News

newspage

21^st February 2018 newspage

Rarely can it be accused of being a dull life in a chef recruitment office.

I am back in the main office this week covering for perm head and sous chef recruitment while Jessica is on holiday.

We had a good chef from Lanarkshire booked for a chat about the pros and cons of relief work yesterday afternoon. Two chefs pitched up and I met the first one, who I quite possibly met a few years previously and we had a good chat about chefs he had worked with at well-known Scottish Hotels such as Gleddoch House, The Popinjay and Cartland Bridge in Lanark.

It gives us a better feel when you have a chat face to face over a cup of coffee without the constant interruptions of phones ringing. “How many cigarettes do you smoke per day?” “What would you look to be doing in an ideal world when you get to 50 years old?”

Meeting chefs also brings home what a hard physical job being a chef is; hitting a plateau as head chef early on in your career and then looking for the next direction. Or doing the rounds as a career sous chef or chef de partie and pushing on, working hard, trying to get up to being a head chef.

There is a lot to it, there are positives, such as the lifelong friendships made along the way, the camaraderie and the buzz of a good kitchen service (not that I can quite remember this one) The opportunity for self-betterment, the almost always availability of work at some level. Accommodation, which is not always the best, but often no bills. The most basic, food.

It is interesting to have a chat and get a feel for someone’s life, rather than just seeing a piece of paper and looking at dates and judging.

This week, as we move towards the end of the month in the CIS office, the amount of adverts and relief jobs have increased. Monday, we took a whopping 11 adverts and they still pile in.

I am off to walk the dogs now up the back before hunting for head chef candidates for two well know hotels up the west coast; both of which I have visited and dealt with for getting on for two decades.

Pablo Picasso can wait a little longer.

Many thanks for your continued support.

Michael

Lowland Brewing 13th February 2018

Lowland Brewing (LB) update

13^th February 2018

We have received the in depth drawings from Homer Young of McGowan Miller in Dumfries and these have now been sent to the builders we have been dealing with in Lockerbie.

It is great to meet up with people I was at school with in Lockerbie and haven’t met for 30+ years!

We are submitting our Leader Application form on Monday the 26^th of January and we have an excellent meeting last week with Ellen Grant from Dumfries and Galloway Council who gave us various pointers.

The purpose of the grant application is to match fund the LB resources for the building renovation and to equip the building with our stage one equipment for the large scale brewing of beer, which is mainly vats and kegs and some other smaller items.

I am working on the wording of the application and Tom is chasing up some more figures.

We are hopeful that building works can start to take place in April and with luck we might be producing beer by some time in June.

We are running a free beer tasting and tapas evening in Lockerbie on Friday the 23^rd of March between 6pm and 9pm and everyone is invited for a chat and a beer to find out more about our plans for development in Lockerbie.

We have also opened dialogue with a group in Lockerbie about a potential site for a Lowland Brewery visitor centre to get us on the map and onto the Dumfries and Galloway Food and Drink trail. Being realistic (which is not one of my strong points!) this may happen in 2020 or 2021.

We are keen on the idea also of a festival which we would like to have up and running in 2019.

If anyone else would like to get a prospectus please email:

tom@chefsinscotland.co.uk or call the brewery mobile which is 07493716521, leave a message and we will get back to you.

Photos

trying to post photos

7th February 2018

Newspage 7^th February 2018

Pain upon completion

It has been a mainly enjoyable week being back hands on the CIS office this week. Monday morning and sure enough a few relief jobs piled in and on the database I found familiar names and faces who I could call up to offer work to on Skye, Lanarkshire and Aviemore.

Johanna Watson is back from moving house in Moffat on Friday this week and we have a full day of meetings at the office.

Two chefs are coming for a visit and a cup of tea and a blether.

The first one I first encountered in about 2007 when this excellent CV crossed my desk up on Skye at the old offices in Wentworth Street, looking out the window from the second floor to The Tongadale Hotel and sitting a couple of doors away from the Cale Hotel where I would occasionally frequent of a night for a pint, a game of pool or a shot on the puggy.

I got the chef organised for some interviews at good establishments on Skye which were on our books at the time; Isle Ornsay Hotel, Duisdale and perhaps Ullinish. The chef took a job at The Three Chimneys via another agency. Ouch!

Again a couple of years later, the even more glorious CV with a few years as junior sous chef at The Three Lums popped into my inn tray again. Another chance to make a permanent placement. Nope, it wasn’t to be. Off he went to the Horseshoe by Peebles, through another source, not us! Failure yet again.

Eventually the chef came to meet at our new premises in Moffat maybe in 2010 or 2011 and we had a good chat about the near misses. It turns out that he took his first ever job in Scotland at Monachyle Mhor after seeing one of our adverts in a Polish newspaper with Marcin who I used to put out adverts with back in 2003 and 2004. CIS paid for the advert and we split any placement fees. The good chef, had seen our website and apply for Mnachyle Mhor, not been a failure at all.

Over the last six or seven years, he has done a lot of relief jobs via CIS and has been excellent wherever he has worked, whether it is fine dining or bistro food, no problem, pitches up, does the job and gets an excellent reference. Dziukuje bardzo.

He is a modest man, so not going to name him, but how pleased am I that he has asked me to be a reference and sign a document as he applies for UK citizenship.

Catching up with a friend.

The other chef is Bobby, who hasn’t done so badly himself and is after a couple of bottles of our beer, which I am sure we can manage.