A SWISS CHEF'S CAREER: THE GOOD, THE BAD, THE YUMMY (7)

Chapter 7

View from the house in Vogelsang were I spent my childhood

                        I had only 5 Days to deposit my winter stuff in my parents house, collect my car, pick up my friend Heinz in Bern and drive to Rotterdam, travel on the fairy to Hull, drive to Keswick  and report to work. Sounds easy , but there where some challenges. I remember very good  because all my life I always like to be very punctual in all my appointments. I get nervous when I cut the time to close.

                        First minor setback came picking up the car. There was a small puddle of oil on the floor, usually not a good sign and it wasn't!  From there on every time I had to get gas I also had to ad a pint of oil to the engine.  Next I had to wait for Heinz to get ready in Bern what made us miss the fairy in Rotterdam at 8pm. (There was only one a day) It is a long way to Hull and it takes all night, 10 hours. We had to stay a night and a day in Rotterdam. We made the best out of it even we really didn't had the time.

 

Rotterdam - Hull Fairy

                         After all that my luck did not changed! We boarded the fairy at 8pm and got assigned our bedrooms, but of course we decided to spend most of the night in the bar. Here we go, there was a tremendous storm out in the ocean,  all passengers were ask to go to their quarters and they closed the restaurant and bars. It was a horrible ride all the way to Hull with out sleeping! To make it worse Heinz was sick for hours. I was very tired but I had to drive all day to Keswick because we had to work the next day. Especially coming off the fairy was hard, because concentrating driving on the left again. But needles to say, we made it.  ( without Red Bull, they did not made that stuff then).

                          Chef Kurt was very happy when we arrived on time, like I said before, in that time there was no communication possible like today, no cellular phones or e-mail. we never heard of a computer. You just had to trust each other.

                           For the first time my role was reversed coming to a new job, I was the one who helped chef Kurt with organizing and teaching all the new staff for the season. It felt great being on the other side. What helped me the most and made myself proud, I could communicate now in english.

I remember having a great Season, finding a Job for the winter early in the Berner Oberland region, and making arrangement again with Kurt Hartman for season 1969 before leaving back to Switzerland.

Leaving Lodore swiss hotel  end of season

Retired executive Chef Kurt Hartman 2017,   lives in Switzerland and enjoys life
traveling all over the world. I am following  him on Facebook.

                              

                                   End of October came around and we, Heinz and I, traveled on a straight and shortest line home. Hull, Rotterdam, Brussels, Luxembourg, Saarbrucken, Strasbourg, Bawwassel, Vogelsang.  I had to because by now my car sounded pretty bad, loosing some more oil and I was not sure if I will make it all the way home. I was planing having it fixed in a garage at home. I remember being worried all roughly 800 km I had to drive. We arrived ok but the bad news the car was ruined and would cost way to much to fix and I had to get rid of, what leads me to a scary episode.

                                   My older brother Heinz the responsible just bought a brand new car, a Ford Taunus who he let me borrow to bring my friend to his destination. He specified, he would like it back on Wednesday morning to go to work with it. I remember it was Monday, enjoying the new car and visiting our old boss from our apprenticeship in Montricher. On Tuesday we had our first snow storm of the year. I drove very careful to Bern dropping of my friend Heinz. I should have stayed there but I promised my brother to have his car back so I left for home. About  20 km before home I hit ice on the highway and lost control.  I went trough a wild fence (a fence that helps keep deer off the highway) overturned and landed on the roof in a small  creek. I was hanging in the seatbelt and after checking I had not a scratch. I could not open the doors and had to sneak out the broken back window. after looking the situation over I had to sneak back in and shut of the lights and the radio. I went back up to the road  and walked to a cal station and called the police.  It was 4:30 am and still dark. 10 minutes later the cop car came at the opposite lane. he stopped and let his partner out. On the way over to come to see me he slipped on the ice and fall! He got up and said I guess I don't have to ask what happened here.

