Guest Author - Fay Olinsky

Life is never easy, well at least it isn't easy forever. We all have slow times, hard times and downright heart breaking times when things go wrong or there is a glitch in the economy. We are all facing a great big glitch right now...after many years in a business you get to recognise the signs.
For me an enormous increase in top chefs wanting to emigrate and find work in the UK is unprecedented this year. Restaurants are packing it in all over the world. Downsizing they call it, tightening belts, getting rid of expensive named chefs and relying on the stalwart hard working people who have kept it all going without tantrums and demands...it is the time when the dedicated workforce come into their own. When the kitchen porter takes over in the kitchen...because he has learned from watching for so long and from so many chefs (they are such a flighty bunch when times are good)
These chefs who flit from one job to another, rarely staying six months anywhere suddenly think they can clean up by becoming Personal Chefs and taking our industry by storm.

Every day for the past 3 months I have an email box swamped with applications from all over the world.

Hey this is a very small country...there is only room for so many! Clients are very thin on the ground here in the best of times and during recession the bread and butter weekly client is even rarer.

I had 5 clients in the banking industry that gave me a good weekly income. All have had to curtail their spending due to redundancy.

So what can I do to increase my clientele during these times?

One of the best ways is to encourage clients to get together and share. I have many Hen Party jobs where all the girls pay a bit each. We have a cookery teach in and a lovely meal that all have participated in.

Baby Batch cooking where 5 mums get together and we all cook baby foods for freezing. Freshly prepared in larger batches than usual and packed in small containers for the freezer. They learn preparation and storing details and everyone has a good time. It only takes one morning and we have a creche with a volunteer changing every hour. Going home with a weeks supply of baby food for the freezer is wonderful...no worries about food prep.

Cooking for elderly people is something I love. If there are 5 or more in one area who want a delivery service of weekly meals and they are prepared to get together it can be very affordable for them and reasonably profitable for me...cooking in larger batches is always preferable and far more economical as far as I am concerned.

There are an increasing number of Farmers Markets happening on a regular basis in UK. If you can produce foods to the standard required why not? I used to make hand raised Pork Pies for the W.I. markets some years ago before EU regulations made that impossible for anyone who did not have a huge production unit but things seem to be changing here lately...with all the different nationalities resident here now, all with very different culinary ways and needs....EU legislation seems a bit toothless.

I wonder if we will ever get back to those lovely days when selling eggs at the garden gate was quite normal and far more acceptable than buying imported eggs in a store?

As a child my walk to school involved passing so many little cottage industry producers. Eggs, fruits, apples, vegetables even freshly plucked chickens. And Mrs Aimsbury's cream sponges were so wonderful I can taste them now.

In the 80's I cooked masses for W.I. markets and made quite a good return, along with the weaner pigs I grew for market I made a decent living from home.
I love visiting the rural areas of France where local people take such pride in producing local specialties and selling them at special fairs and markets. The honey and walnut tarts and the fabulous crispy pastries with almond filling. The incredibly varied salamis and saucisson and the pralines....oooh! my mouth is watering...


All it takes is initiative and an ability to temp the customer into trying something that you can make very well...better than anyone else...get them hooked :) and keep on perfecting your speciality so they will never go elsewhere for that item.

Once in New Zealand my husband and I passed a Macadamia nut farm...The owner's wife was selling Macadamia nut shortbread at the gate.......That was a journey halfway around the world that I would willingly make again just to taste that wonderful shortbread.