Craven Crusts: grab a slice of the community bakery, café and artspace

I’m so proud of Himself.  Not for putting his money where his mouth is or for being a quietly enthusiastic supporter and advocate for something he is passionate about, although he has and he is, but for rolling up his sleeves and pitching in.

Over the last few months he’s been working his socks off as part of a team of people who are trying to reopen a 110 year old local bakery for the community as an artisan bakery with bread baked on the premises, a comfortable and affordable community café and an art space.

BA Own Goal – A Terminal Case Study

Writing about http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7317909.stm

And http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/heathrows-big-day-is-terminal-embarrassment-801743.html

Wow! This is a management, PR & Internal Comms case study in the making. I can see this being on the CIPR course next year…

The thing that stood out most for me though was the amount of coverage pointing to underinformed and poorly trained staff – from issue with the initial check in procedures through to baggage handling staff not knowing their way round the grounds.

And then it gets worse, failure to keep frontline customer-facing staff informed:

“Nobody really seemed to know what was going on. Staff seemed as much in the dark as we were.” (more)

“One baggage worker told the BBC the situation was “mayhem” and that the technical problems had been known about for some time.” (more)

“A BA staff member said they would have liked to be able to phase it in rather than ‘do it all at once’.” (more)

So many senior managers will tell you that staff are their ambassadors – but when you break that down it means that they want their IC Manager to inundate people with positive propaganda or that they expect staff members to magically feel ownership of the brand without working on empolyee engagement or brand values.

The simple things like making sure that staff are adequately trained, listened to (because they know more about the practicalities of their day job than you do), consulted about big decisions which affect them and constantly kept informed in emergency situations often go by-the-by.

As Himself said, he would rather have been a passenger in a three-hour queue at Heathrow yesterday than a member of BA staff at Terminal 5!

The Fields of Athenry

By a lonely prison wall, I heard a young girl calling
“Michael, they have taken you away,
For you stole Trevelyan’s corn,
So the young might see the morn.
Now a prison ship lies waiting in the bay.”

Chorus:
Low lie the fields of Athenry
Where once we watched the small free birds fly
Our love was on the wing
We had dreams and songs to sing
It’s so lonely round the fields of Athenry.

By a lonely prison wall, I heard a young man calling
“Nothing matters, Mary, when you’re free
Against the famine and the crown,
I rebelled, they cut me down.
Now you must raise our child with dignity.”

By a lonely harbor wall, she watched the last star fall
As the prison ship sailed out against the sky
For she lived to hope and pray for her love in Botany Bay
It’s so lonely round the fields of Athenry.

The Irish were in fine voice today. This song always reminds me of Himself’s Auntie Mary, she leads the singing it on highdays and holidays and at weddings and wakes.

(Marys are always referred to by their First and Last name’s in his family – being a good Catholic family they have too many Marys to do otherwise!)

I must admit though that for years I thought it was Fields on Atton Rye – on account of the accent!

What do I love most this week?

I’m sure that the answer should be Himself.  But actually, right at this moment Ocado is closer to my heart!

They are delivering the ingredients for our ‘romantic’ Valentine’s meal very early tomorrow morning before work, despite my only having ordered them this morning.  Truely, for the girl without wheels, they are a saviour!  (Now I just need to work out where to get a card from….)

Not that the meal is a secret, nor will it be very spectacular as it will mostly be cheating, but I just didn’t want to create an unecessary stress around it by trying to fit in a supermarket trip.

• Kir Royal
• Duck Pate with Chutney on Toasted Brioche
• Steak au Poivre with Chunky Chips
• Apple & Almond Tart with Suaternes Custard

Olive assures me that through various underhand shortcuts I should be able to achieve it all within an hour.  I hoping that I can do that and still arrive on the other side looking like a fragrant and serene beauty and not like a harassed, sweaty, snappy and vaguely panicky mess.

So, fortunately, I’m at a conference in Coventry tomorrow which is due to finish at 15:30 thus leaving me plenty of time to turn myself and the house into an oasis of calm.

On the matter of Steak & a Blow Job Day I make no comment.

Congratulations Himself

After many, many, many years of evening class study (much of it self-funded) the boy has passed his final Charted Institute of Management Accountancy (CIMA) exam!

Now he just has to submit a “career profile”…

To qualify as a Chartered Management Accountant you must:

• complete the CIMA Certificate in Business Accounting or another exempting qualification
• complete the nine exams from the CIMA Professional Qualification
• gain three years relevant practical experience and send your ‘Career Profile’ to us for approval
• pass the Test of Professional Competence in Management Accounting (TOPCIMA).

I am very proud of him.  And very relieved that he shouldn’t ever have to sit another exam – few people suffer with such nerves!

Fabulous Florence in Pictures

We had a fabulous time, and marched our way around the churches and museums and ate our way round the foccaherias, gelaterias, mercado, trattorias and ristoranti!

My top food places of the trip were:

1. Il Latini – Via dei Palchetti 6
2. Trattoria Marione – Via della Spada 27/r
3. Gelateria Carraira – at the Oltrano end of the Ponte alla Carraira (and the Foccaheria just round the corner from it).
4. Mercato Centrale
5. Zoe РVia d̬ Renai, 13/r

Il Latini

The most memorable meal of the week – not least because I hadn’t quite got my Italian tongue in yet. We queued briefly for a table and were then seated between a family of Italians and a French couple.

