they were here to stay.

So I wanted to mull this meat-raising issue over a little more – say over the next few years – and listen to the arguments. And now a new book has been written by an eco-warrior called Simon Fairlie who, while wanting to save the world, suggests we drill down a little more into the debate. Space restricts much exploration here today but one point alone addresses one particular thing about which I was uncomfortable: how on Earth could rearing animals use all the water Lord Stern, and other greens suggest? The statistic of the moment is that to produce a kilogram of beef requires 100,000 litres of water. That implies a daily intake of water of about 25,000 litres per cow! If that doesn’t make you step outside the current movement and question the facts, I don’t know what will.

However, there’s no doubt that questioning makes life more interesting. We need people to question perceived wisdom otherwise, for instance, with most people believing the world to be flat, we’d never have discovered America. But, as they’re the biggest eaters of beef, perhaps that wouldn’t have been such a bad thing.

October 2010

Book early to avoid dissapointment

I hesitate to say this but maybe there’s some good to come out of this recession thingy.

For a start, we’re going to end up with a nice balanced economy where the Chancellor no longer puts his mail, still unopened in its envelopes, behind the mantelpiece clock. Where he’s no longer nervous to go to the cash machine of the Westminster branch of the Bank of England and ask for a mini statement because he thinks the machine may eat his government-issued card. When he’ll no longer avoid phone calls from his creditors – ok that’s a long shot. After all, there are 60 million of us. And politicians do tend to have an innate ability to ignore the electorate.

Yes, it’s good to know that our suffering will make life better for those in one of the professions that put us into a mess in the first place.

Maybe this wave of rationality will, by a form of osmosis, transfer itself from central to local government and good practices and planning will mean that we’ll find that we’ll have enough salt in the bank to cope with an icy winter, that our public servants concentrate more on serving than social engineering and the traffic wardens will leave us alone.

But the actual good thing to come out of all this is maybe that we, the general population, the proletariat, have realised that we are the ones that have to plan; to never let ourselves be so exposed to the failings of those we’d like to trust. And therefore to be so much more careful and realistic than those we elect to run the joint. And that we have to think ahead and do things properly.

It certainly seems to be the case as far as our restaurant business is concerned. It always surprises me that others manage to book next year’s wedding anniversary this year. That people book for Christmas before the summer is over. But this year we’re finding that Christmas is getting booked up faster than we’ve ever known. And we’ve already got a number of bookings for Durham University’s next graduation. That’s June in 2011 for goodness sake. I’m lucky if I can think into next week.

I’ve heard that there are more people paying as much off their mortgage as possible than ever before. Do you think that subliminally we’re all assuming that things are going to get worse? Maybe we are. But I remain a perpetual optimist and believe that we should, God willing, pull ourselves out of this mess and find ourselves in a better position than before; not necessarily richer or better off but with an economy no longer built on sand, with a general common sense affecting us all.

And if that means that our customers want to book up with us far into the future, well that can’t be a bad thing. Now, I must find a banker to thank.

October 2010

There's nothing new . . .

Don’t you just love the French? I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve used that phrase in my lifetime. I know I’ve started four food-related articles with it in the last six and a half years. So today makes it a fifth then.

And I do. I love the ways they do things I’d never dare. I once, as an engineer, spent a year with a director of a well known French conglomerate, negotiating the finer legal points of a contract for a multi-million pound project. Oh how the two of us celebrated its signing with Champagne and canapés. Fresh from the party, we met the next day to have our first official project meeting – where he basically tore up the contract. I went puce and nearly exploded. “But . . but . . but we made an agreement, we shook on it, we discussed this over a year ago,” I spluttered. “Ah yes,” he charmingly replied, “but zat was zen and zis is now”. I went home and kicked the cat rather than my wife, but it was a close-run thing. I mean, how could he?

But perversely, I admired him. There was no way I could have shown such bare-faced cheek. But, in reality, over a year things had changed and, in his mind at least, he was merely being pragmatic. Hmmm.

Then there’s their language. Only the French could have an official body to protect the rules of something which, if you think about it, can have no “official” rules. Language is something that develops. It’s not as if a group of people sat down one day and, using a series of grunts and gestures – because this would have to have been immediately before the rules of communication were invented - wrote down said set of rules and proclaimed: “That’s it. That’s how we’ll all speak from this day forth and pray mercy on the sole of anyone transgressing our laws”.

Language is something that is developed by the people for the people. Its rules are acceptances rather than imperatives. Of course, it’s essential that we all speak within some sort of framework or we’d never get anywhere. But while for years I blamed those pesky Americans for changing “got” to “gotten”, it was only recently that I realised that it was we English who’d dropped the second syllable sometime after the Pilgrim Fathers had set sail for the colonies. We never got around to dropping it from begotten and forgotten; at least we haven’t yet.

So we all understand each other because we adhere to some linguistic basics which, obviously, over the centuries, have to change as fashion, technology and circumstance encourage and demand. And so it is with food.

It’s rare, almost unheard of for a new food to be developed from nothing (apart from possibly the invention of Pop-Tarts). Everything we cook at home and in restaurants is a development of something that’s gone before. And it’ll almost certainly be based on something of substance, that’s tried and tested.

It’s what we like to do at the restaurant. We take a dish that we’ve heard of from somewhere within the proximity and history of the British Isles and give it our own twist. And if we can’t think of a new or better way of doing it, we cook it the way the “rules” say it should be cooked. If it’s a famous or well-established dish, it’s probably a pretty good one. It’s poor practices that give dishes a bad name. Prawn cocktail? Wonderful when done properly. Boiled beef and carrots? Nectar when done with love, care, understanding and the best ingredients.

I’ve learnt a basic rule over the years: we should embrace change but base it on our past. After all, if our language can develop, then so can our food. Well that’s alright then, init.

November 2010

Perty people

Some people just don’t know how to enjoy themselves. And that’s a problem with the party season fast approaching because to us, in the restaurant industry, it’s important that everybody who comes to our restaurant leaves wishing to come back again.

You may be the type who only occasionally ventures out for a meal and one of those times might be the office Christmas party. Then, if for some reason you don’t enjoy it, the chances are that you’ll leave our establishment with a less than favourable impression even if we’ve done everything right. Therefore, it’s very important to us that you approach the party with the correct plan. So I’ve taken the liberty of trying to establish how to make sure that everyone who comes to us with their work colleagues for their Christmas bash definitely has a good time.