                                 I had no problem with them. There been very helpful and concerned. One of them finished his shift at that time and drove me all the way home.

My brothers car was totaled.

                                  My brother was nice about, he said the insurance will take care of, at that  time I hoped so, I still felt very bad about the whole thing. He never ask me for any money and would not accept any. About 3 weeks later I got a bill from the canton Aargau to pay 1500 francs (about $6,000!) to repair the wild fence I destroyed. they said they had to stretch it for 500 meters!! It was kind a low point in my young live, I managed to trash 2 cars in less than a week!!

                                 Anyway, afterall I was happy to be alive and healthy
                               

The way to the Palace Hotel from the train station

   
                                  My contract for the winter season was working as chef Garde Manger for the Palace Hotel in Murren, a very small village in the middle of the Swiss alps. There were no cars, you could only get there by a cable car and train or a large gondola. This was my first time going to Murren and it was thrilling, the most exiting part was once I settled in to the hotel and I was informed that Broccoli and Saltzman production rented the hotel for 2 months this winter to film the new 007 Movie. Four of the kitchen crew were assigned to feed the film crew and I was one of the lucky one.
Our duty was not just preparing the meal, we also had to go to the location and serve them. for example the film crew was building a huge snow wall antop of the maintain and had to place fiberglass human skiers look a likes below on the slope. later on they would explode the wall and film that great scene of the avalanche bearing these "humans" but of course 007 would escape. This took a few weeks and some man power. We cooked the food, borrowed some thermo canisters from the  Swiss military and flew by helicopter to their base station in the afternoon and served them a nice hot lunch and, that was only in nice weather, of course. How lucky can you get!

Piz Gloria 

                                  The 4 of us worked mostly day time and only when the film crew had a special  or Gala dinner we had to work nights. Professional wise I had it easy. I took some time to work on some butter carvings. If I learned that it could lead to Ice carvings later on in my career. We also had the chance to act as extras on our day offs and even got payed for it.

                                 

The Schilthorn station has a rotating Restaurant.

It turns 360 degree in exactly 1 hour and wile you eat you can enjoy the entire mountain panorama!

The rotating Restaurant

                                We met some of the celebrity like Diana Rigg, Telly Savalas and George Lazenby. Not that we had big conversations, just more like their demands for certain foods they would like, but again it helped a lot that I could speak english!

                         They finished filming middle of February and left after a big Gala dinner and we joined the rest of the crew for a the regular hotel operation. That also meant we got in some serious skiing in the afternoons, we didn't had the time before.

                         One more thing, too bad the critics rated the Bond film "On Her Majesty's Secret Service"  the worst ever made but it wasn't because of the scenery!     

End of filming Gala Dinner

My  attempt at butter sculpture,  007 Helicopter and a Horse Drawn carriage

My certification for the winter season 1968/1969

                          I left Murren on the 14th of March going back to my parents and left my skies and all other winter items in the attic not knowing then I would never see that stuff again. I had to leave right away for the airport, I was expected on the 17 of March in Keswick, England.

                                     

I choose this recipe because I had to serve a big bowl of this to the film crew ever morning. 

BIRCHERMUESLI

SERVES 4

  Dr. Bircher from Bern Switzerland, a Doctor of Medicine who was concerned with nutrition and dieting but also enjoyed eating well, invented this dish.

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2 Cup Oat Flakes

4 oz Milk

2 oz Orange Juice

2 each Apples Grated unpeeled

1 oz Walnuts chopped (optional)

1 each Orange peeled and sectioned

2 oz Sugar

1 Cup Whipped Cream

1 cup Fresh Berries

Preparation Method;

Soak Oat Flakes with Milk and Orange Juice.

Add sugar, grated Apple, Orange Sections and Walnuts.

Fold in gently the whipped Cream

Add available Berries. (Strawberry, Raspberry, Blueberry, etc)

Serve Cold.