Pecan Flapjack

Tasty tasty flapjacks

So for this you need worrying amounts of butter, sugar and golden syrup. But it's ok it's flapjack, that junk is healthy right?

Makes enough mix for a 20x20x5cm tin or one person.
500g Oats
250g Butter
250g Dark brown sugar - the darker the better
4 tablespoons golden syrup
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
100g Pecan nuts

The trick to this flapjack is that it does not taste overly sweet. If you get the quantity of nutmeg right then what you end up with is an amazing mouth experience. Pair with a quality cup of strong Breakfast Tea and the perfect snack is made.

Step 1.
Melt butter, sugar, and syrup in a large pan, I'm talking large pan. Make sure there's room for all those oats. Switch on oven, 160 should do it.

Step 2.
While that's all melting crush your nuts. Take them down a couple of sizes, the sizes that you will inevitably put on after eating the entire batch.

Step 3.
Once the syrup butter mix is fully melted gradually stir in the oats and the nuts. Once all in keep stirring it a little bit, turn out the mix into a deep baking tin.

Step 4
Put the tin into the oven. The tin should contain the syrup-butter-oat mixture, if it doesn't then you are wasting your time reading this bit. In fact even if it does this whole bit is a waste of time. So once you have read this it should be ready, either that or wait like 20 minutes until the top is nice and golden. Be warned it should still soft to the touch, it will firm up as it cools.

Step 5
Put that kettle on and eat that flapjack.

So you want this Job?

You best get applying, now is the time, get on a website like www.natives.co.uk, sign up and apply like crazy.

Thats the second piece of advice. The first is to ask yourself if you can handle late nights, early mornings, obtuse policies, constant cleaning, cooking and the french.

In the mean time get yourself some experience, get cooking. Know how to make white sauce, gravy, cakes, pastry. Know how to chop fast and chop safe. Know how to sharpen knives. Know how much pasta, rice or potato makes an average adult serving. Know how to fry, hard and soft boil, poach and scramble eggs.

Learn how to do this. This is important too.

Extra tips, if you work for a uk based tour operator, chances are your guests will all be from the uk. Do a bit of homework on geography and places. Keep co workers and managers on side with extra food or leftover cake. Especially if you have a stores coordinator, make sure you keep those guys on side, after all a favour in the right direction can make all the difference. Get known to cafe owners and ski shop owners, send them custom and let them know that when you do. These things can depend on the size and the style of the resort but give it a go you never know.


When it comes to the party, go as far and as hard as you want, but its called a ski season for a reason. Drinks aren't cheap, but good guests can be very generous both on nights out and through what they can't take with them. Cue nights fuelled by brandy and cointreau And remember resorts are small places where news travels fast and reputations are built even faster.

Even prisoners get more privacy

When it comes to the skiing, go as far and as hard as you feel safe doing, there are some incredible experiences out there, some are once in a life time for the right reasons, some for the wrong reasons. Make sure you know the difference. If you want off piste fresh crisp powder, then invest in the kit and do it in small groups. If you love doing twists and such frivolities remember that you will get hurt, make sure you dont end your season early.

This can also happen

Filed under general advice, socks, adapters, multiplugs and toiletries.
-Take socks, ski socks as many as you can.
-Take at least two adapters, take at least one multiplug, find one with as many sockets on it as possible. Accommodation can be severely lacking in electrical outlets.
-Toiletries, there are two routes to this;
1. Take what you need in bulk, alpine prices are about as steep as the mountains.
2. Clean up what your guests leave behind. This can be risky but is the cheapest option and who knows what you might be left!

Think this but for your body.

And most importantly, reconcile yourself to the fact that you will be working for less than most illegal immigrants make in a month. And while you will receive free hire, it is free for a reason - don't go expecting up to date stuff. It is a job first and incredible fun second. And if none of this has put you off then you might have just found the job for you

Sunny one so true...

It was reported to your host that there have only been 21 days of sunshine this season. This seems like a dubious number, but as the lift operator was sure of this as he was of his Seasonal Affected Disorder we shall let the number slide without too much scrutiny. The weather is the major determining factors in planning a day's activity.