  1. Make sure that you sit next to the one person you’ve been secretly fancying all year. In truth, it’s unlikely that you’d fancy that person in any other environment but because work occasionally gets tedious, and because the rest of the team couldn’t possibly do it for you, there’s always one person who somehow becomes that little bit more attractive than the rest. Grab them – metaphorically speaking – as a dinner date.
  1. Make absolutely sure that you don’t sit next to the person that’s been secretly fancying you for the past year. You can be sure that they’re not your type.
  1. Don’t drink too much. You’ll only regret it when you hear the stories the next day in the coffee room and you can’t be sure if they’re making it up or if you actually did do that to the boss. And then there’s the debilitating nagging worries over the Christmas break and into the New Year as the next appraisal by said boss approaches.
  1. Drink as much as humanly possible. After all, it’s probably the only way to get through such an event without bursting into tears. Leave those until the following day – and the appraisal.
  1. If you have any influence, make sure that the employer’s paying for the meal, including the wine. Because if the cost’s being shared between all of you, there’s always that excruciating moment at the end of the meal when those that are driving realise that they’ve been subsidising those that aren’t. And, by then, the latter don’t care so the former go home very grumpy and we don’t want that.
  1. Of course, if the cost’s being shared, make sure you’re not driving so that you drink more than your fair share and definitely leave happy, heading for the nightclub. Rather than leaving miserable, heading for home to write a resignation letter and to kick the dog.
  1. And talking about the effects of drink, make absolutely sure that you don’t say anything that you might regret to anybody who can have a detrimental effect on your livelihood and that includes everybody from the tea boy to the chief executive. Many a promising career has been thwarted just around the coffee and the mints.
  1. And last, remember, it’s the Christmas party and everybody knows that this is the time to get off your chest everything you’ve wanted to say all year but, out of diplomacy and common sense, didn’t. Nobody will remember it the next day and, even if they did, hey, it was the Christmas party. They’ll surely not hold it against you. Will they?
I hope that helps and look forward to seeing you next month. Whether you’ll be back with the same crowd next year might depend on if you follow my advice or not.

November 2010

Sprouting children

Advertisers understand it. That’s why we’re bombarded with the same adverts, time and time again. It appears that they work on the principle that our poor brains can’t assimilate their message until it’s been rammed in to our heads a few times. It’s why we are presented with the same billboards, no matter where we go; the same posters on the back of buses; repeated adverts on TV; the same junk mail, week after week. They know that we require this onslaught before there’s any chance of a light bulb suddenly illuminating in our heads and our deciding that we agree with their message and that we must have their product. And we know it works or the advertising slots available during the final of the X Factor wouldn’t cost the same as the debt of Ireland.

As a result it’s also why so many small businesses, like my own, waste so much money on marketing. They only do the occasional advert or promotional activity rather than a thought-out campaign. One lonely advert in the classifieds has little chance of success. But it still costs money and so is almost certainly a waste of the stuff. The message needs to get in front of the potential customer time after time which of course costs more, and is therefore more risky, but I think we’d all agree that you’ve got to speculate to accumulate.

And so you have to with children. On the obvious basis that you’re setting yourself and your progeny up for a fall if you acquiesce to all the demands itemised on their Christmas list, the same goes for making the little darlings do things they wouldn’t if left to their own devices.

Take the controversial seasonal vegetable, the Brussels sprout. What? You won’t? Well it’s quite apparent that you haven’t tried them enough and I blame your parents. Obviously it’s important that they’re cooked correctly because we’ve all got experience of evil little grey green spheres kept warm in hot plates or under lights, positively leaching an ammonia smell into the air.

But a Brussels sprout is a glorious thing if experienced, for the first time, cooked to perfection, with maybe a little butter and black pepper, or even some crispy bacon and a little cream. Or, more importantly, experienced this way half a dozen times. Because it’s likely that the first time you ever tried a Brussels sprout, it was at a stage in your development where your taste buds were underdeveloped; they weren’t trained; you were still a child. That’s what advertisers recognise; your brain needs training before you’ll buy their wares. And so does a child’s taste buds. And it’s up to you, the parent, to take on this task.

Yes, it’s risky. Especially if you choose to start the challenge on Christmas Day as there’s always the chance that you may ruin things – potentially for everyone. But you’ve got to start somewhere otherwise your charges will grow up, never having experienced the pleasure that can be derived from these small cabbages.

So, just as in advertising, to reduce the risk, a well-thought out campaign is necessary. You’ve got to consider product image, quality and placement. You can’t just go boiling a sprout any old way and plonking it on the plate. Psychology and tactics are essential. Even a little blackmail could be used. And before you know it, everyone in the family will be clamouring for more Brussels.

There’s still time before Christmas Day but you need to get going if the repeated-hit theory is to work. So I’d advise steeling yourself and starting today. Because if you leave it until next year, or the year after, all of a sudden you’ll find that you’ve got a stroppy teenager on your hands and the battle will be well and truly lost. And you’ll only have yourself to blame.

I actually truly believe that, when it comes to food, there’s enormous scope for changing our minds about what we like and dislike. And, with a little thought, the same can be done for our children.

But all of this takes effort and resources and involves risk. Despite much thinking and planning, you may still get absolutely nowhere with your efforts. History is littered with failed advertising campaigns. But business involves risk. If it didn’t, we’d all be doing it. And so does bringing up children – but just about everybody has a go at that. The problem with children is that if you start the campaign and fail, if they end up convinced that they hate Brussels sprouts, they may just end up hating you.

Merry Christmas.

New Year resolutions - let's get Real

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Another New Year’s Eve and the pressure to make some more new year’s resolutions. We’ve all made them. But how often do we keep them?

And then there are different types of resolutions. There’re those to provide you with a little self improvement such as: I will keep a clearer desk; I will drink less; I’ll be nicer to my wife; I must stop kicking the cat. These never work because your heart’s not in it.

There are nice and clear single objectives: I will change my job; I’ll ask the boss for a raise; I will ask that girl out. These sometimes work but, particularly in the case of asking the girl out, usually don’t through fear of failure.

There are clearly foolish ones: I will paint the house; I’ll clear the garage; I will bring down all my old LPs from the loft and transfer them to my computer. These all take too much effort and are obviously not necessary or can be done by someone else.

