Of Platters & Pomposity



About a year after we first opened Le Canard, we had two ladies consulting us on a possible function. One was considerably older than the other, but both were dressed to the nines, and, to put it politely, they had their noses somewhat in the air. They entered, looked around a little disdainfully, and queried "Who do we speak to about a reservation?" I asked "Can I possibly help you?" At that stage I was a little frightened  to let them loose with Hans Frieser, our Maitre d', since he might have been inclined to tell them they looked like flowers, and, when they beamed at him, would have said "Cauliflowers"which came to mind when I looked at them!

It transpired that their husbands, and I presume they themselves, were members of what was then the prestigeous global institution called the "Young Presidents' Organization" (YPO), and they wanted to book a dinner for their next presentation. They asked me whether I understood that this was "a very, very, very upmarket organisation" and that they wanted only the best. The older of the two ladies did most of the talking, and the younger one appeared slightly intimidated. I was told their names, which I won't mention here, since I am sure they are still floating around somewhere on another planet!  They certainly were "floating" in the restaurant!

Anyway, I sat them down, and Hans came to offer the ladies something to drink, then promptly disappeared after serving it. I asked what their needs were, and they stressed that it had to be very "upmarket" and very special, and that I had to cater to the tastes of the YPO members. Realising the kind of people they were, I suggested that possibly a smoked salmon starter would be the best thing, and, since we were already specialising in duck, I recommended the choice of duck and grilled sole as a main course. They looked at each other and then at me, and since I was at the time relatively unscathed by nature, I smiled charmingly and said that it would be nice to hear from them, but that it was obviously their choice as to where they would like to hold their YPO dinner.

In due course I received a phone call from the younger of the two ladies, who was obviously the "lady-in-waiting." She said that her partner-in-crime thought that we would be "adequate," and so I decided that we would attempt to be more than "adequate"! We placed them in our private room, which can be closed off so that nobody can listen in to conversations, and I had arranged the most beautiful flowers and thought everything was 100%. However, the first calamity we encountered involved a lovely young waitress named Edna, who was a final year medical student. One of the other staff came to me and said that Edna was sitting crying in the lavatory. I went to see what the problem was and she exclaimed "I can't stand this any more! I can't stand it!" I asked "Sweetheart, what can't you stand?" She replied "That woman at that table in that room is busy picking flowers out of the vase and throwing them on the floor, and when she throws them on the floor she expects me to pick them up, and I don't know where to put them because they're beautiful flowers, and I just don't know what she means....!" So I said "well, I'll go and find out what the problem is."

So I went to the private room and said to the lady "It would appear you do not like the decorations we put on your table," and she retorted "I simply can't stand these flowers. They stink! Do you understand me? They stink!" Now that was an aromatic arrangement of roses and tuberoses, and it was the latter flower she was throwing on the floor. So I said "Let's take it off your table" and she responded "Wonderful idea!" I went back to the lavatory and said to the distressed waitress "Edna, fine, we have removed the stinking tuberoses!" Her tears turned to laughter, and we both fell about laughing about the lady who did not like the perfume of tuberoses.

That was the first problem of the day. The second arose that evening when we proceeded to serve the YPO's. There were four tables with ten people at each table. Hans, my Maitre d' at the time, had chosen to serve the table nearest the door first. He was possibly thinking those seated nearest the door might be the most important. We never found out why, but he served that table first. As the waiters concluded putting down the tenth dish, a gentleman at one of the other tables came charging out. He dashed straight passed Hans, and came to me exclaiming "I wont' have this! I definitely will not have this!"

Incidentally, the "Young Presidents" became the CEOs of large, influential companies, hence the said gentleman will remain unnamed since he is still floating around Johannesburg as a "big shot"! At the time I responded to him saying "I'm so sorry, but what is your problem?" Pointing at the table which had been served, he said "They've got their food and they're eating, and I haven't got my food yet!" Up popped Hans the Maitre d' who interjected saying "Well sir, you must know there is allways the first and the last!" And what did my dear Hans do? He made sure that this gentleman's table was served the last.

That was my second problem of the day. Nevertheless, everybody seemed to have had a good time. They enjoyed their food. One or two wanted more smoked salmon, and, by the nature of the people that were present, I put on an enormously generous portion of salmon. When they asked for more I told the Maitre d' "Hans be a good child, just go and give them more," and everybody seemed to have approved the food and the service they were given. So that function ended perfectly.

