Conference Confidential

By Richard Segal

I typed the word ‘cookbook’ on a subject line and 3.6 million suggestions were returned in 0.29 seconds, but when I asked e-Jeeves which conference planner lays on the best buffet, he tosses up his hands.

A fly on the wall at an Avalon Room lunch is spellbound as a dozen tablet-bound analysts scribble furiously while the CEO makes his case via PowerPoint, and during Q&A when advisors save his skin, but one person alone critiques the heirloom tomatoes, roast spring chicken with parsnip puree and chocolate fondant with honeydew melon sorbet.

Solely Manhattan can have a P.J. Moran’s, but every big city needs a Belleville and that’s where I enter stage left. The world is littered with review sites for every manner of food, drink and delivery mechanism imaginable. Moreover, independent and not so independent analysts have been poring over executive summaries and strategic development plans since the onset of the term business model. However, not until now has someone thought to combine them all.

Meanwhile over at the Budget counter ...

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse UK
• Release date: Oct 16, 2018
• ISBN: 9781546299493

Richard Segal

Richard Segal, an American citizen, resides in London, England, and works as an economic and financial consultant. He has written widely about matters relating to global public policy over the years. His most recent novel was The Man Who Knew the Answer.

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Copyright © 2018 Richard Segal. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

Published by AuthorHouse    10/15/2018

ISBN: 978-1-5462-9948-6 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5462-9949-3 (e)

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Contents

Definitely No Reservations

Too Thirsty To The Water

The Rolling Dilemma

Showtime

A Nuanced View

Ladies And Gentlemen The Larder

But It’s Not Scottsdale

Conference Call From The Beauty Parlour

Short Back And Sides

A Very Austrian January

The Full Dutch

Love Film, Love Kosovo

Cockney Brexit

The Lounge Is My Bond

Rondo

Nibbles

This Was Always On My Mind

Irish Beef Is Good

Chatham House Food

The Polish Feat

Fruit Of The Month

Welcome To Paradise

The Whole Of The Full Moon

Huckleberry Jam

And Then It Hit Me, The Law Of Supply And Demand Works

Tabouleh Tabbouleh, Or, My Complements To The Microwave

Du/Dx, Or, Going To Montana Soon

Tibids

The Batting Average Effect

Make Way For Ducklings

Budget Or Avis

Babaloo!

Return To Pemberton Gardens

How To Make An American Quilt, I Mean Knish

Hello, I’m Wondering If You Can Help Me

Blame It On Argentina

Eight Lots

The Five Phases Of Coffee

Three Rings

Welcome To My Humble Abode

1880S Chic

If Jack Stops For Coffee Millions Of People Will Die

Jack And The E-Stalk

Upgraded At The Super 8 Motel

Real Men Stand On The Right

To

Tracey and Olivia

DEFINITELY NO RESERVATIONS

I’ll start by saying I’m not writing this book to add greater meaning to my daily commute than can be gleaned from reading the free morning papers, but perhaps it ought to be. I am also going to stick as much as possible to my promise to focus on meals of scale, and food served at conferences, rather than any corporate fare consumed at a hotel restaurant, unless it was truly special or significant, not that I’m a big believer in supper on a principle-agent basis. Rather, the purpose for embarking on this journey is to honor a couple people who are no longer with us, two individuals I should have listened to way back when of course I didn’t.

A fellow I run into frequently, a professional seminar organizer, is fond of prefacing his events with the motto that the only rule is that there are no rules, which gives him carte blanche to interrupt the flow if he feels like it, and with occasional word bombs if he feels like it, but hopefully not in consecutive sentences. I smirk every time he repeats his slogan, because we’re supposed to live in a rules based world and he’s one of the good guys. On nearly every occasion he asks sombrely if I’ve been in touch with Bell, because ‘he had been quite ill.’ I am familiar with Bell, very well, someone quite prominent in my field. However, Bell and I have never met, and when discussing another mutual friend who sold his firm to semi retire, he wondered aloud in an opposite tone whether Paul ‘was still alive.’ He will not guest star as an adjunct professor in Couth 101.

I joked with one person at the dinner-restaurant Twenty Five that I have attended so many summits in the past three years that I could write a book about the experiences, the human aspect of attending them also, though note I didn’t say next book, even though a recent novel was in my side pocket. I will also NOT utilise this as an opportunity to showcase my own recipes or the products of my experiments, unless I CANNOT help it.

Many fora take place at hotels and it always makes me smile when I observe the shortage of Class A office space for so-called 1:1 or small group meetings, forcing site managers to transform bedrooms into meeting rooms, for temporary periods as a stopgap I presumed at first. The beds and some of the fixtures have been removed and a round table seating six or eight has been airlifted into the center, but the headboard remains. I haven’t figured this one out. It must be costly to store as many as forty or so double beds, so the hotel must be thinking these rooms have been permanently assigned as conference assets, and these rooms are on the first or second floor, where it is noisier anyway.

