Golf Etiquette

     We are now approaching the time of year when the tourists arrive in droves, and some of them actually pay good money to play on our golf course. Some consider these tourists a minor inconvenience, while others regard them as a plague of Biblical proportions. We know that you have come to believe that this is your personal golf course and, at many times of the year, the place is so empty it might be easy for you to regard it as your own private domain. And we also know that it is frustrating to play at a good pace and then come to a screeching halt behind a family of four that are having a hard time figuring out which end of a golf club they should hold. It is easy to curse at them, yell loudly and jump up and down. To make matter worse, some of you fire golf balls at them--as though you were firing a warning shot across their bows. I

     Imagine how badly this reflects on all of us: instead of patiently waiting and, perhaps, giving them a hand, some prefer to hit golf balls in their direction in the hope that they will learn their lesson, let you play through, and regret that they have ever thought to set foot on our sacred ground. Not only is this practice immature, it is dangerous. Take a moment to relax. Examine the clouds and the fairways in front of you. Think about how lucky we are to live here, think about what a nice day it is to be out with good friends enjoying a game of golf. Practice chip shots with your playing partners: aim at the tee box markers. Tell a terrible joke. Slow down. Make the tourist that comes to play at our course feel welcome. After all, the money he spends helps fund the year round luxury we enjoy.

     When I say all this, keep in mind that this philosophy does not apply to motor homes. I swear that the next time I have to follow a motor home that drives at 40 klicks, rides the brakes and slows down to 15 km on ALL curves, instead of turning off at the golf course, I will follow the culprit until he stops and I don’t care if the next stop is in Lethbridge, Alberta. And after I am finished with him, I will go after the rest of his family.

Crazy Cooks in the Kitchen Cause Catastrophies

  


   Finding staff that is not deranged or fleeing from the law is extremely difficult. You would think that there would be scores of young people with culinary skills anxious to show off their gastronomic abilities at the prestigious Royal Long Beach but you would be mistaken. It’s hard to fathom, but there seems to be a shortage of qualified people willing to work in a hot and sweaty conditions preparing fine food (some of it deep-fried) while their friends frolic in the waves. Go figure.

     Not to say that we haven’t tried. But the results of our search for staff have been at times frustrating and at other times catastrophic. Here are some examples of the staff we have to deal with:

Chef A (not her real name): Chef A was very good at her job, and she knew it. She was also keenly aware of the difficulties of finding staff, so she would frequently walk off the job until she got a raise. And so Chef A would come back to work and everything would be fine and then a busy weekend with a banquet and a tournament would loom on the horizon and Chef A would walk off the job, and we would be stuck and be forced to give her a raise whilst muttering to himself about extortion.

Although seemingly a nice person, Chef A had a definite scary side. There was clearly something threatening about her. One of her favorite tricks would be the stand over you as you ate your meal. She would carry a big kitchen knife, or rolling pin, or a cleaver when she asked “How is it?” You would tell her it was absolutely delicious, and (if you were lucky) she would thank you and leave you unscathed.

One day, however, when Chef A was in a particularly bad mood she prepared some food that was, basically, inedible. I think that she rolled a cardboard box in some flour and then fried it, adding some cold tomato sauce for color. When she asked me what I thought of it I told her that I thought it was a little “suspect”, and that it could use some more flavoring. When I regained consciousness, Chef A had again fled from the kitchen, leaving in the midst of tears and thinly veiled threats. I had to promise to give her my next three pay checks and give her a handwritten apology before she would return.

Chef A left six weeks later (without notice) to work with a pastry chef for an obscene amount of money. The last we heard, the maestro Pastry Chef was hospitalized when he told Chef A that the cream-filled pastries needed cream. Chef A has since moved on as a creative consultant for “Hell’s Kitchen.”

Chef B had come to us well recommended and we were excited about his potential. Chef B had great plans for our restaurant: he would personally transform it into a world class dining establishment. It became his obsession. He proceeded to order in the most expensive gourmet foods and astronomically priced kitchen cutlery. We asked him about a paring knife he ordered that wholesaled for $50. "One cannot pare properly without it,”sniffed Chef B, implying that we were barbarians by asking.

Chef B thought that he was tragically misunderstood: he would concoct the most lavish of dishes with unpronounceable names and no one would order them. Instead, they would order pedestrian dishes like burger and fries and nachos. Chef B would fall into depression when a customer would order a grilled cheese sandwich. “Philistines,” he would say. He thought it beneath him to create something so simple. But he would gamely fry the sandwich using the finest of European goat cheese, arrange it on the plate with alfalfa sprouts and Swiss chocolate and orchids and strawberries. He would look at his creation for half an hour after preparing it, dissecting it for flaws, considering the overall presentation-- and then throw the whole thing out. If it ever did get served, the customer would look at the sandwich and say something like, “What the @#%&+ is this?”