A while later I got the booking for the next YPO dinner, so I was now really concerned! In the interim between the first function and the booking for the second, I said to Hans "there is no way that will ever happen to me again! I will never again use tuberoses. Maybe they are beautifully perfumed for you and me and for millions of others, but maybe we'll find the odd sod who doesn't like perfumed flowers." Hans replied "You won't put on silk flowers, and you won't put on artificial flowers," and I responded "Definitely not! We'll have to think of unperfumed flowers," which we subsequently supplied to many, many dinners thereafter. I also added "Hans the other thing that will never happen again, is a mister so-and-so jumping up and down saying 'they were served before me!' I will make sure that everyone of these YPO's is served at the same time." Hans with his formal training at his Berlin butler school, and all his past experience at the Carlton Hotel in Johannesburg, said "There is no way you can do that. There will always be a first, and there will always be a last." I said "I'm going to work out a plan, and they will all eat together."

That, dear readers, is how I came to have platters. The pomposity one can understand, and we had lots of that at the previous function.....the lady who chose to throw flowers on the floor, when the simplest thing would have been to say to the young waitress "Please would you mind removing these. They're giving me hay fever." The gentleman who hadn't yet been served could have waited his turn. Surely he hadn't anticipated his wonderful dinner so much that he didn't have lunch? So I had to devise a plan. I had previously seen in Chinese restaurants what are called "Lazy Susans," and I purchased four of those. I also found dishes that would fit on a "Lazy Susan," on which I placed around eight different items of food. As expected there were, amongst others, lots of salmon. I also had enough waiters. I had to first put the "Lady Susans" on the tables with "unperfumed" flowers, then I had two waiters per table putting down two dishes per table simultaneously. I had rehearsed this with the waiters prior to the YPO dinner, and hence had the waiters simultaneously putting down two dishes at a time on each table until the "Lady Susans" were filled. The last item placed was the centre piece, which was an enormous arrangement of salad and a crown of prawns. So they were all served together and mister "so-and-so" who was there for the second YPO dinner, couldn't "jump up" from his chair to complain about being served last, and I must add, neither did he "jump up" to say "thank you." That is how we at Le Canard learned of "pomposity," and I learned of "platters" for which we have subsequently become very well known. We never call them "Lady Susans".....God forbid! We call them "Platters"!

Freda

The Saga of the Duck and Cauliflower!!

I originally started Le Canard with an individual named Hans Horn. Hans has been a great friend of my family and mine for many years, and he had what we perceived to be the best restaurant possibly in Africa called "The Fiddler." Not happy with local politics all those many years ago, Hans sold up the business and went to America, where he opened another restaurant named "The Fiddler." Unfortunately he had not done his homework, and the restaurant was highly unsuccessful because the needs of the area, in which it was located, was for family styled restaurants, and there he had this so-called "posh" restaurant. So he very quickly realised his mistake, sold up in America and returned to his homeland Germany where he opened a wonderful little restaurant, where he was very happy with the chef, the waiters, the manager.....and everything else in this lovely little place.

For a number of years I had been giving cookery classes. In the evenings I taught professional men and women, and those were great fun. We made the food, ate the food, and had a jolly good time with it. However, I had cause to teach my housekeeper, which resulted in me presenting morning cooking classes to African housekeepers. and I made a point of making all of the recipes I shared with them. I am probably lazy at heart. I cook food that is certainly delicious, but it must be easy to prepare. I am not the kind of person who will go shopping for two days to make a single meal. So in these classes I made the recipes simple so that it is easy both to shop for, and easy to cook. Amongst these was chestnut soup. I showed the group of housekeepers in my class all the ingredients, and had them taking notes on the trade names of the ingredients, ensuring that they knew exactly what the correct ingredients were to make this chestnut soup, which was both delicious and inexpensive.

A couple of evenings later, as I was sitting down to evening dinner with my family, the phone went. As an aside, we had a family tradition to always eat dinner together. My husband, having been born in France, had a few culinary wishes, of which one was that he had to have bread with his meal. If he didn't have bread, he couldn't eat! Another was that he had to have salad, which my mother in law with her French accent described "French Letters." She meant "Lettuce" of course, and never got to know what "French Letters" really were. So while my husband had to have his salad and bread, I had to have my dessert. I also took into consideration the tastes of my children, and if there was one vegetable they specifically hated, they could nominate that vegetable which they would not be served. Other than that single vegetable, they ate what was on their plates.

So, now we were sitting down to this happy family meal, when the phone went. I answered the call, and there was a very irate lady on the other end of the line. I think that by listening to the voices of  individuals on the phone, one can determine who they think they are, and this caller thought that she was both very posh and very angry. She informed me that she was so upset, because her husband had just thrown a plate of soup on the floor and walked out, and that she wasn't sending her housekeeper for cookery classes when she could not even prepare a recipe to satisfy her family. She thought that was disgusting, and wanted a refund of the money she paid me.

