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.

Slaying the Giant

Even in resort there are two worlds, and they are worlds apart. From the inside of the chalet, the piste and chairlifts are framed, untouchable and unreachable as a tv picture. From the piste the chalets are insignificant, uninteresting boxes. Everything melts away when the skis hit the snow. Even the worst days and most hellish moments inside are forgotten. Not that there are many moments like this but after 3 consecutive 15 plus hour days, mountain time is to be savoured. While there are bars and clubs where your host could drink out the demons, the exorcise delivered by the mountain cleanses the soul far deeper than any pint could.

Come, let us slay this beast

And big demons call for big mountains. Giants no less. Beyond the reach of chairlifts and your weekly punters, these areas are reserved for those who know what they are doing. Step up your host, his rental boots 2 sizes too big and skis made years ago for the piste, not the image of the most competent of off piste gurus. And yet after the 20 minute hike in brilliant sunshine the Aguille Grive relented and we reached the peak.

Now this could go wrong...

The advice given to me before the descent comprised of keeping my skis together and to go fast while in control. Unfortunately the last two parts seem mutually exclusive most of the time, either your host has control or he has speed. And yet in the early afternoon sun, risking avalanche and death with the wrong equipment your host skied down in the freshest powder. Few feelings come close to the experience of gliding through virgin snow at too fast a pace.

It is these experiences that make the whole effort worthwhile. Yes the cooking is good, the hosting comes naturally and the cleaning, well it gets done, these are not the reasons why we do what we do. Ok there must be the balance, too much of one soon impedes on the other but the mountains are why we are here. The snow is the reason we work the hours we do. And the runs keep us coming back again and again.

Socks at christmas

Each week as the new guest lists are handed out, we hosts play a game. We try figure out from the names and sparse information supplied to us the identities and back stories of the new guests. Inevitably we are always wrong. One week its an extended family, the next it is a bunch of welsh young farmers ("hows it going Hughie??) and then 15 middle aged men from an all male outdoors society.

Each week brings a different demographic as deals and prices coax different people to the slopes. January is typically a fairly slow month, most tourists are either British or Russian. The local french population spent their money over new years apparently. With the lack of Europeans, the slopes are nice and quiet and lift queues are non existent. For your host this is a welcome break from the meat market that is the February half term.

As guests come and go, they like to leave things around the chalet, sometimes by accident and sometime we get Thanked In Person. Things left behind include a blackberry charger, two novels (which are now what we call "The Library"), a small baggie with a suspicious substance inside, and countless socks. Better still when they leave bottles of beer (flogged to the next guests), bottles of mixer (gratefully received) and best of all the half bottles of spirits (lovingly drank).

Your host likes it when guests Thank In Person, on a long Sunday it can be the saving grace to an otherwise awful day. Usually monetary in nature, these gifts allow your host to leave his otherwise meager wage untouched in the bank and enjoy the following week in a certain amount of style and comfort.

It can be awkward when they invite you to open an envelope in front of everyone, all you can do is thank them as much as you can and retreat back to the kitchen to regroup. On the very rare occasion receiving such gifts feels like socks at Christmas, fortunately so far our guests have been generous and gregarious and other such words beginning with "g".

So far the meter of jaffa cakes is winning

Snows and Eskimoes

If the eskimoes have 50 words for snow even they would be running out of synonyms. We have had every kind so far and it is only mid January. Flurries and blizzards and showers and everything else. Every morning the french JCB driver does battle with the latest offering from the mountain, cruising around the resort with the shovel down, scraping the road and crashing up snow drifts. Around here, he is the fastest vehicle, which is terrifying to watch. Especially when the sun is yet to breach the mountain tops and your host's work jacket merges with the early morning gloom.

Someone once told me that it was the law in France for vehicles to be equipped with snow chains. If this is true then no one has told the french. Hours of amusement can be had from watching the hapless citroens and renaults struggle for grip as they slide up and down the roads. Even better when a high end beamer turns up, fish tailing round the bends and, for once, giving way to other traffic.

The work continues the same, only the details change. Days and meals start to merge after a while, and the cookbook slowly gets left to the side. We were also told that the recipes had been developed for a year, not sure who they got to develop them but some of the methods and quantities do not stand up to scrutiny. But we adopt, adapt and improve and by the end of the season these books will be scribbled over and scratched out.

The snowsport lifestyle and culture is all pervasive, cafes hang skis from the roof, an evenings relaxation consists of freestyle films. The films are chocked full of mad snowboard and ski routes from all over the world, carving up fresh powder and riding lines on the most remote peaks. Now Redbull is in town as well, promising the best skiers and boarders doing what they do best, painting their art onto untouched canvases. There truly is art and a beauty in a perfectly carved line. Though it may be at least a couple of seasons before your host could even dream of making such art.

Sun, snow and the mirror

It is the guests that make the host. The guest host dynamic is a symbiotic relationship, as a host one can only do so much for the guests and if they do not reciprocate then the level of service can only be so high. Good guests interact and help create a positive feedback circle and when this happens the service and relationship can only get better. And sometimes the only thing that makes the holiday is the relationship between staff and customer.

Each week there are different guests and each week there is a slightly different host to greet them. As each week requries a different character, tone and style.

The last week has seen beautiful sunshine and pretty clear runs, after the busy rush of christmas and new years, the crowds melt away. The resort empties as the europeans leave for work and other pursuits. The lift queues are blessedly small and the pistes are nice and quiet, just how your host likes his skiing.

And in the wintertime when the weather is high, the chairs take you up so you can touch the sky, when the snow is right you got skiing on your mind. And the good weather lifts the spirits and spurs your host on to new speeds and new slopes, there is almost the intagible feel of springtime about the place.

Sometimes its made in chelsea, but right now its made of snow.

Someone Else's Christmas

It is the season to be jolly and so on, this is made a little hard by a couple of things. First, the French dont do christmas. Second, christmas is another working day like any other. Breakfast is laid out, rooms have to be cleaned and the turkey has to be prepped. Our token to christmas is a decorated tree which drops needles like a busted junkie. Oh the brits and the expats do their best to festen the place up but somehow it just is not the same.

The yearnings for a home Christmas were compounded by our guest's own Christmas. A sort of tradition, by which they join up and for one week go skiing for Jesus's Birthday. Picture the scene as 13 adults, including two grandmothers sit in sofas around the tree and 2 young girls hand out the presents from beneath the tree. It is a strange feeling to watch someone else celebrate something that you might do yourself, and though they did make us feel welcome at the table it was still very much their Christmas.

Having said this, not much beats skiing all day boxing day. Good weather, fresh powder and over 400 km of snow. And New years is a completely different beast altogether. With the focus around a designated time rather than an activity and the generally more sociable aspect, new years makes for a more inclusive party. Having said that work still comes first, the lucky ones are gifted the morning or the day off by their guests. Your host, however, was up at quarter past seven new years day, after heavy celebrations, to set out breakfast. What a hero.

So far the work ski balance is definitely out of kilter. The hours are still long, and the skiing is slowly becoming more and more frequent, but the flow and organisation that comes from the regular exercise of specific tasks is still lacking. In the interview, your host was asked how he would cope with a set menu, cooking the same dishes week in and week out. The reality is that there is the scope and the need for constant improvisation. When stores run out or deliveries are forgotten or guests turn up with unannounced dietary requirements we must meet the challenge and still cook a meal that looks like it  was meant to be served the way it was.

But this is meant to be the peak, from here on out, as the skiers say, its all down hill. Your host is hoping for a long fast fresh powder red rather than a mogully icy black.