Journals of a Hotel Manager

In order to mollify Dr. S and to prevent any other complaints about the construction noise, I managed to locate the home owner.  I stated the fact that the construction noise was disturbing our guests.

“I am willing to make a deal,” said he, “but it’s going to cost you.”

Gritting my teeth, I tried to sound cool, “Name your price and I will see what I can do.”

“I can stop the construction until January 8^th, but you’ve got to give me three fennel balls.”

“Did you say fennel balls?”  I was baffled, “You mean fennel, as the vegetable?”

“Yes, fennel balls.  I need three.  If you can give me them, I will stop the construction.”

I agreed to look into it and hung up the phone.

Surely he was not pulling my leg, I thought.  His voice was decidedly distorted by the construction ruckus but I swore that he had said ‘fennel balls’.

Does fennel possess balls?

I walked out of my office and grabbed the first manager in sight, who turned out to be Andrew, my director of rooms, and asked him if he knew any fennel balls.

Andrew reacted exactly like all young people nowadays when being asked a question.  Without thinking he sat down in front of a computer and googled ‘fennel balls’.  After several combination of search criteria, he muttered, “Are you quite sure that he used the word ‘balls’?”

“That’s what it sounded like to me,” I was slightly defensive.

As we were both certain it had something to do with cooking, we reasoned finally that the home owner probably meant ‘fennel bulbs’, a raw ingredient to make dishes such as fennel and risotto balls according to ‘Chef Gone Wild’, or fennel matzoh balls as ‘Jewish Holiday Cooking’ advised.  It would be hard to find fresh fennel bulbs from our local market therefore the home owner was hoping that we could use our resourceful supplier for the hotel.

It would be a small price to pay for these fennel ‘balls’ in exchange for 10 days of peace and quiet on the construction front.  Joy to the world!

© 2008 Global Hotel Nomad (SH)