What to Do With Hotel Soap

The following letters are taken from an actual incident between a London hotel and one of its guests. The Hotel ended up submitting the letters to the London Sunday Times!

Dear Maid,

Please do not leave any more of those little bars of soap in my bathroom since I have brought my own bath-sized Dial. Please remove the six unopened little bars from the shelf under the medicine chest and another three in the shower soap dish. They are in my way.

Thank you,
S. Berman

Dear Room 635,

I am not your regular maid. She will be back tomorrow, Thursday, from her day off. I took the 3 hotel soaps out of the shower soap dish as you requested. The 6 bars on your shelf I took out of your way and put on top of your Kleenex dispenser in case you should change your mind. This leaves only the 3 bars I left today which my instructions from the management is to leave 3 soaps daily. I hope this is satisfactory.

Kathy,
Relief Maid

Dear Maid - I hope you are my regular maid.

Apparently Kathy did not tell you about my note to her concerning the little bars of soap. When I got back to my room this evening I found you had added 3 little Camays to the shelf under my medicine cabinet. I am going to be here in the hotel for two weeks and have brought my own bath-size Dial so I won’t need those 6 little Camays which are on the shelf. They are in my way when shaving, brushing teeth, etc. Please remove them.

S. Berman

Dear Mr. Berman,

My day off was last Wed. so the relief maid left 3 hotel soaps which we are instructed by the management. I took the 6 soaps which were in your way on the shelf and put them in the soap dish where your Dial was. I put the Dial in the medicine cabinet for your convenience. I didn’t remove the 3 complimentary soaps which are always placed inside the medicine cabinet for all new check-ins and which you did not object to when you checked in last Monday. Please let me know if I can of further assistance.

Your regular maid,
Dotty

Dear Mr. Berman,

The assistant manager, Mr. Kensedder, informed me this morning that you called him last evening and said you were unhappy with your maid service. I have assigned a new girl to your room. I hope you will accept my apologies for any past inconvenience. If you have any future complaints please contact me so I can give it my personal attention. Call extension 1108 between 8AM and 5PM. Thank you.

Elaine Carmen
Housekeeper

Dear Miss Carmen,

It is impossible to contact you by phone since I leave the hotel for business at 7:45 AM and don’t get back before 5:30 or 6PM. That’s the reason I called Mr. Kensedder last night. You were already off duty. I only asked Mr. Kensedder if he could do anything about those little bars of soap. The new maid you assigned me must have thought I was a new check-in today, since she left another 3 bars of hotel soap in my medicine cabinet along with her regular delivery of 3 bars on the bath-room shelf. In just 5 days here I have accumulated 24 little bars of soap. Why are you doing this to me?

S. Berman

Dear Mr. Berman,

Your maid, Kathy, has been instructed to stop delivering soap to your room and remove the extra soaps. If I can be of further assistance, please call extension 1108 between 8AM and 5PM.Thank you,

Elaine Carmen,
Housekeeper

Dear Mr. Kensedder,

My bath-size Dial is missing. Every bar of soap was taken from my room including my own bath-size Dial. I came in late last night and had to call the bellhop to bring me 4 little Cashmere Bouquets.

S. Berman

Dear Mr. Berman,

I have informed our housekeeper, Elaine Carmen, of your soap problem. I cannot understand why there was no soap in your room since our maids are instructed to leave 3 bars of soap each time they service a room. The situation will be rectified immediately. Please accept my apologies for the inconvenience.

Martin L. Kensedder
Assistant Manager

Dear Mrs. Carmen,

Who the hell left 54 little bars of Camay in my room? I came in last night and found 54 little bars of soap. I don’t want 54 little bars of Camay. I want my one damn bar of bath-size Dial. Do you realize I have 54 bars of soap in here. All I want is my bath size Dial. Please give me back my bath-size Dial.

S. Berman

Dear Mr. Berman,

You complained of too much soap in your room so I had them removed. Then you complained to Mr. Kensedder that all your soap was missing so I personally returned them. The 24 Camays which had been taken and the 3 Camays you are supposed to receive daily. I don’t know anything about the 4 Cashmere Bouquets. Obviously your maid, Kathy, did not know I had returned your soaps so she also brought 24 Camays plus the 3 daily Camays. I don’t know where you got the idea this hotel issues bath-size Dial. I was able to locate some bath-size Ivory which I left in your room.

