Een Nederlandstalige blog post dit keer! Van de week kwam ik Jaques Collen (voorzitter Academie voor streekgebonden gastronomie) tegen bij een bezoek aan de Cristal Alken brouwerij. Hij gaf me een leuk boekje van P. Grypdonck over de oorsprong van woorden, feiten en verhalen en de etymologische betekenissen met betrekking tot onze horecabranche. Ik neem jullie (de meeste lezers van mijn blog zijn immers genieters en drinken vaak en graag de veurletste) graag mee!

• ZAT – Uit t oude testament: ‘zat der dagen’. De 180 jaar oude Izaäk was het leven beu, verwant met het Engelse SAD ( droevig ) of het Latijnse Satur, wat verzadigd betekent. Genoeg hebben dus. Saturn, de oudste Romeinse God, genoemd naar zaaien (en dus verzadigen), werd in de mythologie genoemd bij de drinkgelagen en orgieën van Dionysos. Tijdens deze bacchanalen (zuipfeesten) waren de wellustelingen (halfgoden met hoorns en bokkenpoten) genaamd Satyr altijd in het gevolg van de godheid te vinden. Satyriasis is overigens de mannelijke tegenhanger van nymfomanie, een onverzadigbare geslachtsdrift dus: ook wel bekend als donjuanisme!

• LADDERZAT – Kent een hersprong in zatlap en laden, iets naar binnen lappen is haastig opdrinken, waarbij leppen (met kleine teugjes drinken) verwijst naar lepel!

• KATER – Een catarre is een verouderd woord voor neusverkoudheid, echter in het Grieks wil catharsis ‘een zuivering’ zeggen: een inwendige schoonmaak waarbij het bloed gezuiverd wordt.

• VOOR PAMPUS LIGGEN – Komt van de zandbank in het oude IJsselmeer ten oosten van Amsterdam, waar via een stroomgeul/vaargeul de schepen van de VOC naar het IJ konden varen, waar het hier en daar dicht kon slibben. Ze moesten dus rekening houden met de getijden en soms wel 3 dagen wachten op een tij dat hoog genoeg was om de schepen weg te krijgen: voor pampus liggen dus! De compagnie voorzag dan natuurlijk sterke drank, vrouwen en water en zeep en wanneer de zeelieden dan dronken aan wal kwamen noemden ze hen “een Pampzak” – een bijzonder dik iemand die zich daardoor langzaam beweegt!

• LAZARUS – Bezopen, beneveld, stomdronken, betoeterd, lam komt van de melaatsen (lijders aan pest, tering, tyfus of kanker) en de bijbelse figuur Lazarus werd door Jesus uit de dood opgewekt om de lepralijders voor te gaan. ‘Ben je belazerd?’ of het ‘zich apelazarus schrikken’ of ‘geen lazer uitvoeren’ vinden daar hun oorsprong.

• BUIZEN – In het Engels is booze gewoon drank, to booze is dan ook onmatig drinken wat in het Nederlands verbasterd is tot buizen. Buis en buizen gaan terug tot opblazen, zwellen of dik worden… Dat geldt ook voor boos zijn: ‘maak je niet dik’ en ‘maak je niet boos’ komen hier vandaan!

Zelfs “drunk baby” drinkt er af en toe één teveel!

Iedere 3 maanden wordt er een dergelijk boekje verspreid onder mensen die zich hiervoor inschrijven. Ik ben natuurlijk direct abonnee geworden van dit initiatief en zal jullie nog vaker voorzien van wetenswaardigheden uit ons vakgebied. Waarom  zijn de dingen zoals ze zijn?! Grappig en leerzaam en natuurlijk ook wel eens leuk om erover te schrijven, danwel te nuttigen…alhoewel?!

