For me, holidays are a prime opportunity to pack in a LOT of reading. In previous years I’ve kicked off by diving into a Robert Goddard, or something similar. You know, a plot into which one escapes for a day, or so, and by the time you emerge from the book the daily grind has magically vanished.

This year, I dived straight into the more serious stuff:

The Quest: Energy, Security, and the Remaking of the Modern World, by Daniel Yergin
If you think the title of this book is daunting, wait until you encounter the book itself. Well, I didn’t because I read it on iPad, but it must be quite a tome in physical form. Yergin won a Pullitzer Prize for his 1992 book The Prize (about oil), and he is something of a one-man energy think-tank. I won’t deny that reading the book requires a fairly substantial commitment; apart from its length, Yergin is not the most polished writer around (and, there are irritating errors, like “amuck” instead of “amok”)

The Quest is a bit like a semester course on oil, gas, coal, nuclear, geo-politics, prospecting, renewables, conservation, electricity, cars, and environmental issues. There is quite a large technical component to the book, but Yergin keeps it all interesting by incorporating some fascinating history (and a suprising cast of characters).

Energy, in its various forms, is something we consume – usually without even thinking about it – every second of every day. The world couldn’t be what it is without electricity and our various forms of vehicular transport, all of which require energy.

I give The Quest a definite thumbs-up. It’s worth making the effort to read this fascinating book.

The 52 Seductions, by Betty Herbert
This book is listed in chronological order of reading; there is absolutely nothing that ties 52 Seductions to The Quest. For starters, Herbert is a good – and funny – writer. Secondly, while the title and plot line suggest that sex is the subject, the book is actually about long term relationship, and marriage in particular.

The (real life) story is based upon a pact made by the author and her husband when they realise after 10 years of marriage that they seldom have sex. It’s not as if love has departed the relationship, far from it. No, desire is the missing ingredient. So they agree to take weekly turns at ‘seducing’ each other. Yes, it is a bit of date night with a twist (not all of them have what you might euphimistically call ‘happy endings’), but it’s really about marriage from the woman’s perspective, which is always a good thing for men to know about.

This is a light and easy read, which I’d also recommend.

Even Silence Has an End, by Ingrid Betancourt
By the time I’d finished this book I’d had a rather intense dose of woman-focused literature. Betancourt was a Colombian politician when she was captured by FARC rebels. It’s not that they were targeting her, but once they had serendipitously netted her they weren’t about to release this valuable bit of political capital. This book is about the six-and-a-half years she was in the jungle as their hostage.

She suffered all kinds of abuse – including being chained to a tree by her neck – and deprivations, which at times included a prohibition from speaking, or being spoken to. What preserves her throughout the ordeal is the realisation that, while she is a captive, she remains free to choose how she is going to respond, and what kind of person she is going to be. This is pretty much the same conclusion reached by Viktor Frankl in Man’s Search for Meaning, which deals with his experiences in Nazi concentration camps.

There were so many FARC hostages in various parts of the jungle that one of the radio stations would broadcast messages recorded by friends and family, which they were able to listen to, sometimes covertly. This component made me think of the fixation we’ve developed with various forms of social media, which enable all kinds of conversations to happen. Betancourt was not only deprived of her liberty, but was restricted to receiving one-way communication only.

Betancourt has written a powerful and thought-provoking book, which I definitely recommend.

Chasing the Devil, by Tim Butcher
Butcher has previously reported from Liberia and Sierra Leone. He returns in order to – literally – follow in the footsteps of Graham Greene, who trekked in 1935 from Freetown, through Sierra Leone, into Liberia, then through Guinea, back into Liberia, and then by boat from Buchanan to Monrovia.

When Greene made the trip he was disenchanted with Europeans. He went in search of a kind of simplicity or purity, which he found in the jungle-dwelling Africans. Butcher has a somewhat different interest, in that he is trying to make sense of the extreme brutality and murderousness which characterised the various internecine wars that have taken place in the region over the past couple of decades.

Butcher observes that the jungle is a harsh environment in which to live. The locals’ best chance at survival is to stick together, which usually means towing the ‘bush’ line. Young men are trained – and indoctrinated – by highly secretive bush societies, or cults. In this context, the local tribe will carry far more sway than a distant government administration which makes no positive contribution to people’s lives, and which may in fact make their lives worse, through corruption and discrimination. He makes the (depressing) observation that, in Africa, Africans survive. In order to thrive they need to go elsewhere.

