May the Force be with you…

19 February 2021.
Three years ago today, I retired from the restaurant business.
I handed Portofino’s keys over to Noel, who, yesterday remembered and reminded me of the exact date he took over. Just as I recall the day we opened our first restaurant, Krimo’s at Seaton Carew on May the 4th 1985. An unforgettable date as it happens to be Star Wars Day for obvious reasons.
No one ever forgets the date they take the future in their hands. Just as the last 35 years, my three years’ retirement have flown by.
Most happy people in business are those who turn a love for something into a venture. Cooking came naturally to me long before I got into restaurants.
First, when I watched my mother prepare lunch and dinner just about every day. Then when I was studying computing in the Algerian capital, I spent many of my weekends at my late brother’s, often cooking our mother’s simplest dishes for him. Later, when I arrived on this island, I prepared most of my meals in my student bedsit in Sunderland while attending a Naval Architecture course. Dropping out of Poly and finding my way into what was supposed to be a temporary porter’s job in an Italian restaurant in Newcastle, I soon realised that cooking was in my blood. Mind you, in the beginning, the learning curve was quite steep and sinuous. I ended up putting on a few lbs. eating many of my miss-steaks.
My love for cooking never abated even when I hung up my apron three years ago.
In fact, over the last twelve months, it has developed even further with my culinary journey taking me to kitchens of the world I had rarely visited before. From Japanese sushi to Vietnamese Pho, from Focaccia to Cottage pie and wherever my hunger for learning has taken me.
I sometimes shiver at the thought that I may be morphing into a greedy-guts-foodie nerd. Most of the food I cook gets photographed from every side and once I’m happy with the result, up it goes on the blog I started over ten years ago but only managed to populate during the lockdowns.
www.krimo.co.uk
HAPPY ANNIVERSARY, Noel!
This last year, you and everyone in the hospitality business have had your heart ripped out of your chest but many, like you, have risen to the challenge of adapting to the hardships dished out by the pandemic restrictions and lockdowns.
You will come out of this a lot stronger than when you started.