Hey everybody, I’ve got a quick update for you all! It’s about last week’s trip to Barcelona, for our INFLOW training: 50 future leaders of Mise en Place on a trip towards inspiration and new insights about their own possibilities and growth! During my stay there, I visited Mise en Place Barcelona, located at the beautiful Plaça de la Universitat, right across the university. This office is located on the second floor and has its entrance behind a small chocolate shop! Ran by two of the nicest ladies ever, this shop sells gorgeous Belgian & Spanish chocolates and figures as an entrance for the Mise en Place office! It’s got kind of a Moors style of decoration going on, with a lot of mirrors and tiles.

“Hola, mi nombre es Charles y trabajo en Mise en Place!”

On the 3rd and 4th of February of 2014, Servicecenter 4Hospitality will be hosting FXE: Food Executive Europe, a congress for European executives working in the hospitality industry. Together with Toine Manders, European Parliament member of the year, they’re looking to delve into the topic of foodwaste.

FXE is going to be all about thinking out of the box, outside of the playing field, doing something new in Maastricht, creating awareness on foodwaste and what we’re collectively doing to this world, in an economic and commercial way. There’s no better way to illustrate this, than by the hand of Gunter Pauli, author of Blue Economy, of which he has sold over 1.000.000 copies worldwide. In this book, he says we can generate 100.000.000 jobs in the upcoming 10 years, by utilising a total of 100 innovative nature-inspired technologies!

One example concerns the rain-forests in South-America. Is it possible to make money off of the rain-forests, while sustainably providing basic human needs? Gunter Pauli believes it’s possible to raise the value of the rainforest soil from $10 per acre to a whoppin’ $1000 per acre by simply re-using its own natural resources.

Another example comes with the African desert beetle. While the desert is of course on the most dry surroundings known to mankind, there’s a tiny of dew in the morning that the desert beetle manages to catch on his wings (which nature designed specifically that way, for that sole purpose) to use during the day. If we manage to recreate this inventiveness of nature, this will allow us to foster an ecological system in which we can grow entire forests! After 250 years of worthless desert soil, we can now turn this soil into something very valuable.

I really believe in the Blue Economy. During the TEFAF last month, I ran into Gertjan Meeuws of PlantLab, a Dutch company that spent the last 30 years working on new, innovative ways of growing plants and other fauna: the next generation of growing, they call it. Gertjan explained to me that plants only grow from two small parts of the sunlight: the ultraviolet light and the red light. The rest of the sunshine isn’t necessary at all! So PlantLab built a basement loaded with only ultraviolet and red light and they got amazing results: supertomatoes, more vitamins, more minerals, one tenth of the water you would normally require to water the plants and most importantly, no pesticides needed! This is the kind of thinking we need in this world.

I’m incredibly excited about the upcoming Food Executive Europe and I’ll make sure to keep you up to date on everything FXE!

Dutch version after the break!

The last few months I had to face the facts again! A lot of synchronicity and serendipity, but the laws of nature seek for balance, meaning a lot of things went wrong. This is on converging moments in the scarcity time.

Apparently Mr. Murphy was on my side: if one thing goes wrong, everything goes wrong. It started with my car, which was towed away, because of all the unpaid parking tickets…. Oh wait, excuse me: municipal taxes, seen the deductibility!

- When the battery of your car key is empty, you just can’t get in your car…

- When there’s not enough water in your central heating, it can pump very hard, but your house just won’t get warm…

- When you have many groups and guest in your house, you can fill the freezer as many times as you like, but it’ll be empty every time – nice when you finally come home, starved…

- If you sell a car via internet, for a good price, just don’t drive (and damage) it…

- When it’s freezing outside, like  -10 degrees, don’t put on your handbrake, your car won’t move…

- If you have a fence around your house, which should automatically open, and it rains before it starts freezing, you just can’t leave your driveway…

- If you invite guests to Maastricht, whom travelling by train while snowing, you might have to wait an entire day…

- If you don’t put your trash out on time, they won’t pick it up and you will be stuck with it for another 2 weeks…

- Then, sporting with our management teams: the German team in this case. The sports center had a new cleaning company, but they didn’t know that we were going to arrive at 07.15h. We couldn’t come in and we just got cold and wet…

SIGNALS? Most certainly… Take it easy Charly!