Planners must pay a lot to rent an entire floor for two or three days, but an attendee will produce less wear and tear than an overnight guest, plus I’m guessing they don’t take showers between meetings, so why leave the headboard in the room? On the other hand, if a hypothetical CFO’s explanation of forward guidance of the breakdown between maintenance and strategic or expansion capital expenditure (ie, capex) is causing you mental anguish or the sweats, you can always pop into the bathroom, throw some water on your face and grab the hair dryer plugged in near the side mirror, set the control to cool and calm yourself down, especially if you’ve been face back to the headboard during the capex debate, and one of your peers believes it is absolutely necessary to play devil’s advocate and intensely grill the CEO about the IRR of his expansion capex and does it surpass the industry benchmark?

I try to avoid the long corporate dinner because anyone can run out of things to say after three hours with someone you have not met previously and who can sit chained to the same chair for that long, no matter how much the host is paying for the dry aged beer fed tummy rubbed Basque beef, and while he is outwardly friendly as a salesperson, you later infer that he is not all that grandly fond of you as a client, not you personally, just the organization that prints calling cards for you. Moreover, his chit chat of ‘90s TV programs makes you feel uneasy, as it’s early in the week and you shouldn’t drink expensive red wine on his plastic, when on a warm early autumn evening you’d take one for the team and sip a caipirinha or two as a perfect foil for a T-bone. However, never let it be said that he isn’t personable and isn’t good fun to share a laugh while you watch him drink a glass of expensive red wine – as long as you ‘just miss’ the Clarissa Explains it All spectacle.

Otherwise, my rule of thumb is that I haven’t paid for any of these meals and how much would it ruin me budget if a three course meal at a five star restaurant was on my credit card, and no alcohol is served at lunch unless it is to promote an investment in Trashkanistan. Therefore, I will not criticise. The purpose of this exposé is to discuss what I have admired, without resorting to restaurant reviewer speak (‘the opening salvo in the menu de saison is an amuse bouche’ and ‘we watched starters being assembled with a full armoury’), rather than to find fault.

However, there is an exception, which is that bad coffee and bad orange juice are fair game. As an old high school teacher of mine Mr Larrabee often warned, you can’t drink orange juice with breakfast if you have brushed your teeth with Crest. I don’t know whether this is true or whether these were words placed in his mouth as an urban myth, and I never tried, but why serve fresh grapefruit juice and single tree apple juice at an institutional conference, but long life orange juice? As a result, I will endeavour to taste everyone’s orange juice from now on and form an opinion about whose is best. On this quest I start now and all the other meals will be from memory. To protect the innocent so they say, I will keep silent the names of sponsors, as it would not be prudent.

Nevertheless, my most memorable professionally-related culinary experience occurred at a one-off dinner sponsored by a major international bank and this is the exception that proves the rule. It was a several course tasting feast in a world famous hotel before it closed for a couple years for renovations - complete with a two day auction to sell off its world famous furniture and fittings to the general public - in which the chef of each course walks to the table and describes his contribution in detail before we diners are entitled to begin, and thank you Sarah for inviting me.

The meal had been long and remarkable, the descriptions apt, and some of the chefs wore their nerves on their sleeve while explaining their dishes and ingredients and preparations. When they had returned to the kitchen not far out of sight of our table, the eight of us commented on how shy and nervous they came across. A performing artist in his element in the kitchen, the epitome of concentration, but too shy to talk to his customers outside, and brag about how good he is. If he is preparing meals at chef’s table prices at a five star hotel, then he or she is no guppy cook.

As the eight courses had filled us completely and it had been a long evening, we were all ready to get up and go, but out of curiosity I stayed for the finale, the post dessert, which seemed to be an afterthought, because we had already said goodbye and everyone else was itching to be out the door. I had one foot out in my head and though the pastry chef was not to have his thirty seconds to describe his small victory, if I was going to blow the diet I was going to blow it on what, a Tuesday night?

I could not loiter by the chef’s table long enough to find out what this second sweet was called, I had to be leaving with the others to say goodbye formally or in case a one for the road was called for, and therefore its official name is undeclared, but darned if I wasn’t going to grab one before I left and sneak it in and therefore it is The Chocolate Explosion. Crunchy and crisp on the outside but smooth and cool on the inside, all Valrhona taste and texture, I’ve tried to create it at home but it is not happening. I can not even describe it. I can recreate many things and I can outdo some, but The Chocolate Explosion I can not describe. It’s like the exploding bullet that the Jackal planned to deploy on the aging head of de Gaulle in the Day of, but of cacao. One bite and your mouth wishes it could explode from the sensation. It can’t decide whether to wave the white flag or to say to hell with friends and go back for more, for the rest of the bowl of The Explosion, this true death by chocolate.

