TRAVEL

Hi, I have just been asked to cater a week for potential clients St. Maarten. It’s a lovely Island, two thirds Dutch and one third French. Although most of the Dutch side owe more of their demeanor and accent to the States than to Holland. I have catered a wedding there and numerous holidays. I have written about St. Maarten in a previous logs so I wont this time.

We have had two of Diane’s sisters staying with us. They came out for our youngest granddaughters 1^st birthday. I have to tell you Shula, our daughter, prepared a very beautiful and tasty spread. Shula used to help me with the catering until she got her B.A.

She now works for Johnson & Johnson on their medical side. I keep trying to persuade her to come back into catering. Alas to no avail.

I am really pleased to say that for those of you who want a wonderful glatt kosher bespoke wedding in the Caribbean we can now offer the beautiful Hilton in Bridgetown Barbados. We have already worked with the hotel and apart from our delicious food, the hotel will provide their special brand of hospitality and service.

The Caribbean seems to be the most popular spot for destination weddings. We also offer St. Maarten, the Bahamas and Jamaica plus most of the other Islands.

Also we are planning a Jewish Heritage tour in China for 2013.

Plus some great glatt kosher super luxury cruises for the end of the 2012 and the beginning of 2013. I hope we will be able to tempt you with one of the above.

Malcolm

Well there certainly is a lot to talk about this time. Firstly this website was hacked. To quote my webmaster the following happened
A delightful organized Terrorist Hacker Group called The Great Team out of Libya targeted your site because of its Jewish and Israeli association and because it is on wordpress.  WordPress is the favorite platform for hackers since it’s so common.  They hacked through the security we already had in place on your site and got access to yours and all of our other hosted sites…it’s been a fun few days working through the mess they made for us – b****rds!
My thanks to Deborah Stotland for getting the website up and running again.
More importantly is the terrible accident that occurred to the Costa Concordia. It is becoming more apparent everyday that the captain was to blame. I have catered on many cruises on many different cruise lines including Costa. I have believed for many years that the cruise ships are much too large. This doesn’t mean that the size makes them unsafe. I feel and know from experience that the crew is insufficiently experienced to deal in an emergency. Let me give u an example. We were leaving Civitecchia, the same port that the ill-fated Costa ship left from and we were on our way to Malta. At about 11pm the general emergency alarm sounded. I was in my cabin having just left the kosher galley. I thought it was a false alarm straight away as no announcements were made over the PA system. Five minutes later the general alarm system went off again. Still no announcements. I watched the television and there were just the regular programs.  At about midnight I went to bed. At half past one the Captain came on the PA and thanked everybody who had come to their muster stations and that they should return to their cabins.

The next morning we were in port. I was at the Hotel Managers daily 10.00 a.m. meeting when the general emergency alarm sounded. The Hotel manager phoned the bridge but there was no response. The HM said quickly get everybody to their emergency stations as the captain is doing a test. I ran to my galley where my staff was happily cooking away.

I told them to quickly get to their stations, which, of course, they did.

Later I was to find out that the night before when the GEA was sounded some of the crew instead of helping to shepherd the passengers, ran to their cabins, took their money and ran to their boat stations. After the Captain completed the test on the day after the fiasco he took all the crew and staff into the theatre and read them the riot act.

Nobody can tell how any of us would act in a situation such as occurred on the Costa Concordia, but the Chef who was onboard with us on the aforementioned cruise told me that he trusted none of the crew to react the way they were trained. It was up to the officers to ensure that procedures are carried out correctly. It all comes from the top and unfortunately on the Costa ship the man literally at the helm failed on every count.

My son was with me on a Costa ship acting as Mashgiach (kashrut supervisor); he went to the boat drill. Later he told me that the announcements were made in 7 languages. “If we had to wait for the announcement to come in English the ship would already have floundered” How prescient he was.

As you know I cater on the Crystal Serenity. It is a comparatively small super luxury craft. I have worked with the crew on this ship and have every confidence that they, led by their Captain would rise to the occasion if any emergency, small or large arose.