So there’s absolutely no point in making new year’s resolutions because they only make you feel useless and a failure. Unless, that is, you find a resolution that you can and want to stick to.

So it’s got to be something that gives you pleasure; not just in the succeeding but also in the act of carrying it out. Well, for pleasure, you could decide to drink more rather than less but I’m not sure that’s the point of a resolution as you start a new year. You’re probably pie-eyed when you make it anyway as you sing Old Lang Syne but that’s the same with all resolutions if you’re doing New Year’s Eve properly.

It’s got to be something that demands a conscious effort and putting yourself out a bit otherwise it’s not really a resolution at all. And so here’s where it gets a little more serious because I’ve got one for you that fulfils those requirements, while doing good and helping you enjoy life to a greater extent at the same time. I have to admit, this is only going to work if you’re not a vegetarian but that still means that over 90% of the population can take part so hopefully we can do some good.

I’d like you to resolve to try and buy any meat, or products that result from the rearing of any other creatures that have been flying, swimming, crawling or running around, from places that you know have sourced from producers who treat their animals well. Now this is quite complex so that’s where the effort comes in because so many supermarkets and large brands bamboozle us with clever words that are meant to suggest good animal welfare but in fact are just that; clever words. Despite the stuff we see on TV adverts, I frequently enquire in supermarkets as to the provenance of their meat and usually get back just a blank stare.

And it’s not just how the animals are reared but how their life is ended as well. After all, you’re the one who wants to eat meat so it’s your responsibility to make sure it’s been treated well; from conception to termination.

To get answers to these concerns you have to talk to the people concerned and that might mean you buying much more from good local butchers, farmers’ markets and farm gates but at least that means you’re buying local stuff and so that’s got its benefits as well. You may argue back that it’ll be more expensive and that may often be the case. But just because we want cheaper meat doesn’t mean that animals should suffer as a consequence, does it? It’s down to you.

And anyway, if you don’t want to spend more, buy a little less meat but of better quality. You don’t have to change your budget, just eat a little less. We’re continuously told that most of us are morbidly are obese.

Eating well-reared and slaughtered meat not only does your conscience good, it makes eating better too. That’s possibly for two reasons. The first being that it just does and the second being that it’s the farmers’ market effect: just knowing where your food comes from makes it taste better – even if it doesn’t.

So, as from tomorrow, please, come on and join me in my resolution. And a happy new year to you and all the animals.

Let's bring a little balance

It’s good to be certain. Believing that you’re absolutely right about something a little contentious can give you that feeling of superiority; or a confidence in yourself that you might not otherwise have. Even if you’re wrong.

A good example is that Scottish police chief constable you may have read about who, in the 1930s, not only believed in the Loch Ness monster but was actively trying to provide it with police protection. "That there is some strange creature in Loch Ness seems now beyond doubt, but that the police have any power to protect it is very doubtful," he said.

But as time’s moved on and we’ve become more savvy and sceptical, I think most reasonable people accept that, despite wishing these things existed, there isn’t much chance of Nessie ever popping her head up and posing for the cameras. Because, like fairies at the bottom of the garden, she doesn’t actually exist. No, she doesn’t.

Or take St George and his dragon. Aside from the fact that the man himself makes a doubtful English patron saint, hailing from Turkey and never having visited our green and pleasant land; dragons are a touch contentious too. Admit it, when did you last see a genuine, fire-breathing dragon? Therefore, unless Turkish George was just too good at his job and wiped them all out, it seems they’re a bit of a myth too.

It was while reading about the quaint Scottish copper that, at the same time on the radio (yes, I can multitask), I heard a lady telling me about various superfoods. And she was very certain about everything and was probably convinced that because she lives on blueberries and doesn’t eat fat, she’ll live to be 150.

She was very enthusiastic and brimmed with confidence. There’s no doubt that she believed she knew something we didn’t and was desperate to share it. Just like those that used to tell us that a surfeit of carrots would mean that we’d never need a torch again. Or that wolfing down spinach would make us as strong as Popeye.

Sure, carrots are a good source of vitamin A and without it our eyesight would suffer. However, eating more of it has never been shown to improve sight. It seems (or is this another myth?) that a story was circulated to fool the Germans during the second world war saying that our gunners were being fed carrots so that they could shoot down more enemy aircraft. When in fact it was the newfangled radar that improved their sight.

And spinach may contain lots of strength-making iron but, due to other chemicals in the leaves, our bodies aren’t terribly good at absorbing it.

Then there are cholesterol-packed eggs that we were told would, sure as eggs is eggs, give you a heart attack if you ate more than one a year – until we were told otherwise and it’s now fine to eat an egg a day. Poor old prawns seemed to suffer from a similar myth.

So I can’t help but be sceptical when I hear that some new fruit smoothie made from yaks milk and gooseberry leaves will be more likely to keep me alive than the varied diet I currently enjoy. The enjoyment of food itself is such an important part of my life that it rather spoils it to examine each bit and question whether it’ll change the length of my life rather than its quality.

Let’s stop trying to eat what’s good for us and just learn to eat a bit of it all. Food itself isn’t mythical but the effects in can have on our lives can be magic – especially when cooked and consumed in the company of family and friends. However, there’s always the exception that proves the rule. So don’t go trying to tell me that half a dozen oysters won’t have an effect. Because if I believe they do, they do.

Originally posted June 2010

Ethical meat

It’s only a suggestion; but I reckon, if you’re a vegetarian, look away now. Because not only is this diatribe about meat, it’s also about the killing of animals. It’s not a subject most people like talking about and, as a result, is seldom given thought by the vast majority of us. Because . . . well, we don’t like to, do we? But maybe we should.

Now, if you watch the telly a bit, and most of us do, you’ll have seen much talk in recent times about how animals that are bred and reared to be eaten, are treated during their growing time on this planet. Chefs Hugh, Jamie and Gordon have all done their bit by daring to enlighten the meat-consuming public of their responsibilities. And, despite having concurrent motives involving the successful amassing of wealth, they really should be applauded for their efforts because the intensive rearing of animals for food is something most of us have known little about.

It’s something I feel very strongly about. It’s why we, at Oldfields as a restaurant company, try to source as much of our meat as we can from non-intensive producers. It’s why I, as an individual, decided to rear some of my own pigs and sheep in a non-intensive way so that I could begin to understand the issues and problems and costs associated with the whole thing. It also enabled me to understand some of the foreign language that I thought farmers talked. It’s why now, I’m bilingual.