I responded "OK, just calm down a minute, and tell me what soup it was," since by then I actually knew what she was talking about. She retorted "It was chestnut soup!" I queried "Now, how did you or your housekeeper acquire the chestnuts?" She said "My housekeeper phoned Thrupps, and Thrupps delivers." I responded "That's very nice, now what did you get from Thrupps? Do you still have the container the chestnuts arrived in?" She responded "Absolutely!" I asked her to check whether it was a tin or a box, to which I got the reply "It was a very fancy box that came from France." I informed the lady that this was probably glacé (candied) chestnuts. "Oh" she says "it says something like that on the box." At this point I asked her to fetch the chestnut soup recipe I gave her housekeeper, which will indicate the right ingredient to be water chestnuts, and added "If your housekeeper couldn't read, or you couldn't direct her, or you couldn't shop for the right ingredient, then I suggest you owe me an apology right now, and establish whether it was your problem or the housekeeper's problem. I suspect it is you who have not discussed with your housekeeper what she must do. Thank you so much for letting me know. Good bye!"

That's when I sat down at my dinner table and told my family "That is the end of my cookery classes. If I have to have my dinner with my family interrupted by some cheeky socialite who doesn't have the time to see what is happening in her home, then I am not teaching anymore." The following morning I phoned my friend Hans Horn in Düsseldorf, telling him that I am no longer teaching and that I have got to do something. He responded "don't worry, you and I will each put some money in and open a restaurant. Now, you look for a restaurant that will suit me. I will come to South Africa for six months of the year when it is out of season in Germany. So I will travel backwards and forwards, and it will be wonderful! You just find the place you want."

So after much soul searching and property searching, I found a place. I specifically found a restaurant where I would always have fresh flowers and no air conditioning, hence I wouldn't have a place in a shopping centre. Dinner in a shopping centre I find depressing, albeit a few weeks ago a lady from Absa bank came to Le Canard, and was very dismayed at the ceiling fans. She said "You mean to tell me that you don't have air conditioning? We are used to air conditioning," to which I responded "Well I am so sorry! We do have four windows to the room and two doors. They're all open and we have fresh air." With that Absa lady and I parted company!

Getting back to the saga of Le Canard, before we could open the restaurant we had to find a name for the venue, and I think that was the only thing Hans and I argued about. I held my cooking classes at my home, where Hans spotted the curtains on my kitchen window. He piped up "Finished.....finished! I know what we call it.....Le Canard!" I responded "what in hell are we going to have a restaurant called that? First of all South Africans won't be able to pronounce it, and secondly, what are we going to do with the ducks?" He responded "Because the South Africans won't be able to pronounce the name and say 'what's that?' you will say 'it's the duck.....the f**cking duck!'" Being by now exhausted with this name seeking game, I very reluctantly agreed.

We opened Le Canard and in due course Hans came out for the opening, and decided that his restaurant in Düsseldorf was being neglected and promptly rushed back. Whilst I know that I am a damn good cook, I am not exactly a people's person. I do think before I speak, but I sometimes speak before I think! I knew I wasn't the kind of person to rush around and say "is everything alright," because God help anybody who tells me something wasn't alright! I needed a Maître D', so very good friends of mine, who were chair persons of the Chaîne des Rôtisseurs, highly recommended a gentleman who used to work at the then Rosebank Hotel in Johannesburg. So I phoned this gentleman whose name is Hans Frieser.

Hans arrived and he was possibly the cleanest and nicest human being I ever met. He was exceedingly well trained at the best butler school in Berlin, and he adhered to a special routine. He arrived in the morning and prior to serving lunch, he would retire to the restroom where he would scrub his fingernails, clean his teeth and brush his hair. After service he would go home, return at around 18h00, go the restroom and repeat the procedure of scrubbing his nails, cleaning his teeth and brushing his hair.

Hans Frieser and I got along like a house on fire. He had a lovely sense of humour, a very heavy German accent, and he prefaced everything he said with the word "Mensch." I asked him one day "Hans why did you leave the Rosebank Hotel?" He said "You know Mensch, I can't understand. Helen Suzman [the South African politician] was a regular customer. I knew Helen Suzman and I used to greet her at the door and seat her. One day she came, and I can't understand. I said to her 'you know madam, you look like a flower.....and she beamed! And she said 'thank you Hans!' And I said 'Yes madam, you look just like a cauliflower!' I saw the beam disappear from her face, and straight after lunch I was called into the manager's office, and he said 'Hans it's not acceptable. How dare you say anything like that?' and I said 'but sir, she did look like a cauliflower!' He said 'but you can't say that,' and decided to suspend me for a month. So I stayed home for a month, and you know what? I didn't think it was fair. I wasn't in the wrong, so I resigned."

So that is the story of Hans Frieser, who worked for me for quite a number of years. He was wonderful.....and he never called anyone a "cauliflower" again!

Freda