And when it isn't good...

From the average week two days stand out as solidly good days. Wednesdays and Saturdays. Truly the mountain gods must smile benevolently upon us as the blue skies appear from even the murkiest Tuesdays. This host takes the regular Wednesday appearance of the sun as a sign that we, and not reps, are the lucky ones. Reps taking their day off on Thursday, a far inferior day all round. Perhaps this is typical of seasons in general, more likely the continued run of good weather Wednesdays is a quirk of 2012/13. Either way, our days off have been good for skiing hard and skiing long.

Typical Wednesday sunshine

For your host Saturday is the deep breath before the plunge that is transfer day. For many though, Saturday is transfer day, this fact combined with, the now standard good weather, combine to make some of the best conditions. Empty pistes and empty skies.

Spring brings new conditions and new challenges, and a renewed impetus to get out when the weather allows. Despite the milder temperatures the snow still falls and so it becomes a race to ski the fresh stuff before the heat melts it into crud. In these conditions, fresh snow can last for less than a day, as the warmth melts the top layer. Skiing becomes slower as the snow becomes heavier and stickier. Once night descends, the heavy half melted snow refreezes and all that is left is a crusty, compacted half ice half snow chimera. Which from a distance can like a fresh layer of powder but rides like, well its just crap.

That used to be all white. No, not like that.

And for all this, the season draws to an end, only one more evening left as a host to guests. There is a strange anticipation to the complete breakdown of a now normal routine. To not have to greet new guests or make new beds or even cook the same food again is somehow a massive relief. To look forward to the destruction of the ingrained structure of the week is in a way an odd thing. This structure has made the work manageable to the point of monotony, it keeps most on the straight and narrow, creating patterns and habits where chaos and entropy could so easily creep in. Your host is not sure whether we will be breaking the shackles or losing the path. Though either way, a lie in would be welcome.

Closing In

It is hard to keep thoughts from straying towards the end of the season and beyond. Rumours abound about which chalets will be closing down early and whether the summary firing of employees for cost cutting purposes actually takes place. Your host, for one, believes that perhaps this is not the case but others swear its veracity. And so the questions and conversations turn more towards the possibility of future seasons and impending joblessness.

Some just jump off the cliff

There are those who are almost financially obliged to return to the mountains next winter, and there are those who can think of no other life than the migratory transience of the perpetual seasonaire. It truly is a strange lifestyle, the relentless weeks pass with such regularity, a strange kind of monotony builds, for the work is never quite the same and yet never changes. The catering and hospitality arena is a tough gig to play day in and day out. Day and night fade into the background as each shift is separated not by time but by opportunities, for sleep, for skiing, for eating. Down time is a cursed commodity, our time out here is necessarily limited by the survival of the snow. Any time used doing nothing is time lost to fully experience the alpine adventure. Guilt plays against tiredness, sometimes one overcomes the other but not for long.

It is almost criminal to miss a powder day

The cooking and hosting has become another automatic and with the exception of certain days, the skiing has merged into one vague mountainesque experience. It is hard to describe to non skiers just what the feeling of a good day on the mountain or a good run is like. The closest this host can get is to a gamer on a hot streak or in a state of flow. Where every move is necessary and perfectly placed, the skis become an extension of the body in effortless physical poetry and the skier is to the slope as the bird is to the sky, born to glide with ease over the snow. It is in essence a form of escapism, to be wholly absorbed by the concentration in the moment is to leave behind all other considerations, worrying only about whether the punter in front is about to turn or not.

Sometimes the skier is the bird

Marching On

Time is a funny thing out here, there are moments in the day that stretch out to forever and others which flash by before you realize they have happened. In the 5 minutes before getting up, before going to work dread and the desire to curl up in a coma strike and claim your very being. An eternity entices you back to bed to ignore all duty. Fortunately this passes as you pull back the covers and make a start for the day.