But that’s the breeding and rearing bit. Because then comes the part that few talk or know about. And, due to government legislation driving our local practitioners out of the market, most abattoirs are large, factory affairs where the public glean even less knowledge than they would from the small slaughterhouse around the back of the local butchers. Gone are the days that the chap selling you the Sunday joint could tell you about it’s entire history from birth to counter display.

But if it’s important that our animals are reared responsibly, surely it’s just as important that they’re despatched just as thoughtfully? I think it’s important that it’s done right. The professionals in the bigger places might think I’m soft; that I don’t understand the bigger picture and the pressures on business, but I’m not so sure.

I know it may, nay does, ultimately cost more. I know that in these challenging times we need things to be as cheap as possible. But it’s that word “cheap” that sits so uncomfortably with me when considering the lives of other creatures; creatures over which we sit as arbiters of life and, inevitably, death.

There are many reasons as to why this process should be as thoughtful as possible; not least that the calmer and quicker an animal meets its demise, the better the resultant meat.

But surely the bigger issue is that we, the superior animal at the top of the food chain (at least until the aliens arrive), are able to decide how those other animals spend their time alive and have their lives ended at our behest. Because, don’t forget, we decide that they are going to exist in the first place. So it’s entirely down to us as to how they live, and ultimately die.

So that brings me to a conversation I had with a lovely lady called Sue at Simpson’s the butchers in Cockfield, County Durham. Sue has recently been involved with the reopening of the traditional yet very caring and professional abattoir behind this very traditional butcher’s shop. So passionate and caring is she about the whole operation that she said, without any forethought or planning that, if she were to need a major operation, she’d rather have it done at the back of Joe Simpson’s butcher’s shop than in a hospital!

And if you’re going to eat meat, and if you care about how it’s been treated before it’s reached your plate, could you ask for a better endorsement that that?

Originally posted June 2010

Local - but it's got to be quality

I love where I live. I live in Teesdale, not far from Barnard Castle and I’m lucky that I’m just a few minutes from the A1 and a main rail station, yet I’m also in the depths of some of the best countryside in the UK. And I’m surrounded by it.

Then Teesdale’s in the North East. Not necessarily the most fashionably-regarded region in the country but that’s because most people, southerners mainly, just don’t realise what they’re missing. I made the decision to live here some 30 years ago which while it may not come as a shock to you, it certainly does to me seeming like only ten years. That means I’m older than I think. Or act.

But anyway, while I frequently wax lyrical to all those friends I left behind in the South, it doesn’t mean that the place is perfect.

I love the people but sometimes wish I could see more aspiration. I love the countryside but it is scarred by some pretty dreadful architecture; and some dodgy tractor driving. There’re some great pubs but, with my latent southern proclivities, I do like my beer slightly warmer than is common around here.

So while I couldn’t think of a better place in the UK to live, it’s not perfect. Especially the temperature of the beer.

So I have an issue when it comes to the “buy local” campaigns that I, and the Journal along with other influential bodies, are promoted to such effect. Oh yes, I’m a great fan of buying local, but only if it’s good enough.

I’m old enough, just, to recall the Buy British campaign back in the sixties. I think it was an initiative of Barbara Castle and it resulted in great use of the union jack. I remember images of carrier bags being swung by mini-skirted beauties with the flag on one side and the Buy British slogan on the other; the bags not the girls that is.

But I don’t remember it actually being a great success in its prime objective which was to get us to buy stuff made here. Why? Because you could get better stuff from elsewhere, that’s why.

And just because you have an enormous frozen food factory on your doorstep doesn’t mean that everything to come out of it is worthwhile, despite it benefitting the local economy by employing local people.

So I’ve trained myself to think “quality” if possible. And if I can buy it produced in our region, then great. But just to buy it because it’s local alone could be to encourage mediocrity and that doesn’t feel right to me.

However, when it comes to food, just knowing it comes from a local farm or someone’s kitchen down the road has a way of making it taste better anyway. Let’s just make sure that we encourage our producers to offer us the best they’ve got. They can send the rest of the stuff down south.

Originally posted April 2010

Potty!

I’ve got a lump on my head. It’s not my fault. I was coming down the stairs this morning and, because the laces on my shoes weren’t tied, I stood with one shoe on the lace of the other and found that my foot was anchored to the floor. As I was already leaning forward in a completely unbalanced state and, at the same time, as my hands were occupied carrying two cases, I of course toppled forward and one of the first bits of me to make contact with that floor was my head. Hence the lump.

If only someone had taught me to tie my shoelaces. I know I should be able to do it because I’ve seen others with their laces tied and, unless they still live with their mothers, they’re likely tying them themselves.

It’s the same with my tie. I’d love to wear one of those proper ones that go all around my neck but, because no one’s ever shown me how, I have to make do with one of those you clip on. Useful in the event of a fight, of course, and I know the fashion’s for open necks these days but it’d be nice to have the choice.

Whether you believe these things or not, luckily I was taught by my mum how to cook otherwise I’d have been as ignorant as I’ve just described and, as a result, have to live on ready food and the occasional meal out. Without a doubt my life would have been that much poorer.

In a poll last year, carried by that august body, the Potato Council, it was found that out of over 2,000 people surveyed, four-fifths of mothers said they rarely or never taught their children to cook. And I guess that goes for the fathers as well.

My daughters, both in their twenties and now flown their nests, continue to call, text and email with questions about how to cook this bit of fish or that dessert and to tell me about the various dishes they’ve cooked. And I believe, or at least hope, that they have similar memories to me of seeing pans from head-height, watching their parent gain a great deal of satisfaction from deliberating over steaming aromas, and being allowed to sample the occasional spoonful of delight. And later, as the years progressed, of being shown how to cook, and encouraged to participate in the preparation of, meals for themselves and others.

Of those in the survey, only half of the mothers questioned thought they were good cooks compared with three-quarters of grandmothers. What of the next generation? Only a quarter confident of turning out an acceptable meal? And then what for subsequent ones? And where will we get our chefs from if parents don’t interest their children?

And when people are asked why they don’t cook, the most common reason given doesn’t seem to include the most obvious: plain ignorance. Rather they think that they’re too busy which it’s all to easy to prove is usually just untrue. It seems we’re in danger of becoming like that overweight, unemployed and unenlightened family in the news not long ago that reckoned they didn’t have time to diet.