Hi, well what a busy few weeks I have had. Apart from catering here in Israel I have been to the U.K. where I catered a silver wedding for a lovely couple for whom I also catered their actual wedding party. Makes me feel old! It was a lovely function in a newly completed pavilion at the Sussex County cricket ground in Hove. Now we have passed the festival of Hanukah here in Israel and the festival of Xmas, so seasons greetings and a happy New Year to all. This time of year reminds me of the old joke about the El Al pilot. The El Al plane has arrived near the end of December in Israel. It is taxiing to it’s stand. The pilot comes on the intercom and says to all of our passengers who are seated, may I wish you a Merry Xmas. and to all those standing up, a happy Hanukah. You have to have flown into Israel to get that joke.

My brother in law Mark has just flown into the U.K. from Perth in Australia where he lives. He has gone to see Diane’s & his mother who has just undergone back surgery. I can always tell when Mark reads this blog as he is the only person in Perth who does!!

Thank you Google analytics. I have over the past couple of months been thinking about creating signature dishes. There are, of course, lots of dishes that we are known for, but I really want to put a new twist on these. Over the next couple of months I will be posting these and inviting comments from you.

Here in Israel we enter an uncertain New Year. We have the worry about the maniac in Tehran. Not knowing how the newly liberated voters of Egypt will give the mandate to. Plus the worry of anything a second term President in America will demand of us. Uncertain times with many worries. I recently wrote to the BBC to ask exactly what their correspondent in Lebanon does. Not once has he reported on the 40,000 missiles that Hezbollah has pointed in our direction. Something bad about Israel, you can be sure that the beeb is on the case. 40,000 missiles? Sorry mate never heard of it.

Back to the script. I am still finalizing details for China and hopefully within the next couple of weeks there will be a new page on the website showing full details.

Last week we celebrated our eldest granddaughters 3^rd birthday. Diane and I bought a self-assembly kitchen in Early Learning. Never again! 2 ½ hours it took me to put it together. Maya takes one look at it and is more interested in her birthday card.

Also wonderful news. Noa, our son Adam’s wife, is 3 months pregnant. More grandchildren ( P.G.) to coo over.

STORIES & NEWS

Well all well here in Israel. Our last President is due to start a 7 year sentence for rape and Iran still threatens our extermination. But at least the rains have come. So all is as usual!!

In my last blog (sorry it’s been so long) I mentioned the cruise where I was the project manager. We had on-board for five, consecutive three day cruises 3,000 Israeli members of staff and their families, of Israel’s leading hi-tech company.

The ship had been cruising with the same weekly menu for seven months. Then I came onboard and had to train the staff all about kashrut (Jewish dietary laws). I was onboard for two weeks prior to the cruises and spent that time with every department going over the manual I had prepared. It took a long time explaining everything as each sentence had to be translated from English, Italian, Portuguese and Spanish.

After that, the galley crew had to prepare to kosher (prepare for kosher food) the whole galley from top to bottom in one night. In general, all ships galleys are spotless. Nothing on land compares to the cleanliness regime of a ship. In fact, I was showing the chefs from Israel, who were on the ship as advisers, around the ship. We went into the elevator that is just used for moving garbage from the various decks down to the disposal area. His comment when I pointed out the elevators use was, “For garbage????? This elevator is cleaner than the ones our guests use in the hotel where I work!!!”

The galley crew had to change from the regular menu as mentioned to an entirely new menu that also had to abide by all the rules of kashrut. I thought either they would jump overboard or they would throw me over! However, those brave boys and a few girls worked and prepared excellent kosher food for all concerned. I had asked that a particular MSC Sous Chef, with whom I had previously worked, should come aboard and run the 4 buffets on deck 13. He came, he saw, he waffled. I told him that all the food prepared by the main galley, deck 5, should be up and ready to go as soon as the buffet opened. However, he started telling me his (or rather MSC’s) mind think that you should only bring up the food as it is required. Meaning he would send the runners down to galley as he wanted more food. The galley would cook it and then the 16 runners would bring it up in the lift. I explained that he wasn’t dealing with his regular clientele. However, he knew better. That is until we were into the first half hour of the meal when he turned to me and said. “Malcolm get down to the galley, tell them to cook everything NOW and send it straight up” He never made the original mistake again.

Now for future news. Our Ireland Tour is all arranged for August 2012 and should be our best yet. Plus we are planning a glatt kosher Jewish Heritage Tour for China also in 2012.

My next blog should have full details.

Rosh Hashanah (the Jewish New Year) has come and gone and we are awaiting Yom Kippur (the Day of Atonement).

