Mis-steaks, I ate a few…

In my many years in the kitchen, I have always endeavoured to consistently offer diners exactly the food they would be happy eating. However, on a few rare occasions, my adventurous and highly inquisitive mind led me into hot water. I must confess to having served for a few months in 1986, a dish which, nowadays sends shivers down my back every time I think about it. In the days when serving veal meat elevated a restaurant’s status, I decided to add an unforgettable dish to the menu. It was a veal escalope, trimmed, flattened and then shallow-fried and served in, wait for it, a creamy sauce turned pink and sweet by the addition of a few Maraschino cherries and their juice! A colour spectrum masterpiece! Can you picture it? I only kept it on the menu because a selected few loved it. There was even a doctor who travelled all the way from Ryhope every fortnight to indulge in it.
However, one evening, a well-respected local newspaper reporter, who shall remain nameless as she has since sadly departed, having ordered this unusual dish, immediately returned it to the kitchen, with the simple comment “Disgusting!”. That night, instead of coming out of the kitchen to chat with the customers, as I usually did at the end of service. I went straight up to the flat and re-wrote the menu omitting that culinary nightmare. I also decided, in some kind of newly-found outrage against animal cruelty, never to serve veal again and neither has it ever crossed my lips since that day. On his next visit, the poor Sunderland doctor had to do without his pink veal and plump for a more conventional dish.
That was not the first nor the last of my culinary blunders. The one good thing about these, is that one can eat the mistake and rarely leave any evidence.
In late 1986, the United Kingdom suffered its first cases of mad cow disease. It was a totally new ailment that could affect people who consumed infected beef. As a result of the outbreak, sales of the latter temporarily dropped. Poultry saw a massive surge and our sales of fish dishes also rose a little. In our years in business we came across many more setbacks for British farming and catering.

That same year, I began hearing rumours of a Marina being built in Hartlepool. My first sarcastic thoughts and comments were that, if I were rich enough to own a yacht, St. Tropez or Puerto Banus would be my first choice to moor it. My idea of a marina was of one bathed in constant sunshine, alfresco cafés with parasols serving ice cold Pastis, Mediterranean restaurants dishing out grilled sardines and Bouillabaisse, girls in bikinis sunning themselves on powerboats and white-suited men prancing around in their white fedoras.
Little did I know that a few short years later, the dream of a Hartlepool Marina would become a reality in my own lifetime and end up hosting the famous Tall Ships Race which put the town on the map. I will, one day recount stories of that amazing yet contentious (for some) August 2010 weekend, when Hartlepool was transformed into something of a jewel in the crown of Tees Valley.

One of a chef’s most valuable tools is a sharp knife. In order to keep all mine in tip-top condition, I regularly walked a few yards along Seaton Front to Heywood’s butchers, where the late, straight-talking Winston was always happy to help. He used his old-fashioned sharpening wheel to bring my knives back to their original sharpness. Before leaving the shop to head back to the restaurant, I always bought a couple of the delicious pies he made in-house. Winston’s humour was as sharp as his knives. He certainly was one of those unforgettable local characters who never fail to leave an imprint in one’s memory.