Elaine Carmen
Housekeeper

Dear Mrs. Carmen,

Just a short note to bring you up-to-date on my latest soap inventory. As of today I possess:

* On the shelf under medicine cabinet - 18 Camay in 4 stacks of 4 and 1 stack of 2.
* On the Kleenex dispenser - 11 Camay in 2 stacks of 4 and 1 stack of 3.
* On the bedroom dresser - 1 stack of 3 Cashmere Bouquet, - 1 stack of 4 hotel-size Ivory, and 8 Camay in 2 stacks of 4.
* Inside the medicine cabinet - 14 Camay in 3 stacks of 4 and 1 stack of 2.
* In the shower soap dish - 6 Camay, very moist.
* On the northeast corner of tub - 1 Cashmere Bouquet, slightly used.
* On the northwest corner of tub - 6 Camays in 2 stacks of 3.

Please ask Kathy when she services my room to make sure the stacks are neatly piled and dusted. Also, please advise her that stacks of more than 4 have a tendency to tip. May I suggest that my bedroom window sill is not in use and will make an excellent spot for future soap deliveries. One more item, I have purchased another bar of bath-sized Dial which I am keeping in the hotel vault in order to avoid further misunderstandings.

S. Berman

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Perhaps because I studied classical guitar I have always held an affinity with Spain and in particular that part called Andalusia which is the heart of Flamenco and the birthplace of Andres Segovia. We visited an area where the Tejeda and Almijara mountains tumble down to the Mediterranean, a land where in spring, the lilac blue Jacaranda the vermillion bougainvillea and the pink carpet of cornflowers enhance the olive green and sky blue backdrop with little pools of brilliant colour.

Drive inland away from the coast and you find yourself in a landscape dotted with little whitewashed villas and fincas strung like a mother of pearl necklace across the olive dotted hillsides. Each interconnected by a network of mostly unseen narrow stony tracks, which must from the air, resemble the workings of a madcap spider. (actually looking at Goggle Maps of the area these little tracks are invisible even from satellite as they weave round the contours of the hilly landscape.) It should be noted here that although the last hundred or so metres to and from these Fincas and Villas will be over these narrow tracks, once you get out onto the main roads you find the kilometres simply ticking away as you glide almost effortlessly over the smooth tarmac surfaces on good well maintained roads that would put to shame any of our own British Regional government attempts at road management. And running just inland from the coast is a smart new motorway that will allow you to cover the distance between Malaga and the little town of Competa in about 50 minutes, and further on along the coast there is a new coast road that is a vast improvement on the twisting one I travelled back in 1970s, remnants of this road can still be seen and is still used in some places and in others as lay-bys and viewpoints over the Mediterranean and from where on a clear day you can see the Riff Mountains in North Africa.

This is not the Spain of package holidays sangria or sombreros and the only donkey you will see are those still working in the tiny fields or retired to the donkey sanctuary at Torrox. The real Andalusia is a hard harsh land where strong willed people have carved an existence literally out of the mountainside, where the little villages cling limpet like and almost magically to the steep hillsides. But it is a part of Spain that is also clean comfortable and very welcoming, where you would be seriously challenged to find a bad meal or glass of wine anywhere, where even the most lowly looking roadside tapas bar will offer a quality you would have to search for in Britain. Where the sun withered and wizened old man driving a few goats up the hillside also owns and runs his own large crystal clean and totally modern milking parlour, housed in one of the largest buildings on the outskirts of Competa, where nothing is really as simple as it might seem and where Andalusian life like its Flamenco music follows its own complex rhythms.

None of this would have been possible to discern when Mr Steve first picked up at Malaga Airport at 11.15 pm and drove us back to his and Val`s Finca just outside of Competa. For a start it was raining which was a bit of a shock as we had left Bristol on a balmy May evening after a day when the heat of the sun had forced us into the shade and made the air conditioning in the car on the drive down to Bristol a welcome respite from the heat.

