Everything you've always wanted to know about cooking, but were too afraid to ask
Posted in 7) One-minute cooking tips on Aug 10th, 2010
When washing any kind of lettuce, the main priority has to be that your guests are not grinding on grit or sand whilst eating your much loved salad that you have prepared for them…there is nothing worse. When washing lettuce it is best to fill a clean sink with fresh cold water so that when all [...]
Posted in Uncategorized on Aug 7th, 2010
When I started working in the Four Seasons Hotel, Yorkville in Toronto things could not have been any better. Everyone seemed happy, the customers were mostly wealthy and strutted around the hotel as if they never had a care in the world. The staff were extremely content and the hotel was full of opulence, romance and [...]
Posted in Uncategorized on Apr 8th, 2010
This musing is true and one that I may or may not share with my grand kids, I have not decided yet, maybe you can help me to come to a suitable conclusion: The Bahamas really was paradise when I moved there from Canada in the winter of 86, I remember boarding the Air Canada [...]
Posted in Uncategorized on Feb 13th, 2010
Making an omelet looks harder than what it actually is and like everything else, with enough practice, along with enough trial and error you will be making professional chef like omelets in no time. Confidence and faith in being able to do something will arrive automatically, when you do it often enough. It’s like riding [...]
Posted in Uncategorized on Feb 10th, 2010
In the hotel industry many of the old style hotels would never purchase non stick pans, one reason was in the “old days” they did not exist and another was that for heavy usage they would never last long. They would get scratched, dented, burnt, broken, smashed and even stolen, so to avoid this they [...]
Posted in Uncategorized on Jan 21st, 2010
When cooking vegetables most people would believe it to be the most simple of tasks, but if done correctly, you can retain all the vitamins, minerals and the wonderful natural colours. Let’s take a simple vegetable such as long beans and go through the steps taking into consideration that most vegetables can be cooked the [...]
Posted in Chef's Tales on Oct 9th, 2009
As Chefs Tales is a community blog and is quickly becoming a public source of information for everyone to share, it has been suggested that we offer Industry news that is available and for which people may be interested in. We have decided that we will offer this service to ensure that interesting information and posts are [...]
Posted in Chef's Tales on Oct 9th, 2009
This musing was first published in Flavours Magazine and is not in Chef’s Tales the book. The profession of a chef is a challenging one but offers opportunities that are beyond your wildest dreams. Recently, over lunch with a friend who’s in the hospitality training line, we were lamenting the difficulties of getting young people [...]
Posted in Chef's Tales on Sep 30th, 2009
This musing was first published in Flavours Magazine and is not in Chef’s Tales the book: Hotel employee’s stay at a five-star hotel is a far cry from the pampered treatment that a guest would expect to receive. Given the nature of my work, I have travelled around the world and put up at the [...]
Posted in Chef's Tales on Sep 17th, 2009
This musing was first published in Flavours Magazine and is not in Chef’s Tales the book: We were getting ready for a large function and the air-conditioning in the hotel broke down and was deemed beyond repair. We had to fly in a new motor from Germany and this was going to take at least [...]
Posted in Chef's Tales on Sep 12th, 2009
This musing was first published in Flavours Magazine and is not in Chef’s Tales the book: Did I ever tell you about the time when I had my first encounter with “The King of Fruits”? It was one I shall never forget as it was my very first romantic date with my dear wife Beatrice. [...]
Posted in Personal on Sep 10th, 2009
This musing was first published in Flavours magazine and is not in Chef’s Tales the book: Did I ever tell you about the time when I was working in Kuala Lumpur and went for my very first visit to Sabah to introduce myself to my in-laws? On announcing the master plan to visit the wife’s [...]
Posted in Chef's Tales on Sep 2nd, 2009
Please enjoy my latest musing which was first published in Flavours Magazine and is not in Chef’s Tales the book: All hoteliers have to deal with difficult, demanding guests, but can the whole stressful ordeal have a happy ending? One of the most difficult components of our wonderful industry is the challenging guest, otherwise known [...]
Posted in Chef's Tales, Uncategorized on Aug 23rd, 2009
I Arrived in Hong Kong to work in my first five-star hotel in Asia in 1988, and was totally blown away, not only by the quality of the staff and services offered. Nonetheless, I thought that the quality of service could only improve as the industry developed and competition for supremacy in service quality standards [...]
Posted in Chef's Tales on Jul 30th, 2009
Wacky and Wondrous fun at the poolside Depending on which hotel you work at, the pool can be either an incredibly boring place or the centre of all the action. Usually, the poolside scene at city hotels is not that exciting, but a poolside at a beach resort fronting the sea normally keeps the [...]