It’s obvious really. We all need to be taught the basics in life and, to many extents, we are. But we seem to be ignoring one of life’s fundamentals; one of the things that we have to experience every day – eating - and the preparation of the food we eat. Thanks to my mum I learnt to cook and, as a result, my life is of a higher quality than it would have been otherwise. And, while we’re on the subject, thank goodness she bothered to take me through the business of potty training.

Originally posted April 2010

Alien diet

As a child I went through a period of being obsessed by what would happen to me after death. Not in a religious way; Sunday school and RE lessons had sorted that one out – at least until I hit the argumentative stage. No, it was to do with the bit they burnt or buried; the vehicle that carried me around; in short, my body.

I’m don’t intend to upset anybody with this but I quickly realised that it was a fact of life that one day I wouldn’t have any more use for the organic bit of me. And it seemed such a waste just to throw it away when at least the calorific energy contained within it could have been recovered from the chimney of the crematorium to heat nearby homes or, and I hesitate to say this, it could have been used for food.

Now I must point out that I’m not advocating eating people and age and experience has taught me that this probably wasn’t such a good idea. But as a youngster, solutions to problems seemed simpler and, what with my granny always reminding me about the starving children in Africa, letting the worms get me appeared to be such a waste.

However, it does occur to me that if, for some reason, you think that we as humans may be in danger of being eaten by someone – by whom I’m not clear but maybe some greater intelligence which I guess would have to be aliens – you stand a better chance of surviving if you can point out to them that you’re not a vegetarian. Why? Because, if you think about it, we don’t actually eat many carnivores and only the occasional omnivore.

This came about because I’d previously written about the delights of grey squirrel casserole and this prompted our head chef at Durham, Anthony Taylor, and me to talk about what other slightly unusual foods might be available to us. It’s at that point that we realised that just about all the animals that we omnivores eat are vegetarian. Or, we wondered, is it just that we only feed them vegetarian food? And the more we talked about it, the more it became a can or worms, so to speak.

Starting with the obvious, ruminants such as cows and sheep are naturally veggies. But pigs? Well it seems they’re fed a vegetarian diet even though while rooting around they must get a few bugs and the occasional worm but that could be more by mistake; a bit like swallowing a fly while out on your bike. I don’t think squirrels eat meat and rabbits eat my plants so they fit the theory.

Before the law banned it, we used to eat songbirds and the Europeans still do. We know that they eat insects on the wing – the songbirds not the Europeans that is who, particularly the French, it seems eat anything that moves. We can possibly blame the church for the demise of rook from our diet and I’m told that seagulls taste disgusting. However I’m particularly partial to pigeon and I know that in Trafalgar Square at least they eat seeds. And I also know that ducks eat sliced bread because I’ve seen it in the park.

Fish often eat fish that’s true. But so do a lot of “vegetarians” including one of my sisters so that opens up a whole new argument.

I guess that we eat mainly vegetarian-fed animals because it’s cheaper to feed them that way. If it’s farmed, it’s vegetarian. Game, fish and other wild animals may differ. After all, some people eat alligator and they don’t look very vegetarian to me.

But just in case there is something in this sentient-beings-only-eating-herbivores thing, a word of advice: it may not be relevant but if you see an alien spaceship coming into land, remember that they’ll have been away from home quite some time and will probably be hungry. So, if you are a vegetarian, if I were you, I’d make myself scarce. Otherwise the aliens might do it for you.

Originally posted April 2010

Obese? You might not be able to count on it.

You may well understand it but I find it increasingly harder to make sense of the news fired at me every day. For obvious reasons my ears prick up at the mention of anything food-related that appears in the news and I have a file I keep on my desk where I keep printouts and cuttings of such stuff. Just looking at the top couple of pages I see that a survey has found that teenage girls in the UK eat more junk food than they’ve ever done before and that obesity is still the biggest threat to mankind (or womankind) in the UK. “The pattern of consumption suggests that many girls are being influenced by fashion models”, the article says.

Well before I move on to the second cutting, my confusion already starts to ferment as the only fashion models I’ve ever known, and I know a few, are more aware of their food consumption than anybody else I’ve known. I’m not saying they understand it because their diets are usually weird consisting of water and bean shoots and supplements. But they certainly go on and on about what they eat. And they smoke as well. And they are nearly all bonkers.

The second cutting tells me that in the obesity capital of the world, America, one in five of their households ran out of money to afford food at least once during 2009. Boy, they must have been budgeting badly. Maybe the burger chains should set up a pre-paid system like our teenagers use with mobile phones.

So, here’s the paradox: Americans, who are the richest people in the world, are running out of money to buy fattening food; and our teenage girls are emulating size zero models and becoming obese. Confused? There’s more.

Our government tells us that obesity is one of the biggest threats to us apart from climate change, terrorism and the Conservatives. But how many obese people do you know? I’ve carried out a detailed scientific survey in our restaurants in the last couple of days which involved glancing around and counting anybody I considered to be obese. And you know what? There hasn’t been one yet. In fact, the only definitely obese person, according to government-provided charts, I could find is my work colleague Peter who, because he’s very fit and plays lots of sport, has a body mass index so high that official guidelines suggest he’ll be dead by the end of next week.

I don’t know if it’s the social circles within which I operate, or the type of people that our restaurants attract, but the difference I see in people these days is not obesity but height – hence the primary school child in my next cutting who was recently reported as tall, slim and obese. Since the second world war, people have definitely been getting taller. In fact I’m thinking of putting a height restriction on our job application forms because I’m sick of 18 year old staff towering over me.

I asked a friend’s eleven year old daughter how many of her fellow pupils she considered to be fat, expecting her to regale me with tales of reinforced chairs and widened doorways. But she said that everybody was like her, slim and fit, apart from one who got chased around the playground at breaks for being different. Cruel, I know, but it suggests nothing’s changed in that way since the sixties.

Obesity’s not the problem. If it exists to any extent, it’s a symptom. The real problem is bad diet and that’s down to ignorance. Eating is one of the most important things in life to everyone. But we’re taught about it with a handful of silly simplistic phrases such as “five a day”. Imagine if we taught maths like that. None of our youngsters would be able to add up without a calculator.

What? They can’t?