When we arrived at Mr Steve`s place it was to find that he had prepared a wonderful welcoming tapas selection, for a late evening early morning repast. Steve jokingly quipped he had been preparing the tapas all day, which was probably not far from the truth! As apart from the customary bread and local olives, there was a great big bowl of giant peeled prawn crab and Spanish tomato salad, more prawns this time in garlic, wafer thin slices of Andalusian black ham, sliced Manchego, Spain’s most famous sheep’s milk cheese, tiny fish based tortillas and warm black pudding with honey, a choice of beer or Vina Albali the wine from Valdepenas La Mancha bursting with vibrant aromas of damsons and plums.

I knew that I was finally, after nine years, back in Andalusia, when whilst sitting with such good friends eating such a wonderful Andalusia tapas supper we were entertained by the songs of the nightingales through the open door! As I tumbled into bed at around 3.30 it was with the wine fuddled thought that in the morning I should thank Steve for such a wonderful welcome back.

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100 g White chocolate broken into small pieces
150 g Polenta
560 ml Milk
grated zest of half Lemon and half Orange
half teaspoon grated nutmeg
4 medium eggs
100 ml double cream
5Tblsp caster sugar
¼ teaspoon salt

Filling
Two Tablespoons Raspberry Puree whipped with 200ml Double Cream

Pour the milk into a thick bottomed saucepan add the Polenta, cook over medium heat stirring constantly for about twenty minutes, until the Polenta is very thick.

Leave aside off the heat to allow the mixture to loose heat.

Then while the mixture is still slightly warm beat in the four egg yolks the nutmeg lemon and orange rind two tablespoons sugar and chocolate.

Remove two tablespoons of the mixture and mix in a separate bowl with the double cream.

Whisk the egg whites and the salt until light and fluffy then add the remaining caster sugar one table spoon at a time until you have a thick, glossy meringue.

Fold one third of the meringue into the Polenta mix to lighten it, then gently fold in the remainder.

Butter two 9in / 23cm loose bottomed sponge tins and spoon ¼ of the mixture in to each,

Hollow out a small hole in the middle of each tin and then spoon in the reserved cream mixture; put the rest of the sponge into the tins.

The idea being that you end up with two sponges both with a creamy centre.

Bake in the oven 150 C for one hour or until a small knife inserted into the cakes comes away cleanly,

Remove from oven place on cooling rack and allow the cakes to cool.

When cold remove from baking tins and fill with the raspberry cream dust the top with icing sugar.

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The name Ultracomida is Spanish in origin, ultramarina meaning delicatessen and comida meaning food.

Spanish and Welsh food might at first seem to be an eccentric combination but when you realise that it is run by Shumana Palit daughter of consultant paediatrician for Pembrokeshire, Dr Arabinda Palit OBE who arrived in Britain from Bengal 40 years ago, and that the deli also stocks a good array of French Cheeses you begin to see the eclectic possibilities.

The tiny shop is brilliantly staffed by a very knowledgeable extremely efficient and incredibly friendly team, who not only serve in the shop but offer tapas dishes, wines, beers, coffees and if you are in the mood an incredible thick chocolate drink, in a small well lit with natural light room at the back.

The whole place is redolent with an international flare for genuine quality, and is an absolute must visit, you will not be disappointed. You might think this little review is well over the top well that is debatable why don`t you try it and then you will know for sure.

Ultracomida 31 Pier Street Aberystwyth SY23 2LN
Contact: Palit Shumita
Telephone: 01970 630686

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We do have one major problem with the new rules on anti - bacteriological deep cleaning, not being attached to the mains sewerage system means we have to dispose of our own. We replaced the old sewage system and soak away last year and installed a new bio-disk, this woks wonderfully. However as it relies on natural bacteria working away internally, and as bacteriological cleaners do not differentiate between those bacteria we need to work for us and these we most certainly do not want anywhere near us, we have the problem of disposing of cleaning fluids. These cannot be put down the sink otherwise they will prevent the

Bio-disk from working by killing the goody two shoes bacteria.
Up to now I have managed by the use of impregnated cloths which can be binned, and by chucking any buckets of floor wall washing fluids over the hedge or surreptitiously putting them down the drain outside in the middle of the night. This was a situation which could only last for a short period so I have just invested in a new cleaning toy.