Chef B was costing us a fortune. Nobody ordered anything because Chef B would never deliver it. He was such a perfectionist that the most splendid of his works would get thrown in the trash. One Men’s Night, the entire mob waited in the banquet room for their red meat, in near riotous mood. (To be honest, on Mens Night, they are often on the verge of a riot.) We entered the kitchen to see what was holding things up. Chef B was reading a copy of Gourmet magazine. The steaks had been char-broiled and were sitting on the side grill. “Why are these steaks not being served?” we asked. “They are resting” said Chef B. “Wake them up” we said.

Chef B was slowly going insane. No one ordered his food. His grandiose plans were falling apart before his eyes. The clientele didn’t appreciate his genius. The straw that broke the camel’s back? For a daily special, Chef B had prepared his signature dish: a Caesar Salad made of fresh crisp Romaine with anchovy dressing and fresh baked garlic croutons. Chef B lost it completely and had to be bundled up and carted away when one of our members ordered the salad with a request for “extra Thousand Island” dressing.

No one ever looked less like a chef than Chef C. Imagine an old movie with the disheveled and notorious-looking “cookie” on a wagon train, or in a pirate epic. But the pirates eventually had to let Chef C go for being too bizarre looking and abrasive. And that’s when we got him.

Admittedly, Chef C was pretty good at his job, so it was easy to overlook his rather odd personality quirks. He liked to blast 50’s music, big band, R&B, Motown--that kind of thing--when he worked, inflicting his taste of music on all. Heaven forbid you might ask him to turn it down. The one time we asked him to lower the volume to. say, the decibel level of an F-18 fighter jet, pots and pans were hurled about in the kitchen followed by a lengthy diatribe of colorful language. It sounded like a one man band had just fallen down a flight of stairs.

And then there was Chef C’s dog. This was the nicest, gentlest dog you could ever imagine except when it spotted another dog, when it transform itself to something from the gates of hell . It would attack other dogs with impunity, ripping the poor dog to shreds, often in front of the restaurant windows-- which made for an interesting floor show. Often, the horrified owners of the poor little dog that had been just mercilessly torn to bits were in the restaurant, witnessing the entire spectacle, aghast and unable to think clearly because of the big band music blaring in their ears. To add insult to injury, Chef C would then stomp out onto the yard, pat his own dog on the head, and pick up the carcass of the dead dog and return to the kitchen, leaving the restaurant patrons to wonder exactly what kind of “special” the chef might be cooking up.

And then there was Chef D, who dressed all in black and liked to skulk around the golf course complex at all hours. Some of us had the unsettling feeling that someone was watching us through our bedroom windows late at night. Others thought that their underwear drawer had been re-arranged. There were rumors of satanic rituals. There was something VERY unsettling about Chef D, you would talk to him a bit and it would send a shiver up your spine and you would find yourself rushing home to see if you could find the long lost family Bible.

One morning Chef D was late for work so I went to his trailer to wake him up. Outside his trailer I could hear music that sounded eerily familiar:  the song “Wild Horses” that Buffalo Bob danced to in “Silence of the Lambs”. I left without knocking on Chef D’s door. For all I know he might still be in there. I am afraid to look.
　
　
　
　
　
　

All is Lost on Computer, Love Finds a Way

                                                        My bethrothed Svetlana, pines away
                                                       for me, and hopes I send money soon.

 Last year my computer was corrupted (too much time at porn and Ukrainian dating sites) and I lost all my files. You would think that the Golfing Madman would keep a hard copy of each newsletter for his scrapbook, but you would think wrong. That would be prudent and I am allergic to prunes.  So, I placed my faith in the insidious computer and I was betrayed. This was a source of infinite disappointment to me, I had grandiose plans to compile all my rants and put them in a book entitled Yes, I AM Talking to YOU. If I had enough material, I was going to use it for another book entitled Hey, I’m Not Finished Talking to YOU.  Following that success, my third book had a working title of Harry Potter and the Disappearing Mulligan.   I guess I will have to start over, but first I must carry on my correspondence with a 20 year old Ukrainian girl who wants, I believe, to marry me.  Although it costs me $50 every time I write or read a correspondence, it has become clear to me that she adores me, and I am loath to tell her of my numerous faults.