Tag Archives: travel

All is Forgiven – –

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Jack’s guest post is early this week – that’s something new –

One of the things I remember from my MBA studies was how companies convert casual customers into loyal ones. There were a range of strategies but the most effective one was how they deal with problems. If a business accepted there was a problem and went out of their way to deal with it that customer would not only stick with them but pull in all their friends and acquaintances.

Last Friday I flew back from Scotland and my route was Edinburgh to Chicago and then Chicago to Knoxville. The final flight was due out of Chicago at 6.50pm and to arrive in TYS around 8.30pm.

The first problem was that the scheduled flight attendant’s incoming flight was from Canada and was not only late but coming into a different terminal, so she added a 30 minute delay (not her fault). We pushed out from the gate and sat in the ‘alley’ for another 30 minutes in a very hot plane until the pilot announced that we were going back to the gate because the A/C had broken (not his fault). Another 30 minutes later it was fixed, we got back on board and pushed out again.

This time we again sat for 30 minutes in the alley before we eventually trundled to the area where all the other planes were taking their turn to take off. We sat for another hour watching plane after plane pass us and take off. Finally we started to move only to perambulate around the airport and back to where we’d started. The Pilot came on and said there was a warning light flashing so we were going back to the gate again (not his fault).

We got to the gate and were again sent in to the terminal. After some time we were told that it wasn’t fixable but they were bringing a replacement plane out of the hangar for us. We finally took off four hours late and arrived at last in Knoxville at 12.45am. Normally this would have driven me crazy, but the pilot and flight attendant were absolutely on the ball. They didn’t keep us on an overheated plane, provided us with water, organized free snacks, kept us informed all the way as to what was happening and apologized for things they had no control over. Next morning I got an email from the airline apologizing again and giving me 2500 airmiles in compensation.

I was enormously impressed with the way that the employees of this enormous company who were actually in direct contact with their customers went out of their way to make us comfortable and cared for.

United Airlines has obviously turned a corner from last year when they dragged that man off the plane and have some amazing employees.

To the crew of UA 4013 – very well done and I will continue to fly United.

My Life of Spice

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Aargh – It’s Thursday already – – – Jack’s Wednesday guest post

When I left school at the age of sixteen I commenced a five year apprenticeship as a painter, decorator and sign-writer and then continued to ply my trade until in my late thirties I started teaching these skills in the local community college. Nowadays most of the materials used back then have been phased out or outright banned for health and safety reasons but I worked with lots of highly volatile and toxic stuff. Over time I gradually lost my sense of smell and now have none at all, although strangely I occasionally have smell ‘memories’ that are triggered by particular sights or sounds, or family stories.

All this is to lead in to the reason why I love to both cook and eat spicy food – particularly Indian curries. Back in the 1970s I had enjoyed visiting Chinese restaurants which could be found all over Scotland, discovered curry on their menus and was instantly ‘hooked’! Not long after that Indian restaurants began to appear and are now more numerous than the Chinese ones.

Curry

It was an obvious step from enjoying the professional offerings to attempting to make them myself, as did many of my friends. But I was always looking for the elusive and special taste of the restaurants, and it took a long time and the advent of the internet and my Google friend before I finally found their secret. It was all about preparing a basic sauce in bulk, then freezing it in handy sized bags, to be used later along with fresh veggies and meats and additional spices.

How to Make Restaurant Style Curry Sauce For Use in Many Different Curry Recipes

Finally (or almost) Wendy and I attended week long courses at John C Campbell Folk School in S. Carolina some years ago. Wendy went for chair caning and I discovered a wonderful Indian woman called Ruby. She taught me and a zany group of folk all the finer points of making, not just curries, but samosas, pakoras, soups and desserts including balancing sugar and lemon juice and lots of other great tips. We cannot recommend enough checking out that wonderful Folk School and their offerings throughout the year!

Finally (really) – more recently Wendy and I found ourselves with time to spare in Cincinnati and discovered the wonderful Findlay Market, a year-round covered smorgasbord of international foods. It had a spice counter and we saw a spice mix called ‘Apocalypse’ that included ghost pepper along with all the usual curry spice blend.

So my procedure now is to heat some olive oil and butter in the electric griddle – fry a teaspoon of Apocalypse, a teaspoon of ground ginger and a teaspoon of minced garlic. Add coarsely chopped onion and fry until just browned. Then the defrosted bulk sauce and finally any additional veggies or meats. The last thing is to stir in a dessert spoon of Garam Masala as everything is simmering.

I believe I feel a smell memory coming on – – –