Originally posted April 2010

To the heart of the matter

It’s all right you laughing at the disgust, loathing and fear on the faces of those chosen to do the bush tucker trials in that I’m-someone-selfimportant-camping-in-the-so-woods-please-allow-me-to-make-gratuitous-amounts-of-money-again TV programme. Yes, the foods they are asked to eat may be different. But they are actually foods. And there are others in this world who treat the idea of eating such “novel” food as an everyday occurrence.

And you, after all, eat some really weird stuff. What’s a prawn if not an insect-like creature that just happens to live in water? And I understand that many Chinese find the idea of eating fermented cow’s milk, or in other words cheese (and some which is even allowed to go mouldy first), worse than you might of eating kangaroo’s testicles.

But in reality, our lack of education, experience and imagination means that we concentrate on a handful of dishes and foods when choosing what to eat. Hands up how many of us have a steak nearly every time we go out to eat. See? Yeah, ok, so you like a steak. But surely it’s not beyond the bounds of probability that if you like eating that bit of a cow, there’s a chance that you might like to eat most of the rest of the animal; or a pig, or a snake, or maybe a squirrel?

Nobody’s suggesting that you should be forced to eat something other than your lovely steak – and I do believe that sometimes, only a steak will do. But if someone else is getting a life-enhancing experience out of, perhaps, a little fried liver, aren’t they getting a little more out of life than you?

So when, the other day, during a cookery demonstration I was banging on about eating ox heart I’m sure I actually saw one or two faces in the audience turning green. I hadn’t even got one to demonstrate with – unfortunately. I just mentioned it in passing and received horrified looks from some of those I was meant to be impressing.

But let’s think about it. Meat is muscle. And therefore a lovely steak is either a muscle from somewhere along the animal’s back or perhaps a little further towards the rear. Whatever - before you got it, that piece of meat was doing it’s job, moving a cow around a field. Without it, the cow would have been stationary, or fallen over.

And what is heart if not probably the most important muscle in the body? So it’s not actually that much different from a steak in that respect.

Now, as most of us know, a fillet steak is the most tender, especially when compared with, say, a rump. That’s because the fillet muscle’s done little work in its lifetime whereas the latter’s done a good job of moving around the heavy end of the creature. But many, if not most, steak eaters agree that there’s considerably more taste in a rump compared with a fillet. So, how good is that muscle that works the hardest of all going to taste? And why should we begin to consider that the heart is something to make us feel squeamish?

As you’d expect, the harder a muscle’s worked the more cooking it can take. But conversely, you can buy an ox heart as big as your head, cut some of it into strips and, because it’s so lean, flash or stir-fry them in seconds. And a piece of meat that big, at least enough to feed a family of four, costs less than a couple of quid. In these money-conscious times, aren’t most of us missing something?

So, if that’s gone any distance to convince you that you should give something a little bit different a try, how about giving an ox tongue recipe a go? There's one on this site.

Or is that a muscle too far?

Originally posted April 2010

What's in a name?

I don’t think I’m a cruel man. I’ve never pulled the legs off spiders. Nor bullied anyone – intentionally. I may have given my younger sister a hard time, challenging her to games of rugby when I was nine and she was six but I know she found it character-building and secretly loved it. Despite the injuries.

But the more people I introduce to the various animals that we rear for food, the more often I’m asked how could I be so cruel. This hurts.

Because Oxford, Sandy and Blackie, the pigs we rear that are handled after the name of their breed, have a wonderful life while they’re with us. They’ve got an acre or two to run around in; some of it’s flat and full of tasty weeds, other parts are hilly and sandy and there are lots of trees to snuffle and root around. On top of this, they’ve got a lovely stone, dry stable with regularly-changed hay for them to snuggle up in, water in a Belfast sink that’s automatically replenished every 24 hours and the pleasure of my company at least once a day, bearing gifts of yummy grainy food plus exotic unwanted fruit and veg from the wholesale market.

It’s difficult to imagine how they could lead a more comfortable life short of inviting them into the house to lie in front of the fire or on the foot of the bed. Not that I haven’t considered bringing them in while my wife’s away to see how they’d respond. It could be a great laugh but the damage to the furniture might not be covered on the insurance.

Compare their existence to that of the commonly-produced over-crowded, kept-on-concrete, overfed and unloved, intensively-reared pigs and you’ll see it as different as that of our benign democracy is to an underdeveloped, third world dictatorship. It’s a different world.

So what’s this about me being cruel? I must stress that when anybody accuses me of cruelty in raising animals for food, it’s usually been part of a sentence that includes the phrase: “and you’ve named them!”.

So that’s it. It’s ok to eat a nameless animal but not one that you’ve given some sort of nomenclature. Well I’ve eaten potatoes that I’ve named. Not Robert or Peter but “That Third Clump In The Second Row”. Everything’s got a name and even if I called the animals Pig1, Pig 2 and Pig 3, they’d still have names.

So where’s the rationale?

We’re a funny lot us humans. We’re quite happy to proclaim that we’re the most intelligent creatures on the planet and stand at the top of the food chain while at the same time raising animals for food in the most appalling ways. But start raising them in a way approaching sensitivity and intelligence and we suddenly become squeamish.

Maybe it’s about time we took responsibility for our actions and made sure that we only eat animals that have been reared humanely or not at all. But if we do, unless we’re all to become vegetarians, it means that ultimately, we have to accept that we’ll be eating Oxford, Sandy or Blackie or Julian.

Originally posted April 2010

Who has the answers?

Isn’t Google brilliant?. It’s an amazingly life-enhancing tool and I love it. How many answers to searches does it provide each day? Zillions probably. And each search takes you to all sorts of amazing websites. But, unfortunately, that’s when the problems begin. Because the information contained therein is controlled by the owners of those sites and is therefore often wrong, or partially correct, but sometimes right. This confusion is not Google’s fault and a lot depends upon how you ask your question and then, of course, the interpretation is down to you too.

But the biggest problem is that too many people, and they tend to be the younger ones amongst us, automatically take whatever they read there to be gospel. I’m acutely aware that I’m beginning to sound like my parents, but in my day, going to the reference library took longer (and as a result often meant the quest was abandoned or guessed at) but there’s absolutely no doubt that the answer you got had a much greater chance of being correct. Sure, as time passed, there will always have been some erroneous answers, such as the world being flat and there only being six elements in the periodic table, but in general there wasn’t too much rubbish around.

But there is now. Just type the word “fat” into a search engine and it appears that there’s general agreement that more than a teaspoon a year of the stuff will kill you in two years. That’s if the sugar-filled dessert doesn’t get you first or three grains of salt make you explode from high blood pressure.

