What A Phlipping Year!!

Well nearly a year to the day OKOK only eleven months since my last post but nevertheless what a year, but really what a year.

In Brief:

JAN 2008 We're ready for opening and cruising when my partner (the one in the business) {no not my wife..could I be that lucky?} decides this is NOT FOR HIM!! and bales out. I'm forced to repay his contribution and find some more to finish off all the last little bits.

FEB 2008 We open , not in a blaze of glory but just quietly and slowly...things go well..we don't poison anyone In the first few weeks or if we do they die and don't come back and complain!!

MARCH 2008 I get a pommy chef to help me in the kitchen who has worked in a 2 star Michelin restaurant in Scotland...I am soooo excited I can hardly contain myself. He arrives and I am largely disappointed..very average, competent, yes, but very unimaginative or are we so in awe of these starred restaurants that we don't realize that the star goes to the chef and not the staff? Any way a great help but not somebody I would break my bake or my bank account to keep so when he wants to go and play in the great outdoors and coo(K) in a game reserve I'm quite fine with the idea.

MAY2008 A little pixie of a chef applies for the vacant position of sous chef and I take her based on the fact that she worked in Franschoek (VERY COOL IN SOUTH AFRICA AT THE MOMENT) and that 1) I can afford her and 2) her ex-head of training told me she regularly tells her Head Chef to Fak Off!

JUNE TO OCTOBER 2008 Marcel turns out to be gem!!

NOVEMBER 2008 We gear up for the festive season, ride the worldwide economic downturn (all yanks are wankers to let their bankers get away with all the shit they caused..told you there was political commentary in this blog!!) Celebrate Obama and Melissa's 18th Birthday Party {My daughter..boy do I feel old..er}and a new political party in SA but keep on cooking great food...HOW DO I KNOW?? Well it's simple

1) we don't get many plates sent back to the kitchen {less than 1 a week on more than 200 diners} 

2) My kids love the food and refuse to eat anywhere else,{especially good recommendation},

3) we get regulars who keep coming back even the ones we don't like and are rude to (OK that was a joke...not).

NOW WE NEED TO GET SOME REAL KICK ASS PUBLICITY and get this thing to fly...OH yes I almost forgot...WATCH THIS SPACE FOR THE BIRTH OF 

TRA LALA FANFARE

THE WOBBLY WAITRESS COFFEE SHOP