Introducing the Nimbus 23 steam cleaner which its blurb says is an outstanding medium sized continuous flow steam cleaner that is powerful enough for the toughest jobs and can run all day without stopping. 5bar steam pressure and 145DegC temperature at the nozzle guarantees deep down cleaning and total sanitising of all surfaces.

I do not think it is quite true to claim it will run all day without stopping, it will in fact run for about 10 minutes without stopping, by then the steam pressure has dropped to such an extent that the machine goes on a work to rule, well actually it stops working altogether and demands a 5 minute rest and recuperation period, before being prepared to do a bit more deep cleaning. Not that this is such and impediment as you can do quite a lot of cleaning in 10 minutes and there is always the light mopping up and wiping down to catch up on.

The only real bugbear the machine has is the filling; it is not attached to a water pipe, so you have to fill the water reservoir by jug. Well I use a jug, you could use a coffee cup if you wished, because the filter stops the water flowing smoothly and will overflow if you attempt to pour in more than that the desired amount at any one time. But apart from that small inconvenience I am happy with my new toy and I will certainly I hope impress the next EVOH inceptor who visits, and I just know the goodies who live in the bio-disk are a lot happier.

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The first question must be asked is who would do the fining? Will having a visit from Michelin inspector take on a totally new meaning and strike a totally different frisson of fear into chef’s heart? Instead of a chance to be awarded one of their gongs, we are to be issued with a fined for that slice of strawberry used to garnish the Pannacotta, or the Beetroot Chutney with the Goats Cheese Soufflé, and how local was the goat in the first place and Pannacotta? And not to put to fine a point on it Michelin is not particularly local in the first place and it is very seasonal as the red book is published in January. An aside to this my last Michelin inspection before I sacked them the inspector did in fact inspect the garden he had been impressed with the curly kale on the menu and perhaps did not believe we grew our own.

Not that the idea is without merit, in fact the idea of seasonal local produce has great merit, the AA, for instance already take into account the locality of produce, but like a lot of things catering, these consideration only seem to apply to restaurants in the countryside.

Gordon Ramsey is in any case well behind the times in this, for years in season we grow most of our own vegetables, from potatoes to artichokes parsnips to carrots and a myriad of soft fruit, but this requires a great deal of space a great deal of time and planning which someone has to do. It is lucky that my wife is an avid gardener and does most of the work herself and we are quite a low key operation, but if that were not the case it would become impossible. As it is, when things are in season they are really are in season so much so that they are coming out of the ground to fast to handle Isabel is for ever saying can’t you use some more this or that spinach will be going to seed (what ever that means) if you don’t get and use it on the menu. But I do not think customers would appreciate a choice of beans beans beans or beans. As it is I would say that around 80% of my produce is local i.e. within 25 miles as the crow flies, but this means I change my menu almost daily, as the lady who produces my ducks, only has a few at a time, when they are gone I have to find something to replace them and so on.

The suggestion that the government should become involved by producing legislation to force this, goes against the whole idea of the EU Common Market ethos where states must remove impediments to foreign producers not introduce legislation to ring fence British produce. Not I hasten to add could I be described as being in any way a supporter of the European Project, but I do rather think Mr Ramsey’s suggestion will be falling on the stony ground of Westminster village politics.

On the whole although I support the basic idea, this is an area that is not suitable for government interference, if it were one would expect such rules not only to apply to restaurants but to the whole food producing chain, including the supermarkets, so perhaps instead of making headline grabbing suggestions that are both partial to the food whole food industry and that have no chance of ever being adopted, Mr Ramsey would be better advised to seek method by which the supermarkets could be forced to source more of their produce locally.

Rose Prince has a comment in the Telegraph on this subject well worth reading!

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In the catering industry, as you know, we sometimes get weeks when Murphy’s law comes very much to the fore, if anything can go wrong, it will go wrong, and usually at the most inconvenient times.

This has been just such a week, our problems really started last Sunday when we noticed that the drains were blocked, so that was a pleasant job for Isabel to accomplish, whilst I sorted out my work for Monday.

