Some Information about Helen & Dan French.

Lady's first...

HELEN FRENCH

Helen, born 22 August 1960 in Epping in Essex, England is a very vivacious woman, that you just get to love.
She adores her sports (water and snow skiing, tennis, diving), likes to cook Mediterranean and Asian food as well as classic French cuisine and has a very keen sense of humour (Remember she is an Essex girl!!).
She worked for some years in the catering trade, with anecdotal experience in a few well known restaurants such as Langan's Brasserie in London's Mayfair and cooked for a season on a hotel barge on the Charente river in 1985.
She left kitchen 1987, having decided to re-train as an excutive assistant. 7 years of experience working for ever more senior executives led her to London and to a multi-national company, providing telecommunications and business software solutions to the air-transport community, SITA. She started as assistant to the Director General in London and was then invited to move to Switzerland to work with the Senior Vice-President, Commercial Operations, who wanted an English mother tongued, bi-lingual assistant. After a year in Geneva, she was given the opportunity by a Director in Corporate Customer Service, to move into service management, centrally, and later progressed to the sharp end, in the field, directly with the customers, where she successfully dealt with customers with familiar names such as Swiss International Airlines, Brussels Airlines and Luxair. At the time of leaving the company in 2006 she had mentored and trained a small team of young Indian staff in the out-sourced global SITA service management unit in Mumbai, India, who were designated 'Team of the Year' after their first year. So you could say she knows something about customer service and in particular believes that the word 'no' is almost never, (never say never), an option in front of the customer!
Nevertheless, her love of cooking has never diminished, albeit practiced outside the professional kitchen. So do not be surprised if you ask her a question and she prefaces her answer with the word 'well ................' She is English, after all.

DAN FRENCH

Dan French, born 10 May 1963 in Emmen, Switzerland - Reborn 29 April 1999 close to Wakefield, England ... suspend judgement and you will see I am right about this.
So, what's this all about?
Well, I had such a bad car accident on this day, that I had to be reanimated a few times, I spent 6 weeks in a coma etc (the story is too long, sorry!) this is why I say, today, that I was reborn on this day.

In my first life I was a gastronaut, a trained chef and waiter. I made my apprenticeship as a chef at the prestigious Hôtel Hess in Engelberg, (then owned by the well-known restaurateur and wine expert Eugene 'Geni' Hess. I am very proud of my achievements during this time. I was nominated the best apprentice of the year in the canton of Obwalden and the third best in all of Switzerland. Following this, I chose to learn the art of the service as a waiter at the Hôtel-Restaurant Real Vaduz, Lichtenstein and then completed my formal training as a successful graduate in hotel and restaurant management at the Lausanne Hotel School. Since then I have worked in many of the best and most famous hotels in Switzerland such as; Le Palace, Gstaad, The Suvretta House, St Moritz, Le Eden au Lac, Montreux, Le Beau Rivage Lausanne, Le Chateau d'Ouchy, Lausanne, Le Bellevue Palace Bern, Schweizerhof, Bern. Outside Switzerland I also worked some weeks as a guest chef at the Hôtels Kempinsky Berlin and Danielli in Venice. During these years I really learned how to cook with the finest ingredients, how to present the finest plates and, critically that 'no' is just not an option.

Then I wanted a change, so I moved into mass catering, in the M*gr** supermarket organization. In 4 years, I progressed through the ranks of Migros restaurant managers, being made responsible for ever larger restaurants with increasing numbers of employees until that day, when I was reborn.

At best, I am provided for by the Swiss government insurance agency because the permanent brain injuries I sustained rendered me certified as unfit for work and elegible for early retirement.

At worst, having been a workaholic, and now being an ex-workaholic, accepting my second life has been very difficult. However, I have learned, after some stumbling, (thank you Priska, I will be forever grateful to you, my sister!) - not to cry after what is gone. Rather to learn and not to repeat mistakes, to look forward, not back, this can be achieved, with support.

So, I try every day to live my new life - and here in Greece I manage well ... sometimes!