The presence of valuable natural resources has not improved their lives; if anything, minerals have resulted in more misery, as aggressors seek to control the assets.

Butcher is not only a deep an observant thinker, but also an excellent writer. I’ll be making to effort to read his other book, Blood River, soon.

Edmund de Waal, a ceramic artist, is bequeathed a collection of 264 netsuke (small and intricate Japanese carvings) by a great-uncle living in Tokyo. They entered the once-wealthy Ephrussi family in the 1870s when a Paris-based relative, Charles, bought the collection, which he later gave to a Viennese cousin as a wedding gift.

In The Hare With Amber Eyes, de Waal tells the fabulously engaging story of how his family, originating in Odessa, established something of a trans-European trading and banking empire similar to the Rothschilds’. He follows the story of the netsuke to Vienna, where the Jewish Ephrussi have an inevitable assignation with history.

The Ephrussi escape Nazi Austria, but forfeit their business, property and art. Through the intervention of a maid the netsuke are saved, which leads de Waal to ask the question: “Why should they have got through this war in a hiding place, when so many hidden people did not?”

Cape Town art dealer Michael Stevenson’s PhD thesis, Art & Aspirations, deals with the role that art collecting played in the Randlords validating their mining fortunes. The Ephrussi family, having settled in Paris and Vienna, did much the same thing.

Regardless of how nouveau the riche, old objects trace a path through history, and de Waal has told a wonderful tale around these netsuke. The Hare With Amber Eyes is unquestionably one of my favourite reads of the year.

Does this man look like the writer of lurid sexual fantasy? Nicholson Baker, author of House of Holes

The future of physical book shops is not looking bright. Apart from the fact that many people couldn’t be bothered to read (or, even in developed countries, can’t read), there is the entire digital thing. Books are cheaper and quicker to get in electronic form, and a variety of websites deliver cutting edge references on any subject you can imagine.

I love browsing book shops as much as anyone, but I have joined the ranks of Kindle users (using the Android tablet I bought last month). According to Amazon, by May 2011 they had sold more book downloads than they did in all of 2010!

The thing is this. Yes, it’s half the price, but the immediacy is so damn appealing. Last week I was reading an FT interview with Nicholson Baker, the author of House of Holes, and was able to buy the book without walking more than three steps.

House of Holes is an exercise in unbounded sexual fantasy. Think Roald Dahl (in adult short story format), Enid Blyton fairies and Alice in Wonderland, all of it viewed through a light mist of psychedelia. One reviewer has even tossed a little bit of Tellytubbies into the mix.

The book is largely about body parts – the book even opens with a pleasure-giving arm that has parted company with its host body – that are driven by pleasurable sensations. In the context of this book, the pleasure is all sexual, and no holds are barred.

Baker manages to keep it all light, comical even, with rhythmical narrative that at times is more reminiscent of poetry than prose. Writing about sex also brings up the weighty issue of how one describes it, and the body parts involved.

I haven’t been able to work out why one character refers to his penis (as in John Thomas) as his Malcolm Gladwell, but Baker trots out an impressive sequence of euphemistic references. I found myself chuckling at some of these.

One of the other ways he keeps the book light, I suspect, is by not making much effort to develop any characters. House of Holes is an entertaining read, which is sexual, but not necessarily pornographic.

Not exactly a convent girl, Roxana Shirazi, author of Last Living Slut

Last Living Slut, on the other hand, is a real story, about a real person’s sexual exploits. I was exposed to it in a real book shop, but bought it electronically (yes, I know I was leeching off their overheads). The Slutwalk movement has given new meaning to the word slut, and the author, Roxana Shirazi, is at pains to defend the position of (often promiscuous) women who match men’s interest in sex. What’s good for the goose is good for the gander, can’t argue with that.

And, with a surname that is one vowel away from being the name of one of my favourite grape varieties – Shiraz – my curiosity was piqued. I should also add, at this point, that the Facebook page for The Very Sexy Shiraz (one of the products I created at Cloof) has been inhabited by a large number of Iranians (you can read more that here).

Roxana Shirazi lived in Iran until she was 10, and then moved to the UK with her grandmother to get away from the revolution. A lay psychologist (upon reflection ‘lay’ is perhaps not the ideal word) could have a field day extrapolating an absent, opium-addicted father, physically abusive stepfather and a sexually abusive lodger, into the rock groupie that she grew into.