This time of year is quiet for us as virtually nobody wants to have a function around this time as everybody is busy preparing for the festivals.

As soon as Yom Kippur has finished and I mean as soon as we return from synagogue we started putting up our Succah for the Succot,

(booths for the festival of Succot). This reminds me of when I undertook the task of Project Manager for the MSC cruise line. There large, 3,000 birth) cruise liner had been chartered by Elbit one of our huge hi-tech companies here. To take all of her staff and their families on five, three day cruises, out of Haifa and back.

The cruise started at the beginning of Succot, so, of course we had to have a Succah on-board. I duly arrived and we erected this beautifully made large succah

This obviously is not the one that we had on the ship but it will give you an idea of what I am talking about.

So on the first night of Succot we went into the Succah said our prayers etc etc and all was well with the world.

The next morning I went into the buffet area of the ship (Deck 11) the Succah was palced outside this area adjacent to one of the swimming pools.

I saw the assistant restaurant manger who was responsible for this area. I said to him to please make sure that a dedicated waiter looked after the Succah. What Succah says he!!.

I ran outside and to my horror no Succah. No it hadn’t blown away, but a 2.00 a.m. the officer of the watch saw that it was doing it’s best to hoist sail and fly away so he ordered it to be dismantled. The Rabbi was livid but, of course, we could not argue with the ship.

The Succah was badly bent and twisted. However, after a little restoration work……… it will be sitting on my porch for the forthcoming holiday.

That was a cruise and half. I will sort out some more stories from it and will post them in my next blog.

In the meantime here is a recipe for Date Pudding Cake. The first time I read the recipe I thought it was wrong, but believe me it’s right.

DATE PUDDING CAKE

220gr finely cut dates

60gr butter, softened

500ml boiling water

2 eggs

185gr plain flour

250gr brown sugar

1 tsp ground cinnamon

1 tsp baking soda

½ tsp baking powder

½ tsp salt

60gr chopped walnuts

Preheat the oven to 375F(190C) and grease a 64fl oz baking dish.

Put the dates and butter in a large bowl and pour in 250ml of the boiling water. Stir until the butter melts, then let the mixture stand for about 5 mins. Beat in the eggs and set aside.

Combine the flour with 90gr of the brown sugar, the cinnamon, baking soda, baking powder and salt. Stir and toss together until blended. Add to the date mixture along with the walnuts and beat until blended.

Spread the batter evenly in the baking dish. Sprinkle with the remaining 155gr of brown sugar, then pour the remaining 250ml of boiling water over the top.

Bake for 45 mins, or until a toothpick inserted in the cake comes out clean.

Hi everyone.

Well it’s been a mad few weeks. We had a very busy and eventful August & September here in Israel. Lots of work to keep us going and then a quick to trip England with a lovely wedding at the Grand Hotel in Brighton. Remember the Grand? It’s where the IRA tried and failed to blow up Mrs. Thatcher and her cabinet. The hall we used for the 260 person wedding was very grand indeed (sorry). It had a classic style to it. The city had been threatened with hurricane force winds on the day of the wedding. It was incredibly windy, but definitely not of hurricane proportions. It was an incredibly long day and I finally got to bed at 5.00 a.m. the morning after. On the day after that I flew to Ireland to check out the new hotel we will be using for the second part of our 3^rd “Mystical Ireland” tour in August 2012. Our first two tours were very successful and I am hoping that this will be our best yet. I checked out the hotel for comfort, of course, but most important were the facilities they were giving us for cooking. These turned out to be excellent, as is the hotel, set in it’s own grounds on the outskirts of Dublin. This week sees Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year. It starts Wednesday evening and finishes at dusk on Friday which goes into Shabbat (Sabbath) so throughout the Jewish world it’s a three day holiday. Here in Israel all the supermarkets are having special offers, 10 interest free payments etc etc. The supermarkets have been packed every single day. Sheer madness, nobody can eat that much food….I think

We are just here by ourselves as Shula and her family are going to her in-laws for the festival. We will miss them but they were with us in England for the whole of the Passover holiday, so I mustn’t complain.

The heat seems to have broken, last night we left off the air-conditioner and we didn’t expire. We had heavy but short periods of rain over the weekend.