Those three substances alone have been demonised to such an extent that much information is available to tell us than none of them should pass our lips when the absolute facts are that all of them are necessary for life and all of them contribute to an increased quality of life.

To such an extent have we been persuaded that all correct information is immediately at our fingertips that we’re in danger of forgetting to question what we’re being told. And if other august sources of facts, such as radio, TV and the papers, start using unsubstantiated information, incorrect assumptions become absolute truth – with the devil fat being an obvious one.

I’m an addicted listener to BBC radio and the BBC is an institution in which I was brought up to have absolute faith. But I have to remind myself to dissect opinion from fact when they both deliberately occur in their news broadcasts. And then interpret fact from opinion when they actually wrongly present them as facts.

An obvious fact is climate change which, as it’s always been happening, nobody can deny. Compare that with the opinion that man is able to deliberately change the planet’s climate which, when you think about it, is definitely debatable. Should we really be so confidant as to think we can affect the world’s climate as we wish and cool things down? Or might we be better off preparing for inevitable change, buying a house on high ground, planting a vegetable garden, stocking up on factor 50 and investing in Tyne and Wear olives?

I recently heard a two year-old radio news reporter telling me that there was evidence that man used to be a cannibal. Sounds reasonable, particularly when you find that archaeologists have identified knife marks on bones that prove someone was after the marrow. Lovely, until she said that marrow used to be considered a delicacy. Used to be? If she wrote the story herself, perhaps she doesn’t realise that it still is a delicacy, along with brains and sweetbreads. And if she didn’t write the story herself, she’ll now obviously regard it as a matter of absolute fact, otherwise she wouldn’t have been allowed to read it out in a factual report.

We know that the internet’s a dangerous place in many respects but those with common sense recognise that its content should be treated with circumspection. But what hope is there if those sources of information that we traditionally respect and believe in, don’t necessarily understand the subject about which they’re reporting?

Believe me, bone marrow is still considered a delicacy. I read it on the internet. Just after searching to find out exactly how many answers Google does give each day. But upon doing my search – using Google – I got a multitude of conflicting answers. Not all of them can be right.

Originally posted April 2010

Clothes maketh a man

Because I’m a man, I can only shop for clothes in two sorts of ways. There’s the best way where I walk with deliberation into the shop, ignore all the offers of help from the assistants, stride up to the requisite rail or shelf, find my size, go straight to the till, pay and leave; all within two minutes of arriving. Or there’s the other way, where I prevaricate for ages, ask the opinion of the shop assistant, the cleaner, my wife and the people coming out of the changing rooms. Then go to another three shops, considering what others might think, before deciding on what I want to buy. And it was probably in the first shop, and I’m definitely not going to wear it more than once, if that, because I got it wrong, it doesn’t fit and I hate it.

I know I should never go shopping in any way other than the first.. But, sadly, I do. At least I don’t spend a large proportion of my life feeling clothes on rails, picking them up, putting them back, picking them up again, holding them against me, holding them up to the light and then putting them down again. And then picking them up again and . . . you know who you are darling. But maybe I should; if only to avoid half a wardrobe of hardly-worn horrible clothes.

I’m better when I go into a bar. I always know what I want long before I get there. And if they don’t have it, I always have a reliable substitute ready. This is different from how others I know do it; those of a different gender to me represented by my wife who, when we get to the bar, always looks surprised when I ask her what she wants. Not because she doesn’t expect me to buy her a drink; far from it. Rather, it appears that she forgets that bars serve drinks. It’s a common ailment.

And then there’s ordering food at a restaurant. “Oh I wish I’d ordered that. Mind if we swap; maybe half way through?” Yes, I do actually because I’ve just spent a good ten minutes taking the carefully-prepared menu very seriously and made my decision with respectful care. So I’m afraid you’re going to have to live with your disappointment. It’s your own fault, after all. Oh, go on then. I’ll finish off your tofu burger while you tuck into the remainder of this venison casserole that I’d been saving ‘til last because it contains the best bits. I hope you realise how lucky you are.

It’s obvious that I’m a lot better at considering a menu than I am at the consideration phase of buying clothes. And, when I’ve made my choice, I’m honourable enough to stick with my decision and not try and make my dining companion feel guilty. I know this sounds as if I’m bitter. Actually I’m not. I’m used to the idea as I’ve been married a very long time and it’s something I’ve learnt to put up with. Like backache.

It’s the others I feel sorry for. I watch them in our restaurants. He’s using the meal as a way of softening her up in the hope that food and wine may just be the way to her heart and other places. So what should he do when she looks longingly at the dish that he’s chosen so carefully and is longing to eat almost as much as he’s longing for his charms to work on her? Well if he knows what’s good for him he should swap dishes. That’s what I do and it’s why I’m still married. Now if only my wife would buy me my clothes.

Originally posted April 2010

It really is all worth it

As a species, we seem to be inexorably drawn to finding a nice, neat way of explaining our environment; our universe; as to why we're here at all. Almost as much as our recent increase in national debt (but obviously not quite that much) has been spent on a giant electro-magnet in Switzerland known as CERN which, when the egg-heads get it to work properly, will tell us what the universe is made of. Once and for all. In a simple, easily understandable way. Maybe.

These type of experiments (and long may they continue) suggest that it's as if we desperately need to sum up our lives and existence with a simple answer and, all too often, a single phrase. Life's full of them: a stitch in time saves nine (whatever that means), one swallow doesn't make a summer and, closer to home for me, too many cooks spoil the broth. Really? Sometimes we could do with a lot more cooks and too few cooks might mean the broth doesn't get made.

Talking to a few of our chefs recently, I did a little survey by asking each one: how important is good eating to you? Their response was swift. Of course good eating's important. They spend many hard-working hours in hot kitchens ensuring that our customers leave happy. But that's not what I meant.

Over the years I've worked with many chefs who never eat what they cook professionally. The food they cooked at home, if they cooked at all, was nothing like that in their restaurants. In fact, at one stage, I came to believe that a British chef's staple diet consisted of bacon sandwiches interspersed with the occasional kebab.

That's why I was asking them about the importance of eating because it occurs to me that there's little point in looking at the recipes I write, or of flicking through cook books, if the objective is to actually appreciate food. The enjoyment of eating and the appreciation of good food doesn't necessarily need to be accompanied by an ability to cook. It might help but there are many gourmets who can't cook - and that includes many restaurant critics. One doesn't need to be able to act well to appreciate good theatre. But one really does have to understand eating to cook well.