I can’t say that I found Last Living Slut a satisfying read. Yes, the book is littered with explicit descriptions of her (and friends’) uninhibited exploits with rockers, but once that component is removed, not much remains. I couldn’t say that the book goes anywhere with its potentially fertile material; there must – surely – have been scope for greater examination of deeper issues. Various themes or episodes are left dangling, which include her attempted suicide, and, to some extent, her abortion.

I would fault the book, also, on a generally staccato, if not chaotic, flow, which is also somewhat sloppy (OK, given the context, perhaps this is also not the ideal word). She starts one (short) chapter aged 21, and ends it a few pages later aged 24, without any sense of a passage of time. Perhaps it is what one would expect from a rock groupie, but this one has a Masters degree.

I’ve never been able to sing, nor can I play any musical instruments. But for these basic requirements I could happily have been a rock star. If nothing else, Roxana Shirazi has shown us some of the – admittedly transient – perks of being the object of young women’s adulation (if she ever pitches up at my house I’ll instantly start bashing away at my son’s drums!).

I’m sure she could have done a better job of writing her story. Perhaps she’ll come back to it all at some point in the future and have another stab at it.

Until then, I have to declare the work of fantasy as the winner of this month’s read-off.

It is impossible to make the journey from Hong Kong airport into the city without being exposed to AliBaba.com a number of times. The orange posters, with smiling faces of happy customers/suppliers, are everywhere. The Airport Express train has a perpetually looping clip of customers sharing their delight. They are operating on the assumption – of course – that a large number of travellers to Hong Kong are there to source products from China.

AliBaba is like a super-sized online trade show, where traders can buy just about anything (Yahoo is a major shareholder, which is one of the few bright spots as far as this struggling internet business is concerned).

I recently came across Aliexpress.com, which is the online shopping version of AliBaba. Much of the same stuff is available – even when purchasing one unit only – and it gets despatched via DHL or airmail post. Seeing as it’s one of the advertisers on this site (they pay a percentage of sales in lieu of access to the space) I thought I’d give them a test-drive.

I’ve been wanting to get a Kindle reader from Amazon, but have been bothered by the limited application of the device. While a tablet has many more uses, in its iPad incarnation it just seems that little bit too expensive for its utility (perhaps if I had more money I would be more comfortable with the iPad’s premium pricing).

From AliExpress I bought an Android tablet, including DHL delivery to my door, for just $190. At this price it’s the same cost as a Kindle, which I think is extremely good value. I’ve downloaded the Kindle app, so I get that functionality. In addition, I have a fully-fledged link to ‘the cloud’ (read my previous post about this). I’d certainly recommend this purchase (it’s been running very happily on my WiFi; next step is to get it hooked up to 3G, which requires a Huawei E1750 USB modem that I have on order).

I’m not suggesting that everything on AliExpress is going to be to everyone’s taste. However, some careful shopping certainly yields bargain results. I’ll be going back for their wide selection of cycling gear, which is going for a fraction of the high-street retail price.

You’ll notice the words “Escrow buyer protection” all over the site. This means that your payment is held in trust until you have received the goods, are satisfied with them, and then release the payment.

I wouldn’t forego my Hong Kong experiences, but here’s a way of accessing many of the same shopping bargains without paying the airfare (or buying whole containers of an item!).

I have – occasionally – been accused of having my head in the clouds. It’s the kind of thing that gets said to people who appear to have little connection with reality (i.e. they “don’t have their feet on the ground”). I won’t deny that I happily give my imagination free rein, but my sense of reality is very … um … real.

There has been a lot of talk about cloud computing. The Cloud consists of servers parked in a variety of places around the world, which host both the documents/files we work on, and the software that we use. It’s a concept that runs completely counter to the basic computing principles that have made Bill Gates as rich as he is. No longer do you need Microsoft Office on your computer, and depending upon the device you’re using, you may not even be running Windows.

Google is not only the world’s dominant search engine, but with its Gmail and Google Docs offerings it is also a prime example of cloud computing. The pain we bear for using Gmail is that Google displays ads relevant to the content of our emails. Fair enough, it is a ‘free’ service.

Google Docs comes without this baggage. You can create and edit a variety of file types online, and then you can share them with other people (with, or without, editing rights), which makes it a lot more efficient than emailing multiple versions of the same source documents around the world, with various recipients making changes along the way. In Google Docs, one version of the document sits in a central place, so edits are visible to everyone in real time.

Google Apps is all this on steroids, because you can run your entire business in the Google cloud. And, you can add a huge variety of complementary apps.