TOO THIRSTY TO THE WATER

I was discussing the fate of a particular entrepreneur turned politician whose ambitions got ahead of him with the representative of a Brazilian bank, who explained that his earlier national popularity was easy come easy go, but he aspired for too substantial a national office too soon, and was slapped down by the elder statesmen in his party, which in the event selected a candidate who had paid more dues, regardless of his reputation for transparency or lack of charisma – the natural ruling party ascribed to the Alckmin Alchemy Theory. The businessman had only been mayor of the commercial capital for a few years and he should pay more dues, for example by running for governor of his state, by winning and turning its fortunes around. Then he could think about relocating to Brasilia. This came to mind because I had watched his successor as mayor give a talk that morning and asked the bank rep when I met with him later that day. The election pre-campaign was in full force, but whatever happened to the industrialist? The answer, a particularly suitable Brazilian saying: he went too thirsty to the water.

However, the organizer committed the cardinal sin at this afternoon event by arranging bottles of water and glasses on the low cabinet behind the participants, but no tea or coffee. How can you critique the quality of the hot drinks selected for the guests if there is none? Cookies optional, of which later, for in my head how can I compare any tea selection with my undying memory of Singapore, not including the Hawkers markets they invented for the rest of the world (renamed Street Feast or Food Truck Nation for Western eyes) and the working class fisherman’s port before they tore it down for a parking lot for young and crazy not crazy Asian tourists, the tea museum section of the five and a half star hotel café on the sidelines of a ‘World Bank’ conference where I connected with Zlatic to discuss the progress of implementing ‘VAT’ in the Western Balkans. He didn’t find the Op Eds in the local press Balkanic, I’ll put it that way.

For the most part, tea boxes at refreshment areas are well thought out, and these days, the labels are also high class: a little glossy, with tastefully understated colors, and the metallic coverings are carefully perforated for easy opening. Organic jasmine, gunpowder green, Darjeeling, Earl or Lady Grey, always a crowd pleaser. However, whereas I have stared at these boxes hundreds of times, I couldn’t tell you the brands that any of them run by, with the exception Meinl, because their tea bags are picture window sized and artistic, and this stands to reason by virtue of their eminent coffee houses. However, don’t let this family run a private bank again.

I dream about having to choose a flavor for my after lunch palate rinse, and I order one or another in my sleep. Nine or sixteen squares in the tea box, though some popular blends are blessed with double the shelf space, and I’m more commonly than not drawn to the organic Jasmine, although occasionally I will nab a fruit or berry flavoured tea, slip it in my side pocket with the intention of testing its qualities over the weekend as a base for iced tea, although when the rubber hits the road filtered water spewed from the fridge’s auto-dispenser tastes just as good and is SO MUCH easier. And, and while catering firms and hotels have improved their skills at training wait staff, they are still not as adept as they could be at dropping a tea bag into a paper cup and soaking it with boiling water.

Cards on the table, though. A certain Continental bank has been losing money hand over fist for three years. If you practice rolling your hands over your fist for five minutes solid, they will tire, so imagine continuing this practice for three years, that’s a lot of money to lose. However, during a late spring conference they displayed five large glass jugs near the registration desk, one each of which was water with lemons or cukes infusing through, a third elderflower sap, but the final two rhubarb water with zinc, and last but not least peach ice tea. Peach ice tea. Love at first sight, and this bank is burning and churning yet hasn’t lost customer focus or tribute to life’s best pairing after peanut butter and chocolate: a warm late spring day and peach ice tea. Three glasses for me and who needs solids for lunch, including sample cocktails with rhubarb water infusion or elderflower, which proved to be a poor relative. Elderflower has no chance of reaching the podium when there is peach ice on a warm spring day, screaming out loud to be tamed by a lime and a bottle of rum. Lunch buffet on the terrace, blanketed by French lavender? No, fill your belly with peach ice tea and be content.

Actually it was an American bank, rather than a Continental one, which arranged this event, which made total sense because the Continental bank cancelled its conference that week in response to a cost cutting review, and ice tea coolers are the second American tradition after turkey (although the number two canned or bottled soft drink in Turkey is ice tea, and when a Down With America protest ‘spontaneously’ erupted and the population boycotted Coke, they switched to Fanta, which prompted Coca-Cola Inc. to cry and laugh all the way to the bank, because both are in its stables – what’s a patriotic local who works for CCI to do but egg them on). Meanwhile and moreover, that evening I attended the American bank’s annual dinner in a restaurant named after a bird, overlooking the city’s ancient but still running wholesale meat market, where they served salmon duh. This wholesale market, 150 years old in its current reincarnation but dating back a thousand years, boasts retail counters selling beef, pork, poultry, lamb, game, duck, and anything and everything else meat related, but note no fish or anything related except during the Christmas