The waiter opened a 2-litre straw covered bottle of chianti for the table that we were sharing with the French couple and then asked us whether we wanted apperitivo. I thought that he meant apperatifs so tried to order some and failed. He then asked whether we wanted apperitivo or soup or pasta, we went for apperativo to give us some thinking space. I was getting a bit worried by this point.

Anyway a wonderful mezze of different appetiser dishes started to appear: beutiful fresh milky soft mozerella with ripe tomatoes, chicken liver crostinis, melon and prosciutto and a grain salad. Meanwhile I was asking the French lady whether she had understood the deal with the wine as none of us had touched it. She caught the waiter’s attention and asked him in French – it was being charged for by the glass so we tucked in.

The apperitivo plates were cleared and I has started to settle down assuming that a menu would soon be provided. But no, to my alarm, another waiter came back and asked us whether we wanted soup or pasta next! The whole meal continued in this way – it certainly kept us on our toes but the food and the atmosphere were wonderful!

• Apperitivo
• Penne with Ragu
• A large thick beautiful pork steak with a salted spinach contorno
• At this stage we gave up and said no to dessert!
• Cantucci with Vin Santo
• No to coffee
• Limoncello gratis while we waited for the bill
• Oh, and two glasses of wine each and a bottle of mineral water

Then papa, for this was a family-run restaurant, was finally found to give us the bill. He arrived at the table and our waited came up to recite, from memory, what we had had (right down to the correct number of glasses of wine)! €70!

Zoe

For chilling, masses of free apperitivo (on a held-yourself basis), seeing and being seen and for Negronis. I am now waging a campaign to bring back Campari to the masses – it’s not all Luton Airport and Lorraine Chase you know!

Trattoria Marione

Wonderful plate of meats including a smoked lard. Fabulous piece of roasted pork rolled with sage – served with potatoes that had been roasted under the pork!

I do regret not having had a Bistecca alla Fiorentina though – especially after having read this review.

Never mind I have stroked the porcellino so I am destined to return to Florence and I can expand my knowledge then.

Domestic Snippets

Writing about Sledging

Format of entry stolen from Monopod – with thanks

Me: What’s Sledging?

Himself: It’s the kind of thing you’d expect the Aussies to be good at.

Me: ?!?

Sunday Supplement

A weekend in pictures…

Lazy morning for some of us.

Potage de Bonne Femme with Cornmeal Dumplings.

Note to self – if I need a recipe for Czech brown bread and spek dumplings then this is the one.

An artisan-crafted and finally finished bookcase (Himself has gone back to work for a break.)

Helping with the housework by decorating the carpet with muddy pawprints. (Hiding because she knows she’s done wrong.)

Slimfast

Follow-up to Retox Weekend from Casey’s Blog

But on the downside I need to loose a gajillion stone before this Saturday….

My Great Auntie Lil might be at my uncle’s 50th party…

Oh, Casey love, what happened – you were doing so well?

(Auntie Lil, circa 5 years ago, at one of my Grandparent’s BBQs.)

Retox Weekend

You
can’t say that we don’t do it in style. Celebrating out tenth year with
a weekend in the Wold (as Rachel is wont to call Southwold).

We spent a night in The Swan (v swanky but freezing Garden Room) and a night in the Crown (slightly less swanky and v overheated room).

And needless to say we pigged out from the moment we arrived (see
Cream Tea in the Drawing Room at the Swan – which was lovely once the
be-wellied Tabitha and St. John has left with their screaming hoards).
They don’t call it Chelsea-on-sea for nothing – so if Himself looks
slightly less than impressed in the photo you know why!

The mitigating factor to our sheer greed was the massive amount of
walking we did – up and down the front and in a huge loop round
Walberswick.

Anyway – the main event foodwise was a fabulous meal at the Swan on Friday night:

Carpaccio of Suffolk Beef Fillet

Served with wild rocket, capers and lemon oil

Roast Loin of Venison

Served with carrot and swede puree, curly kale, roasted beetroot, chestnuts, pancetta lardons and juniper infused jus

Iced Cinnamon and Dried Fruit Parfait

served wirth caramel syrup, compote of Griottine cherries, bitter chocolate sorbet and sesame nougatine

Absolutely
divine – I was practically hugging myself Mutley-style with each
mouthful. And Himself swears I was purring at my plate like Sparka
purrs at her food bowl.

Everything was perfect from the kir apperatif made with Adnams Fizz down to the homemade petit fours served with coffee.

Other culinary highlights included:

• Aspalls Cider & Adnams Bitter
• Plaice & Chips at the Harbour Inn
• Old Spot Sausage Rolls from the Black Olive Deli
• Chicken of Aragon Pies from Pieminister
• Cream Tea at the Swan

I did tell you it was a piggy weekend… A selection of photos.

We are now, as ever, desperately in love with Southwold and
calculate that if we sell our house we could afford a small number of
beach huts (yes, seriously, the first time I visited I saw one for sale
in an estate agent’s window for £40K!).