The beauty is that you don’t need to maintain a file server, or a VPN, or buy any software, but it is a problem when your internet connection goes down. Fortunately, this generally doesn’t happen for more than a few hours per month. Google is by no means the only ‘cloud’ service available, but its sheer size makes one feel a lot more secure about not having in-office control over one’s data (which is sometimes a problem in its own right).

One of the most important tools that a company needs is a CRM (customer relationship manager). The feature I most love about a CRM (other than the contact information) is the linking of emails to particular contacts (or projects, even). I’m not a great filer, so it suits me when this gets done automatically. For companies that run sales teams it’s also really useful to know what the pipeline looks like, in terms of opportunities and closed sales.

Insightly CRM is available as a free app in Google Apps (paid versions only kick in for larger contact databases, but these are cheaper than SalesForce, SugarCRM and others). I’ve been test-driving it and have been very impressed.

You still read your emails through Gmail, but there’s a little button you can click if you want the mail to be stored in all the relevant spots in Insightly. And, when sending email you bcc a designated address, which then stores outgoing mails in the correct spots.

Insightly also creates contacts and organisations automatically when emails are received. What blew me away was the way it intuitively creates organisations. It takes the name of the organisation from the email domain (the @organisation.com bit), which does need a little editing. Then, it takes a logo from the email footer and links the logo to the organisation. The last bit is quite spectacular; Insightly goes to the website of www.organisation.com and grabs the meta description (an extra bit of hidden information that makes the website more search engine friendly, by describing the company) and inserts that into a field, called background.

One shortcoming is that you can’t seem to link calendar events to contacts, so you have to use Google Calendar as a standalone service (however, Tasks are ported across by Insightly). And, while it is possible to initiate a reply to a stored email, the reply email won’t have the existing email conversation (i.e. it starts blank). However, it does usefully have that special bcc address automatically included. And, if you click on an email address while in Insightly the same thing happens.

I’m also busy test-driving a $190 Android tablet that I bought online (report to follow), which makes use of all the ‘cloud’ features above. This makes the cost of equipping the staff in a small business a lot more manageable – you don’t need software, or an office network, or a file server, and you can do a lot of your work on a device that is very affordable.

It’s worth getting your head around ‘the cloud’. It’s not pie in the sky, I can assure you.

I am willing to wager a substantial amount of money that the majority of people in the world have a problematical relationship with failure. Against a backdrop of empirical measurement of our academic ability – especially a method that delivers a pass/fail result – and a general culture that makes it uncomfortable even for sub-optimal achievement, failure is not a condition we can be expected to embrace. We don’t like it, plain and simple. We avoid failure as if it were the plague.

Tim Harford, in his excellent book Adapt, isn’t exactly suggesting that we should seek out failure. Instead he says that experimentation is a necessary part of the evolution and success of organisations (and organisms). Failure is an inevitable consequence of experimentation, so we’ll all be better off if we have a sustainable way of dealing with it.

This matter-of-fact attitude to failure is quite reassuring, actually. It’s a relief to know that one can try something out, that it may not work out, but that’s OK. In fact, it’s normal.

The one part of this book with which I’m not in agreement is the choice of sub-title, “why success always starts with failure”, which strikes me as being intended to shock potential readers into a purchase. It’s not really what the book is about.

It’s not as if Adapt doesn’t describe failures; there are dozens of them, from the collapse of the Soviet Union’s economy to oil spills, Broadway musicals, and yes, the credit crisis. Harford relates the background to many of these failures in a most interesting and readable manner.

While he describes failure as natural, and certainly not a phenomenon that requires any feelings of shame, there are some provisos.

The first one is that failure should not lead to the extinction of the organisation or organism. In other words, the extent of the failure should be survivable.

The second critical component of failure is knowing that you’ve failed. Chasing your losses only makes it worse. So, it becomes critically important to have effective feedback loops. In the command economy of the Soviet Union any dissenting feedback generally resulted in the messenger getting shot. Donald Rumsfeld’s poor management of the war in Iraq was compounded by him shutting out feedback that didn’t accord with his position.

It’s only in the final chapter that Harford gets on to the personal dimension of failure. Up until that point he colours his message with a number of fascinating examples that he keeps at a reassuring distance. However, it was quite early in the book that I started thinking about my own failures.

My biggest failures have not obeyed the first rule of manageability. While there may not have been anything wrong with the experimentation, I committed myself on a scale that made survival almost impossible if it didn’t work out right.

