The Caterer Blog

Hi - I'm James Garner, managing editor. This is a posh title and doesn't really explain what I do, which is editor of CatererSearch.com. My role is to oversee site content and our blogs....but more about me later.

Firstly, a brief explanation of the caterer group blog and what it aims to give readers and users. We hope you'll gain a useful insight into the editorial team at Caterer and what interests us about the hospitality industry. Hopefully, you will enjoy this behind the scenes look at what goes on in our newsroom or on our features' desk, or maybe you'll like finding out what our editor Mark Lewis is thinking about....Mostly we hope you will enjoy our take on the industry we all love and work in...

And about me. Well if you're interested read on....

Hi I'm the business editor at Caterer and Hotelkeeper. I look after the Infozone section of the magazine which is all about helping you make your business more efficient and successful. As you all know, hospitality is such a fast moving industry that it can be hard to keep up to speed with new employment laws or the latest technological innovations but at . That's what I'm paid to do.Tough job eh?

Luckily I have a great team of experts who contribute their advice and you can also find more info at CatererSearch.com. For example if you want to tighten up your recipe costing and menu planning, take a look at StarChef.

To read more of my blog.....

A very warm welcome to The Caterer Blog. I'm Amanda Afiya, deputy editor of the magazine, and I've been working here far too long to mention.

How long? Well, let's just say that when I joined Caterer Marco was still at Harvey's in Wandsworth (now Chez Bruce), Gordon was a chef de partie in Paris (now he’s looking to open his own starred restaurant there) and gastropubs were just boozers that sold a decent ploughmans.

Hi. I’m Emily and I’m the deputy news ed. I’ve been here for just over two years now, although it seems like only yesterday I started here.

Anyway, as many of you will already know, on the news desk I mainly deal with the hotel sector, it’s my speciality if you like, and my passion too.

I’m frequently admonished by my husband on holiday for just ‘popping into’ random hotels to see what they’re like. Before you know it, of course, we’re having a full-blown show round, I’m loving it and the ‘old man’ is dragging his heels behind me grumbling.. Tragic or committed, I’m not sure?

Still, what’s there not to love, there’s glamour, there’s graft, and there’s customers, which of course drive everything - and sometimes you, nuts.

The reason I know this is that apart from talking to hoteliers all the time, I also used to work in the industry. I spent eight years working my way up from stagiere to events manager and everything in between.

Welcome to Caterer's blog.

Hi - I'm Katherine Alano. I am CatererSearch.com's senior sub-editor and I look after the day-to-day stuff on the website. Unlike my colleagues, who are out and about meeting all you people, you are more than likely find me at my computer making sure that all the editorial content is live and up-to-date on the website. So if you can't find what you are looking for, I'm the one to call!

Hi there,

I'm the news editor at Caterer, which gives me a great overview of what is going on around the hospitality industry. Unfortunately, it also means that I am the contact for every public relations bod under the sun desperately trying to get their client into the magazine....

But before I begin ranting, a little background. I have been a business journalist for more than six years, working on an IT title and one covering HR before joining Caterer last August. So, as you can imagine, covering an industry as interesting as hospitality is great for me.

Oh missus! Well this is the brave new world of the Caterer Blog and I, for my sins, am the online news editor, which on good days means I co-ordinate the news coverage for CatererSearch, write a fair few stories and produce newsletters, such as the Friday Wrap.

I've been knocking around Caterer for a number of years, initially covering the areas of careers and recruitment and most recently working as a reporter covering the pub and bar industry (yes I like a drink).

Hello and welcome to the Caterer Blog. I’m Diane Lane (no sadly not the Hollywood actress, although I have trodden the boards on more than one occasion in guises such as a PVC-clad, cabaret-performing witch in pantomime, and a neurotic spliff head in a comedy drama).

But enough of my nocturnal activities, by day I’m the products editor on Caterer and Hotelkeeper which means I look after all the coverage of products and equipment so Inside Kitchens, Inside Beverages and the brand new Buy It! are all in my remit, along with some of the content of Inside Food. Lots of pages I know, but at least it keeps me out of mischief. And I get to test out lots of products that come in although there’s a limit to how many bouillon mixes a girl can make use of...

My favourite thing to make for dinner, however, is reservations. I do love to eat out and let’s face it, there’s definitely no shortage of great places to eat in this green and pleasant land. Which is where all you guys come in and the amazing job you do – it’s the reason I’ve stayed with this fantastic industry for the last eight years instead of penning romantic novels à la Barbara Cartland by the seaside like a writer should. Really, there’s no better industry for a journalist to be in and, as Timberlake would say, I’m Lovin’ It…

Hello, I’m Rosalind Mullen and my job title is “acting” features editor… And no, that doesn’t mean I’m assessing theatrical performance in the hospitality industry – what it does mean is that I’m looking after the features desk on behalf of Helen Adkins, who’s on maternity leave until the summer.

It’s familiar territory for me as I was features editor for countless years until 2003 when I went freelance to spend more time with my son. Less familiar is the wonderful world of blogging, so you’ll have to bear with me while I wrestle with what is now bewilderingly called “multi-platform journalism”.

I’m features writer Tom Vaughan. I’ve always enjoyed food and I’ve always enjoyed writing about it. Aged eight I even wrote a 4000 word food-based book, without blinking as I remember, about a farmer. It was called Memoirs of Cabbage. It was rubbish. Literally, as my father later composted it.