This week I had to finish the accounts for the dreaded VAT, which had to be in the VAT office by Friday. Well finish is perhaps too strong a word; start would better describe my indolence on the accounts front over the past three months. Of course, I had forgotten that before I could finish the accounts and produce the VAT return, I would also have to do the year-end accounts, which this time falls between the vat periods.

As my printer has been making a general nuisance of itself recently, I decided to splash out sixty-five quid, on a brand new model that would have the benefit of actually feeding the paper into the printing heads. Unfortunately, when I brought my brand new possession home plugged it in and installed the driver; I was dismayed to find that Sage, my accounts package, did not recognize the importance of the new printing device for its reports. The first P&L report was just a blank grey page. Knowing I did not have time to sort out this glitch; I rescued the old printer from the rubbish bin and plugged that in as well. Is it not strange when you have just purchased something commputerish the old thing which caused the purchases then starts to work perfectly?

I am not a great family man although I do own to two children, I do not see much of them, and have left their upbringing in the capable hands of my former wife. On Wednesday evening just as the first customers were arriving for what was going to be a busy night, James my assistant discovered that he had used all the cream! I was just shooting out the door on a four-mile dash to the nearest open shop, when my daughter arrived in the company of her new boyfriend and dog. Of course, I did not want to be rude and abandon them all so soon after their arrival, so I piled them all into the car with me for the cream run. It all worked out in the end, as we waved them off at midnight, we did wonder what else could go wrong this week, of course I still had about two thirds of the accounts to wade through on Thursday.

On Thursday, everything went swimmingly; we have two very, very, good customers staying with us for the week, they are very good because, they are very nice, and are very considerate, and very easy to get on with

Everything went swimmingly, until that is, the other room booked for the evening turned up, now these were not of the same type of customer. These are the more demanding type, so we are running up and down stairs with trays of coffee then back up with milk instead of cream, and oh! would you mind my husband prefers a feather pillow, and by the way you do not have a different room do you because I have this problem of getting into bed. We do aim to please and do not mind accommodating those extra little wishes that differing customer bring.

I then returned to the accounts for an hour or so before I wrote the menu and started to organize for dinner, there being no James this evening I was flying single-handed and the phone has just gone with a further table of four.

No problem, got it all sorted, was just having a quick cup of coffee whilst waiting for the first order to arrive in the kitchen, at which point the combined burglar and fire alarm decided to go off with a resounding deafening siren.

Now this is an inherited system, I do not know how many have inherited it from how many, whom they were , or who originally had it installed, but it sort of gives us a discount on the insurance so it is worth being there, although we never use it as a burglar preventative system.

When it does go off, of course the first thing to do is to check that it has got a reason for going off, and is not just expressing its rights as an inanimate object to remind you of its existence. So we all rushed around the property looking for the fire which of course we did not find, next job turn the noise off, keyed in the turn off number… no response… by this time the smoke alarm in the hallway upstairs was adding its own high pitched voice to the general cacophony. It took us all including Our longer term guest complete with toilet tissue hanging out of his ears, twenty five minutes to stop the alarms sounding, this was accompanies with lots of rushing up and down stairs and fetching of ladders and screwdrivers even then we had really no idea how managed this accomplish this welcome feat of silence.

One of the other residents expressed the hope that the alarm would not go off in the middle of the night and the comment if it did we should chuck it in a bucket of water. I patently explained that as it was attached to the ceiling and also the mains it would be a very foolhardy thing to attempt.

All this time, Laura our young part- time waitress (full time Catherine is on holiday this week) has been steadily taking orders for food, from people who obviously seemed totally nonchalant about preparing to dine in a restaurant, which to all intents and purposes was in the processes of burning to the ground around them. There now`t so queer as folk!

The fire/burglar alarm is one of those, which has safety batteries built in and anti-tamper thingies, to stop the uninitiated disconnecting it. Therefore, although we had stopped it making a noise, we had not actually stopped it operating,

This salient fact, I was to discovery at twenty minutes to three in the morning, when I leapt out of bed to the resounding clamour of the fire alarm again, dreading the worst I quickly keyed in the wrong code to stop the damn thing before we were all doused with a bucket of water, I realised my mistake and keyed in the correct code and thankfully it stopped. In the ensuing silence and with my heart pounding in my head I was then too nervous to go back to bed, so I sat on the stairs all night in the dark with my finger on the keypad ready to instantly respond should the need re-arise.