The wedding season seems to be starting as I am getting lots of enquiries for destination weddings, mainly in the Caribbean. It’s an expensive option but a great one for romantics.

So may I wish all my Jewish readers a Shanah Tovah and G’mar Hatimah Tovah.

Malcolm

UPDATE

Well it’s certainly hot here. I think that most Anglos living here in Israel say these same words “every year it gets hotter”. You know what, they are right.

We have just spent a day in our kitchen preparing for a large function and we just cannot keep cool. Yes we have all the right air conditioning and extraction equipment, but it doesn’t seem to help much! I had a member of staff once who told me that every day I had a function, a new record temperature was hit! Well it certainly seemed that way.

So what’s been happening? Mostly work here in Israel and we are getting ready to cater a big wedding in Brighton in September. We have also been trying to finalize the details for next years Ireland trip. The hotel we used in Dublin has put up the hire of the separate kitchen 5 fold, so of course we are looking for a new hotel in Dublin. WE will still start the trip in Ballinsaloe, right in the center of the country.

This year our cruise (Ophir Tours) on the Crystal Serenity had to be cancelled for lack of takers. We are hoping to run a cruise, also on the Serenity, from Miami to Los Angles via the Panama canal. This will be from the 4^th – 18^th January 2012. Email me for more details as soon as they become available.

There is lots of interest in holidays around the secular New Year. But by now most of the prime locations are fully booked.

If you want a holiday we will do all the looking for you.

On LinkedIn I have joined a couple of interest sites and bumpf arrives everyday. Do we have the time to look at everything I think not.

Last week my son prompted me to use Google ad words. I don’t know how but within two days the number of supposed hits equaled the maximum daily spend I had allowed with them. I cancelled the ad words and will be choosing better words next time. I wonder has anybody else experienced this with ad words? Keep well and Shabbat Shalom

Malcolm

We are now in the semi mourning period of 9 days leading up to the fat day of the 9^th of Av (Jewish month).

We call, in Yiddish, the 3 weeks leading from the Fast of Tammuz to the 9^th of Av, the “drei vochen” literally 3 weeks. There are no weddings during this period and most other celebrations are put on hold. Therefore catering and caterers go into a state of limbo for 21 days.

“The Three Weeks or Bein ha-Metzarim (Hebrew: בין המצרים, “Between the Straits” cf “In Dire Straits”) is a period of mourning commemorating the destruction of the first and second Jewish Temples. The Three Weeks start on the seventeenth day of the Jewish month of Tammuz — the fast of Shiva Asar B’Tammuz — and end on the ninth day of the Jewish month of Av — the fast of Tisha B’Av, which occurs exactly three weeks later. Both of these fasts commemorate events surrounding the destruction of the Jewish Temples and the subsequent exile of the Jews from the land of Israel. According to conventional chronology, the destruction of the first Temple, by Nebuchadnezzar II, occurred in 586 BCE, and the second, by the Romans, in 70 CE. Jewish chronology, however, traditionally places the first destruction at about 421 BCE. (See Missing years (Hebrew calendar) for more information.)” Wikepedia.

Although, as you can see this is a solemn period, it always has happy memories & one unhappy one, for me.

My father Artie, was a kosher caterer and during the three weeks we always went on holiday en famile. This was usually to Cliftonville, where we stayed in a small Jewish guest house. My father worked hard all his life and when not actually catering was on appointments to book functions. He did not drive and relied on public transport to get him from the East End of London where we lived, to the posher parts of the capital. So, during the year my late sister and I took pleasure when he was at home. However, our greatest pleasure was the two weeks he was constantly with us and our late mother. Remember no emails, no mobile phones. I tell you, wherever I am in the world the mobile is constantly ringing and I am always checking my emails. But Dad totally forgot about work and just concentrated on being a full time father. The beach, Dreamland amusement park in nearby Margate and the biggest treat, a “99”.

Simple happy days.

My one unhappy memory was on the 9^th of Av 1971, which also coincided with my 21^st birthday.

I was running the King’s Hotel in Brighton with my Aunt Janie. It was a Sunday, which in those days was a turnover day in kosher hotels. New guests coming, old guests leaving and everyone having lunch. It was all hands to the wheel.