Another example he uses, is of those huge domino set-ups, where disturbing one will lead to all of them getting knocked over. It’s a great spectacle if they start tipping at the correct time, but a disaster if it’s premature. It is for this reason that the builders of these arrangements employ safety gates. This example he likens to the contagion that accompanied the credit crisis. One failure led to a whole bunch of others.

These examples offer just a small glimpse; there are many more.

Adapt is going to go onto my list of the most important books I’ve read. It doesn’t set out to be a self-help book, but for a perpetual experimenter like myself it’s a really important reference.

Where failure is concerned, the only failure is to omit it from the possible outcomes. And not to allow new information to change your course of action.

Facebook pages are being used by a wide variety of business and interest groups. I’m not suggesting that they are appropriate for all businesses, but I think the social component has interesting applications for the likes of restaurants and entertainment venues. And, apart from the usual ‘Wall’ functions, one can add additional tabs to Facebook pages, which create the opportunity for all kinds of interactions with ‘fans’.

With the aim of learning how to use Facebook to develop deeper relationships with fans of Facebook pages, I test-drove a few different resources:

Shortstack

This is one of the most impressive online resources I’ve come across. The beauty of Shortstack is that you don’t need web development skills to use it, and it manages the Facebook integration for you. The free plan gives you the opportunity of playing around with their features, which are pretty impressive. As an example, it took me a couple of minutes to add a reservation tab to the Sidedish Theatre Bistro Facebook page.

Anything you’ve seen on Facebook, from promotions to custom forms, gifts, polls, you name it, it’s there. There’s even a really cool widget that does a ‘fan reveal’ (in other words, content that is only available to fans of your page). You can also embed content from a website, or publish a product list (useful for e-commerce). Paid plans range in price from $15 per month.

Fanpage Minisite ($37 once-off) and Fanpage In a Box ($9.95 per month, or $39 lifetime) are similar, in that they provide templates for the web content that goes into that tab on Facebook. I like the WordPress interface both of them have. However, both of them require basic web development skills, so are not as user-friendly as Shortstack.

The benefit of these two is that the charge is once-off, and if your web development skills are advanced you could build in all kinds of cool features. For example, I’m certainly going to be adding Shopping Cart tabs to some of the Facebook pages I run, linked to the online shops I’m involved in.

All three of the vendors listed above have detailed online videos that take you through all the steps required.

With these resources, all it takes to become a Facebook Ninja is a few mouse clicks!

I’ve become a little bit addicted to Quora, which in their words is “a continually improving collection of questions and answers created, edited, and organized by everyone who uses it. The most important thing is to have each question page become the best possible resource for someone who wants to know about the question.”

You absolutely have to visit Quora – the richness of the answers, often with mind-boggling detail, is nothing short of amazing. By way of example, check out this answer relating to the business model of one of my most-admired online retailers, Gilt.com.

I was drawn to answering a question this morning, about the “perfect tweet”. The answer is admittedly not as rich as the others on the site (you can read it here), but it has spurred me into action on a mini-post about Twitter that I’ve been wanting to do.

One of the people I follow on Twitter is Michael Jordaan (FNB’s CEO), whose praises I’ve been meaning to sing for some time. For starters, his own tweets are pertinent to the world of business, and therefore relevant to his industry. This, in itself, sets him apart in the world of corporate tweeters.

He clearly follows the Twitterstream for references to FNB, so he is alive to the conversation that is happening about his business/brand. Complaints are efficiently passed to someone within the organisation who can fix the problem. I have personal experience of this. It works well.

He is also a good re-tweeter (like forwarding an email message you’ve received), usually adding a pithy comment. To a tweet asking whether FNB had contributed any money to the ANC Youth League conference, he answered simply, “Nope”.

Earlier today, in answer to this tweet
“@Mohomed: the woman in this fnb mobi ad lithpth when she thayth thell phone”, he answered: “Thorry.”

For me, apart from the fact that Michael Jordaan is an additional customer service department for FNB, he is a case study in using Twitter in a manner that builds the business.

I’ve given two examples of how online resources change the way we communicate with the world and seek answers to important questions. Online also has huge implications for the names we give our products and businesses.

You see, if your name is not unique, you’re playing the cyber version of Where’s Wally. Apart from the need for your customers to find you online, you also want to be able to see when they are talking about you. Unless you’re Apple, generic words don’t cut it.

Michael Jordaan can track FNB on Twitter because FNB is not a generic acronym (it can also refer to a US sport team). For the same reason, it’s useful that his surname is Jordaan rather than Jordan.