I joined Caterer as features writer in September 2006 and help deal with the Menuwatch section of the magazine as well as compiling the real news section of the magazine: fans-favourite Food File. While my main area of focus is restaurants I have also leant my hand to a wide smattering of topics from school food to tourism.

As faithful caterer readers will see, this week Grant Hearn - Travelodge's head honcho - has written an opinion piece for us.

A new recruit to Red Ken's board for developing skills and employment in London, he's looking to promote our side of the story, our issues, opinions and ideas.

So if you have any views, insights or schemes you think should be put forward, reply to this blog and they'll be forwarded direct to Grant for ammo when dealing with the powers that be.

For my own tu'penny bit worth...

This week's Caterer includes an article looking at whether the hospitality industry can boast true ethnic diversity. The article has drawn an interesting emailed response from one reader, who points to numerous
"exemplars of success" - among them Cyrus Todiwala, 3663's Andy Kemp and Ken Hom. The correspondent's fear is that "such articles can create the impression that minorities have chips on their shoulders – great news for the bigots ... I think our industry, more than almost any other doesn’t see people in terms of race, colour or sex. What we see in people is passion commitment and ability."

Do you agree or disagree with this assessment? Has race ever been a factor in your career? Let us know your thoughts on diversity in the industry.

According to the Scotsman, the carrot is set to be used in ways never conceived before thanks to a bizzare discovery by two Scottish scientists. They believe they have found a way to convert the vegetable into a material suitable for anything from fishing rods to warships.

To have a head chef cook dinner in the comfort of your own home is something my wife Jackie has often dreamed about. Well, on the evening of February 14th (Valentine’s night) her dream became a reality.

It all began at a recent Springboard (a hospitality industry charity) event to celebrate Caterer's Best Places To Work awards, when I bid for and won the services of head chef, Christian D Hirons and his junior sous chef David Evans both from the Novotel in Coventry to visit my home and prepare a “Ready Steady Style” dinner.

We are launching a new blog from our old colleague Dan Bignold, who now lives and works in Shanghai, so we wanted to find out what you think we should call it. Go to our online poll and cast your vote.

A trip to Brussels would not be compelete without picking up a couple of EU-isms. Well my visit has not disappointed.

Whilst roaming the enormous halls of power that consititute the EU parliament and commission, I've come across two - Annualisation - (please be careful how you spell this) a new word used to describe on average within a year - and my personal favourite, flexicurity - yes, a cunning combination of the words flexibility and security which is used in relation to employers and employees, meaning flexible yet secure working arrangements for worker and employers- what?! And we think our tax-payers money is wasted over here....

Journalists have been known to get the odd perk every now and again, but no flash bedroom or brimming goody bag can beat the recent treatment I experienced at the World Travel and Tourism Council Summit in Lisbon on Friday.

To be fair the VIP treatment was not laid on for us hacks, but for the significantly more important 600 other delegates such as Stelios, Andy Cosslett, Ed Fuller, Sarmad Zok and many political big wigs from all over the world.

So, slightly jaded as we all were after the first day of the conference, thrashing out issues of the moment, we wandered from the conference centre to our coaches to return us to our hotels for a quick spruce up before the gala dinner.

As we sat on a full coach, waiting to leave for over ten minutes, some folks started getting a little annoyed at the delay, this was after all, cutting into our valuable half an hour free time - the only time that day.

However all was soon explained as eight seriously well equipped uniformed police motorcyclists turned up to escort us through the Lisbon rush hour. So there we sat, careering past confused Lisbonites, as the bikes stopped traffic, parted jams and broke red lights to get us to our dinner on time.

Very impressive.

Can you imagine that happening in London? Call the Met police, there's a bus load of Dutch tourists that need to get to Mamma Mia on time!

Just goes to show what can happen when the Prime Minister of the host country attends your conference. Certainly gets the wheels in motion.

The whole security nightmare at airports these days is enough to drive anyone mad. The seemingly endless restrictions which mean that our travel has become just that bit more uncomfortable, almost tempt you into disobeying.

I for one draw the line at a long haul flight without lip salve - it can't be done and I'm not going to blow up a plane with a tiny tube of chapstick - so I will admit that I have smuggled one on, deep inside my coat pocket to slyly apply during the flight when no one is watching.

But I didn't realise how far this rebellion had gone until I overheard two American tourists chatting about it...

When chefs and nutritionists call for children to be taught about food at school, I now know what they mean.

Stephen Bulmer, former chef-director of the Raymond Blanc Cookery School at Le Manoir invited a couple of us journalist/mums down to his new academy, Brook Hall Cookery School in Winslow, Buckinghamshire, last week.

Spare a thought for the hungry this Christmas. Or, more specifically, the Caterer staff.

We’re closing in on the time of year when every vague friend, acquaintance or social-networked punk wants advice on a restaurant for their office party, expecting some inside-industry tip that will shower them in glory before their own colleagues.

“Yeah sure, there’s a place I know called Le Gavroche, just ask for their £12 turkey deal, they’ll sort you out.”

Quietly handing out recommendations with the calm grace of a UN aid convoy, what then happens as the powers-that-be cut a cheque for the Caterer office party? The restaurant in question (Magnolia in Wimbledon) doesn’t answer its phone, or indeed have a BT landline anymore, deletes its website and sells its fixtures and fittings. In lay terms – closes down.