The good news is that as dawn lightened the surrounding gloom, I was in the perfect position to notice the water seeping out from under the kitchen door, of course someone had forgotten to turn off the tap to the dishwasher, which ordinarily would not matter, except in this case the inlet valve was leaking, and letting the water flow silently to add to the flood in the kitchen.

It was with great trepidation that we waited the arrival of our other guests, for breakfast, would we as we would normally, sing out a cherry “good morning I hoped you slept well”, thus leaving ourselves open to the expected onslaught of complaint about being woken in the night by the alarm, or should we fade into the background hope to evade any outburst.

In the event, they apparently slept though the nighttime commotion and were quite happy after a good nights sleep. Of course, the tiny rodent running around in the Breakfast, room did cause a bit of a stir for a moment, until a guest correctly identified it as a baby vole. The vole had apparently wandered in through the open garden door sniffed around a bit and then wandered out again.

So Friday started with a mopping operation and a vole masquerading as a mouse, after breakfast I returned to the already behind schedule accounts and finally completed the job in time to catch the last post, so when the VAT inspector opens his mail on Monday I hope on finding our cheque he will give us the benefit of the doubt.

The alarm repair man did arrive on Friday at about ten thirty pm, and did a passable imitation of a plumber when he saw the antiquated alarm system, with a quick sucking of a of air through his teeth, almost like a reverse sigh, he said “goodness me I haven’t seen one of these since I did my training” to which my equally quick response was “well should know how to fix the Bl **dy thing then” Of course he was not to know that I had been up most of the night nursing the thing, but I was extremely grateful that he had added this late night visit to his already extended day to sort out our problem for us.

He did fix it…. well disconnected it anyway and promised to return with some antiquated electrics after his holiday and do a proper job. Until then we will rely on the separate smoke alarms, and the two dogs are becoming quite adept at sorting out customers, who are allowed, from deliverymen and hopefully burglars who apparently are not.

On Saturday, we had decided to allow James his first Saturday night in charge of the kitchen, and I would be first, second and third commis and washer upper.

Isabel taken the dogs for a walk and had told me to take a bottle of Champagne up to Our long stay guests room, as a thank you for being such very good guests and their help with the alarm on Thursday. James and I were just discussing his menu for the evening when the guests arrived back, I asked James to keep them occupied so that I would have chance to run upstairs with their Champagne. Which all worked out well, although the guests were perhaps a little surprised by James leaning out of the kitchen window to ask them how their day had gone and where had they been!

Later, Isabel said “you did take the Champagne to the correct room didn’t you”?

“What no or Chr*st”! I had of course not taken it to the correct room! I had taken it to anther guest’s room; these people were staying for just one night, for their wedding anniversary. They must have thought each other had ordered it, or that we give expensive bottles of Champagne to all our guest’s or worse still trying to increases our takings by adding un asked for Champagne to their bill.

Opps must go Isabel has just come in to tell me that a rabbit is in the garden eating the lettuce, unusual the contrary to beliefs they do not go for lettuce if there is plenty of other choice.

Just before I do go, James told me a customer at lunch had ordered a Lemon Turd Cart for pudding!

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It was only after we had begun to demolish the old garage that Isabel remembered the Swallows which always nested in the rafters. What are they going to do this year? just imagine how disappointed they are going to be after flying all those thousands of miles only to find that their homes has been destroyed, she said, as she headed out the door to ask Rob to please take the nests down with care. The intention being to put the nests back on the side of the lodge in the hope that the swallows would be prepared to accept the alternative accommodation.

When the lodge was in place Isabel made it one of her first jobs to cement the nests on a little ledge under the eves, but unfortunately her thoughtfulness was to no avail, when the birds did return they obviously did not consider the offered accommodation was acceptable, Isabel was quite concerned for a few days until I spotted the two pairs flitting in and out of Roberts nice new five bedroomed house which is being built just next door and had just had a new slate roof put on, as Robert has almost single handed been building the house for the past eleven to twelve years we felt that there was plenty of time for them to raise their respective families without any immediate fear of eviction.

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