Should businesses and their CEOs be on Twitter? You’re welcome to post the question on Quora, but the answer easily fits into a tweet: “Absolutely, yes!”

Dear Dan

I hope you don’t mind me calling you Dan. I know that’s your name because I asked your employees the name of MyGate’s managing director. I left several messages for you to call me, but perhaps your telephone lines are down, the way that your computers so often seem to be. By the way, I don’t mind if you call me Oscar, should you ever get around to returning my phone calls.

I’m not one to dish out gratuitous public criticism, but seeing as you didn’t make yourself available to hear it direct from me, this seemed to be my next best option.

The online shops I run are dependent on our customers being able to make online credit card payments. This cannot happen without a payment gateway, for which I selected your company.

Two things happen when MyGate goes ‘down’. Firstly, we don’t have any sales, which, I’m certain you understand, is quite a serious problem for any business. Secondly, our customers get frustrated and generally disillusioned with us. We therefore run the likelihood of losing those customers forever.

Trust is one of the most critical factors for online retailers. I’m sure you can imagine how damaging it must be to our reputation when our customers have dodgy payment experiences.

As ‘luck’ would have it, MyGate’s crashes have coincided with peak sales days, following on us launching special offers. I’m sure you know online retail well enough to know that call-to-action campaigns are most effective in the first couple of hours after they are launched. You can see how detrimental it would be to our business to miss out on the feverish excitement that our sales messages have incited in our customers.

Perhaps most alarming of all is that your people often don’t know there is a problem until I let them know (13 June is a case in point). What generally follows is a most unsatisfactory experience, which seldom involves any proactive feedback and always takes a long time to resolve, by which time the sales opportunities have passed.

And yet, when your charges are debited to our bank account, there is never an adjustment for the time that MyGate’s servers were down. At the very least, an apology would have been appreciated. I know it may seem outrageous to suggest that companies should apologise when they’ve let their customers down, but perhaps I’m just old-fashioned.

In closing, Dan, I think I could forgive some of your servers’ unreliability if the service was good. Sadly, both are poor. The type of function your company performs isn’t life-and-death, like flying passenger aircraft, for instance, or open-heart surgery, but it requires a similar degree of reliability.

I really just wanted you to know exactly why I’m no longer a customer. I would have been quite happy to tell you on the phone, or even face-to-face, but apart from the fact that you never gave me the opportunity, I don’t get the feeling you’re that interested in hearing back from customers. Certainly not ones that are really, really pissed off.

So what does one take away from the experience? The key – without deviating too far into pop-psychology – is frustration. When customers are not being ‘heard’ they get more frustrated (of course, it doesn’t help if the product doesn’t do what it’s supposed to).

I really hope they teach this stuff at Harvard Business School, because it’s important (much like sunscreen – and in both cases you don’t discover until later what damage has been done). You see, if you listen to your customers the first time, they don’t start looking around for someone else to tell.

Kind Regards
Oscar

Graze, in Stanford’s main road, is a fabulous little eatery, overflowing with character in a way that makes you want to eat the entire menu. I was there for lunch after a little mountain bike ride, hence my interest in eating was even greater.

As you can see from the picture above, the menu is written on one of the walls. The theme is Italian, with antipasto-type dishes piquing lunch appetites. They aren’t licensed, so we were invited to pick something up from the bottle store across the road (I thoroughly enjoyed the bottle of 2010 Raka Sauvignon Blanc I selected from the limited cold stocks).

The place was quite busy, so a lengthy conversation with the owner, Jero, was not possible. He was wearing a chef’s jacket, but due to a staff shortage he was working front of house. In the kitchen was his wife (or significant other), who goes by the name of Catch (fancy that), according to the embroidery on her chef’s jacket. Unfortunately, we didn’t get around to establishing the story behind the name.

Bresaola with rocket, parmesan shavings and olive oil

My appetite was given even more of a rev by Jero’s descriptions of the dishes; he’s certainly passionate about food!

The meal was most enjoyable. I ordered two starters: a chickpea salad that was topped with gorgeously creamy locally made grilled haloumi, and bresaola with homegrown rocket, all served with fresh focaccia. This was less food than I needed, so it’s a good thing my friend ordered more ambitiously. The Graze antipasti board is a great way of eating; we enjoyed mixing and matching our way through it.

The Graze Board (for two)

Graze is only open on Fridays and Saturdays, which means you have limited opportunities to dine there. Be sure to make a booking the minute you arrive in Stanford.