Done and Dusted!

I had a great time yesterday at our first “Bait to Plate” long lunch sharing stories about all things fishing and cooking. My 2 favourite hobbies and also my job.

It has been a long journey through the hospitality industry from the kitchen to the board room and all the way back. I have run resorts with more than 300 staff and ridden the rollercoaster of life, and everything has brought me to this position.

An opportunity to do whatever I want, whenever I want and typically my time is spent either fishing….or cooking! I have made my mistakes, taken wrong turns; my life has been a bit like the way I cook. I can make an awful lot of mess along the way but the end result is usually pretty bloody special.

I have been blessed with wonderful children and amazing supportive wife and my fantastic business partner of some 12 years who has ridden the highs and lows of business life beside me, supporting most of my decisions, and like me, can now indulge her passion for cooking and travel as a result of a lot of years of hard day in day out grind.

As a company we have formed a bond with local marketing legend Jo Sweeny who is helping us transition into the social media frenzy so important to the future of any customer focused enterprise and as an over 50 self-confessed grumpy old man, absolutely sceptical about this facebooky thingy, I’m now a convert.

 Still does not mean I know how to use it, but it is working and to see the “on line” reaction to yesterday lunch as it was being live blogged was amazing. Speaking of amazing, Russ Benning’s photographs are some of the best food photos I have ever seen. I will post a few here but the image of the Moroccan Black Mulloway on the lemon and chickpea tagine is so good you could lick the photograph and just about taste the food.

Thanks to everyone who came along, sorry to those we couldn’t fit in and I have already started thinking about the next one.