It was also, surprisingly, a boiling hot summer’s day. I thought I would be clever and put two bottles of Coke into the freezer, my thinking being that as soon as the fast finished I would down two ice cold cokes. Never, ever again. The gas seared my stomach which blew up like a balloon. After that day my fast always finished on a nice cup of tea!

So, I wish all the religious Jews out there, well over the fast and no ice cold fizzy drinks!

Hi, I said I would post every Sunday, so here it is.

We have finalized our dates for our Mystical Ireland tour 2012.

The 7^th – 16^th August 2012. We hope this will be our biggest and our best so far!

Our oppressing heat continues here in Israel. I think that’s the reason I started KSW, so that I could travel abroad in the height of the summer heat. Unfortunately when I do travel it’s always to even hotter climes. Doesn’t anyone fancy a wedding in Iceland?

When I posted my first blog I asked you if you had any questions to the Chef. I am still waiting; please ask me some questions so that I can get my little grey cells working.

When Diane and I travel to different parts of world for our discerning clientele, we try and pick up culinary delights from that particular country. I add them to the menus and see if anyone will bite (sorry). They very rarely do. I believe most hosts are conservative when planning menus for the guests. When I started catering in the U.K. again I found that people were amazed that we offered the choice of at least two starters and two main courses. This was on the day without any pre-ordering by guests by way of the wedding invitation. After catering In Israel for so many years it is unnatural not to offer the choices. But getting back to the actual main course choices, many hosts still stick with roast chicken etc.

So I am giving you one of my favorite starter recipes. It’s really easy and is a change from chopped liver. Chicken livers can be a bit gritty but as this liver is being blitzed it will (hopefully) get rid of the grittiness. Nest week we will talk about a favorite soup of mine.

Liver Pate

1 lb Chicken Livers

1 Onion

1/4 pint chicken stock

1 tbsp. flour

1 egg

Salt & Pepper

Bay leaves

1 tbsp. Brandy (or to taste)

2 tbsp. Oil

¼ lb margarine

Sauté the onions in half the margarine. Add the liver; cook gently for 5 minutes. Make roux with remainder margarine & flour, add hot stock. Whisk until smooth. Blend liver, onion, sauce and seasonings, except bay leaves. Turn into greased loaf tin. Smooth level, and then place the bay leaves on top. Cover tightly with Clingfilm. Stand in baking dish 1” deep with hot water and cook in medium oven for 1 hour. Allow it to cool and then chill quickly before serving.

Hi. Once again my apologies for not posting for so long.

Since the last post we have had a very successful trip to Ireland. This time we used two centers, Ballinsaloe as last year and their sister hotel in Dublin. Considering it was summer the weather was fair. Everyone seemed to have a good time. The trips were very good; Rabbi Weiss led the trips and looked after the religious side of the trip in his usual very professional and friendly way. Modestly prevents me from saying how good the food was.

We had a terrible shock when we arrived in Ballinsaloe, the young executive chef of the hotel, who we had become very friendly with last year, had been found dead in his flat at just 34 years of age. This happened only 7 weeks before we arrived so everyone at the hotel was still badly affected by it.

Once again the nearness of the large Tesco store in Ballinsaloe was a boon. We took all the kosher meat from the U.K. as it is difficult obtaining kosher meat in Ireland.

Over Shabbat (Saturday) members of the Dublin Jewish community joined us for the whole weekend as they did for the final meal at the hotel in Dublin.

It is always a pleasure when there is good co-operation from the hotels where we tour. This year was no exception. We already had a good relationship from last year but the hotel in Dublin was just as helpful and made it easy for us to cater in the hotel.

We had the “Clouds” suite, with a self-contained kitchen and a very nice dining area. The hotel abuts the airport so I made sure that all of guest rooms were not on the runway side of the hotel. We are hoping to have our next “Mystical Ireland” tour in August 2012.

I am also planning a Hanukkah residential holiday in Brighton from the 23^rd – 28^th December, yes it does clash this year with another religious festival.

Diane and I drove (apart from the ferry) back from Ireland to Brighton on Thursday 7^th July arriving back at my sister in laws at 2.00 in the morning. Rushing around like mad on Friday as we had a wedding for 200 at the Hove Town Hall on Sunday 10^th July.

T.G. all went well and we flew back to Israel last Wednesday. Back from fair weather to our oppressive heat.

Anyway we are now up to date and as usual (sort of) I will post every