Once breakfast is underway all earlier feelings are from another lifetime as the morning melts into early afternoon. Cooking and cleaning pass in a flash until the last couple of minutes, returning to outdoor shoes and taking out the rubbish, anticipating and hoping for good snow conditions.

With so little of the season left, guests become a gestalt entity, names and faces all merge into one so that your host has no idea which rooms are occupied let alone who occupies them. The repetitive nature of the job has killed all natural conversation with the guests, even the weekly cliches have lost their charm, and it has left your host with nothing but a defeated "yes" in response.

When there is no fresh snow the general consensus leans towards a day in the park. Using the jumps and boxes to do grievous bodily harm to ourselves and look reall really cool. But scant snow changes the character of the pistes, the snow packs down and becomes a solid smooth surface that shoots the skier off at all time new speeds, cruising becomes the order of the day. So too do sudden evasive maneuvers and irate frenchmen as your host casually bombs past leaving them in a cloudy of icy spray.

Falling The Feasts and The Famines

We sow our crops as soon as the first new guests enter the resort, we cultivate and care for them, feed and water them and hope our seed has been planted in fertile soil. We harvest every Sunday as the guests leave the chalet. Some weeks it is a good harvest, other weeks it is not so good. We can expend all the time and effort we have but if the ground is not receptive, nothing will grow and we will be left with nothing.

It can be tricky to gauge at the start of the week just how big the harvest will be, though it does become apparent through the week as you weigh up the characters of the guests and their likely tipping output. Most weeks for you host have been very bountiful and to all our guests I send my warmest thanks.

Half term is a strange time of year, the children crawl out of the classrooms and are herded onto the slopes, all shouting and crying and eating and running and taking up space on the piste. It does baffle the mind when the ESF (Ecole de Ski Francais - the local ski teaching racket) take their young charges through the ski park.

Your typical Park Rat grinding a box

The ski park is where people go when they decide that skiing just is not dangerous enough, full of jumps and boxes and rails, every piece is designed to break bones and shatter dreams. And these ESF chaps guide these small children over jumps and boxes. So now a favourite game is to take a crate of bevvies to the bottom of the park and consume everytime one of these little buggers falls over, extra points for pile ups.

The Mid Point

It is only when the snow really starts to fall that you realise just how artificial the entire idea of a mountain ski resort is. Everyday becomes a battle against the mountain, it would only take maybe a couple of months of snow to hide the buildings entirely. And, given the style of architecture, maybe this would be no bad thing. It is easy to become insulated against the dangers of the mountain; avalanche risk, collisions on pistes, falls off piste, exposure and hypothermia.

It's only a model

 They are all always present but not always appreciated. In fact it is only really brought home when something does happen, such as guests being brought back safely by mountain rescue after falling asleep outside a piste side apre ski bar. Alcohol, extreme sports, low light and loud music are surely not a good mix and yet every evening the bars on the slopes are packed with revelers sampling the delights of on mountain entertainment. It is a miracle not more are escorted off the mountain.

There is perhaps more risk around skiing and mountains than people realise, but in resort it is not just your physical health that can be put at risk. Resorts are small places and even smaller still for 5 months. Foolish actions can have long lasting consequences and good stories travel fast. Reputation fluctuates as gossip circulates. Each new tidbit bringing delight and mirth to some and embarrassment to others. It sure is fun watching someone squirm as events of the last night are recollected and retold. Some things never get old. In order to survive in such a small place for such a time, you must look after your actions as well as your body. Some wounds heal faster than others.

That's a ledge, get away from the ledge

Somehow it is strange to think of February as the halfway point in the season, it seems far too late in the year and yet it still feels like last week that the first guests were dropped off. Will there be snow in March and April? Has the best powder already fallen? Will we soon be skiing in t shirts and shorts? Who knows.

Can you see the line in the background? 3 lines 3 riders.

February is known as the best month for fresh powder and 2013 has not disappointed. With the snow so fresh and the pistes so busy, the only option is to leave the groomed and managed areas behind and head out on to the fresh untouched snow unreachable by chairlift. This is one host who has most definitely caught the powder bug.