There were positive remarks on my “travelling” months though! I was in a great flow when I wasn’t at home, but on the road, with a body full of adrenaline:

- To Wiesbaden, with the president of EHMA (the European Hotel Managers Association), finding their support for FXE (Food eXecutive Europe) which we are organising on 3 & 4 February 2014 in Maastricht.

- To Dortmund, for the 1^st HotelloTOP Germany, with no less than 195 participants and old Hotello’s from the WIHOGA

- To London, to make a deal with the biggest European club of hospitality entrepreneurs: BHA (British Hospitality Association) for FXE and EPCAS (European Party Caterer Association) of which I’m a board member.

- A nice set of circumstances was a tour in the TOP concern of Mosimanns in Wimbledon, where (former) presidents and members of the royal house are a member. The owner showed much interest in our beautiful club of caterers.

- In Hamburg and Hannover, we had 2 super meetings with over 25 jobpers for my KIT tour and with more than 20 decisions, with a lot of positive energy for MEP Germany!

- In Seville, I took place in the jury of the best paella competition of Spain, and I had the honour to prepare our annual beertrip, which went great: within 3 days I managed to organise a full program for the whole trip!

- In Madrid I visited one of the biggest caterers of Spain, and by all means the most luxurious: Mallorca Catering, who’ll visit our summer meeting in Italy this summer.

- In St. Michelsgestel  indeed…our super power village in Brabant) we organised one of the best IMPW’s in years for our 250 top Meppers from Belgium and the Netherlands. The best keynotes, including a long cherished desire: the writer of the book “Use your brain” – Jan Willem van den Brandhof: incredible speech!

CONCLUSION: YOU ARE BORN, YOU LIVE A WHILE, YOU UNDERSTAND NOTHING OF LIFE, AND THEN YOU PASS AWAY…

Dear friends,

We have passed December 21st and I feel that the positive energy is flowing in the right direction. Especially the people around me, as well as myself, are in back in flow again! Nice synchronic moments: walking around on the “Horecava” I met a man with a newspaper folded under his arm, with my picture on it! Last year, in July it had a nice article: FOODCLICKS. Nice to know, and I thought as a trend watcher I wouldn’t withhold this from you. Click here to read the article!

We didn’t have a stand at the Horecava and in hindsight I must say I’m glad we didn’t. I was free to walk all around the Horecava on Monday and Tuesday. Result: 60 businesscards and 80 new actions! A nice moment was a cup of coffee by, a coffee brand new to me, Catunambu. I stood face to face with the owner from Sevilla, CEO Mr. Martinez. As I happen to be traveling to Sevilla soon, something nice developed here.

The CEO PowerBreakfast in Amsterdam was just like the congress of HotelloTOP: sold out! Besides, it’s more clear than ever to me why we support www.masterpeace.org. In 2014, I’ll be playing my trumpet on an international stage, together with top acts from conflicting war countries!

During the KHN gala, we sat with 3 people on a large 10 people table. What happened? The third guest was a former-Hotello from Maastricht in 1983! He ended up being an amazing puzzle-piece that’s going to help me now. The organisation moved us to a different, full, table very quickly. My new neighbour was, also a former student of Maastricht (1962), Jos van Bommel and guess what: he possesses the old documents with regard to the movement of the Hotelschool in 1970 form the Boschstraat to the Bethlehemweg. Yet another puzzle-piece for our castle Jerusalem!

A lot of serendipity: I’m conducting an Advisory Board in Rotterdam and in one week time I found more than 5 great networkers from Rotterdam, whom all are invited on 21st of February for a lunch in the Spykermusuem.

The most impressive coincidence was my meeting with J. Altenburg (don’t mix this guy up with Jorg, the partner it all started with), but an almost graduated Hotello from Leeuwarden, who applied for the role of my Personal Assistant.

Kindest regards, from HotelloTOP Germany, which was founded this week in Dortmund!

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