Understanding that eating is an enjoyment in itself is what's necessary. And opening the mind to what's on offer, pushing prejudices aside and appreciating what others like. Then, if you really want to cook well, you'll know what you're looking for.

I admit that I've argued for years that there's an almost criminal lack of education in our schools when it comes to cooking and I still believe that to be true. But that has to be accompanied by an understanding of how to enjoy eating the result for it really to be useful.

It's not about understanding how to cook but how to enjoy eating. Then recipes can help one understand how to cook in order to attain the level of eating one aspires to. It's about identifying the objective then sorting out the method of achieving it. Then one can become a good cook.

Wow! This is nearly as complicated as finding a universe-unifying theory. But I don't need a subterranean laboratory to identify it. It can be summed up in a simple phrase, one much loved by dictators and despots alike throughout history. When it comes to becoming a good cook it's essential that one appreciates eating. And therefore you need only five words: the end justifies the means.

Originally posted in April 2010

We all want staff like this

We don’t have an HR department. Despite our company being nothing other than a collection of people, we’re too small to merit a manager specifically for personnel, let alone a team dedicated to it.

So the role of personnel manager, as that of virtually every other manager, falls to yours truly and I have to admit to falling down on the job at times and not really being as good as I, or our staff, would wish. I try to keep up with the appraisals, keep the contracts of employment up to date, monitor the training schedules and generally keep everybody motivated and happy.

But still, despite all my efforts as a manager, mentor and motivator, that well-known British malaise occasionally rears its ugly head: “I’ve got the flu and I can’t come in today. I’m sure I’ll be better tomorrow”.

Flu? As was explained to me by a hard but fair employer many years ago, you’ve only got real flu if you can’t pass the £20 note test. That is, if someone places a £20 note at the foot of your bed, tells you it’s yours for the taking if you’re prepared to sit up and reach over and pick it up and, and this is the important bit, if you can be bothered and you’re actually able to, then you haven’t got flu.

But whatever, they can’t come in today because the raging cold and fever they’re experiencing prohibits them from catching the bus. This despite their subsequent entry on Facebook explaining how their exploits down the pub last night meant that they’d had to take a day off work.

Well one of the stories must be right. However, either way, it’s a sad indictment of some of the members of our society from which we, as employers, source our teams. It’s not necessarily a sign of the times. Thus have always things been.

But there are exceptions to the rule. And more than one of them works for Oldfields.

Take Jarrod who’s a chef at our Durham Eating House. He’s only young, and in fact looks a few decades younger. But in our busy run-up to Christmas he, and without him being asked to or appropriately trained, was an absolute star when it came to leading and keeping things together in the kitchen, despite customers coming out of our ears. His efforts and initiative are alone a great testament to the young of today.

But even he could hardly believe it when one of his colleagues, a waitress, arrived at the restaurant an hour and a quarter early for work one recent Sunday morning. Especially when he found out that, due to her car being snowed in near her home, no taxis being prepared to come out and no buses operating early enough, she set out from her house at 6:15 am and walked 14 miles to work.

You may even have read about it in the national press, heard about it on regional and national radio or watched stories about it on the TV because, so astounded were the media when they heard about this young lady's dedication, they wouldn’t leave her or Oldfields alone.

Why did she do this? For the actual answer you’d have to ask her but she’s probably too modest to tell you. I can only guess that she considered her position as restaurant supervisor important enough, that she respected her colleagues highly enough, that she had pride in herself and her work enough, to plan ahead and make an effort that nobody expects of anybody these days.

It humbles me to think of what she did and no amount of management training that I’ve undergone regarding the organisation and motivation of staff would have led me to expect that a member of our team would go to such lengths.

But then I’m lucky enough to work at Oldfields with people like this.

Originally posted March 2010

Putting the pride back into great British food!

The French. Don’t you just love ‘em? Well they love themselves and aren’t shy about it. To have some sort of official body that keeps an eye on the language says something for a start.

If we had such a quango, the opposition, no matter who they were, would be continuously up in arms – a bit like we used to be with the French.

But while, due to modern global pressures, cracks may occasionally appear in their patriotism, they do generally tend to defend their food, their produce and their style of cooking. While we, the Brits on the other hand, have spent decades trying to pretend that we’re French; and occasionally Chinese and Indian.

I’ve nothing against the food of foreigners. I love it. But one of the main reasons we know anything about it is the pride of those born into it.

Somehow I can’t imagine some housewife in a middle-class suburb in Vietnam scouring her local markets for that elusive ingredient to make a British hotpot.

The French influence in Britain stands to reason. They’re our nearest foreign neighbours, the first place we hit when we go to the Continent and their army successfully invaded us some centuries ago.
But the main cause is a guy called Escoffier who, some years ago, taught us to cook; or, at least, how to cook his way. As is the case with most fashions, we leapt on his methods like a drowning man, such that they became received opinion.

It’s not only that we embraced Escoffier’s dishes but also his revolution in kitchen operation that, along the way, helped elevate cooking to a profession with status. But the legacy is such that we eschewed much of our tradition.Along with changing the titles of our chefs on their career ladder - sous, chef de partie and so on – we threw out much of our respect for our indigenous dishes.

At Oldfields, in order to champion British food over the years, we’ve had to go to war with the French influence so that we may serve such things as chunky carrots rather than “julienned”.

And not that long ago, I even employed a head chef who, once he got his feet under the table, threatened to walk out if he ever heard the words “gravy” or “custard” used in “his” kitchen. Unsurprisingly, I allowed him to walk but his reaction to such terms wasn’t, and isn’t, unique. Which makes this British Food Fortnight, which we’re in the middle of now, as important as ever.

No matter which style of food you cook, its success is dependent on the quality of the ingredients. But none more so than traditional British cooking where the basic components are messed about with to a minimum and are allowed to speak for themselves.

It’s because of such a principle that our cooking became derided. What hope a quality dish if war-time austerity enforced the use of old, tough or poorly-prepared ingredients?

But the modern emergence of farmers’ markets and farm shops, along with the drive for recognition of local produce, means that there’s an abundance of quality ingredients for us to use in our British dishes. It’s time we took another leaf out of the French book, and promoted our pride in our British food.

Originally posted February 2010