Feature Story Xp Bonaire IslandLife
The new and first cooks’ club, Klub di Koki di Boneiru, was established just last month, May, 2022.
The new club is an initiative by Corjan Hoogerheide, who has been chef of the former Red Palm restaurant, now known as “lekker Thuis” (home), since the end of 2018. Corjan was looking for more and closer collaboration within the cooks’ community here on the island.
Every cook knows what a busy and hard profession they have chosen where free time is scarce and precious. The club is meant for the island’s cooks to get to know their likeminded better, network and get to know more about production, produce, transportation and suppliers in the most fun and relaxed way possible.
Corjan was asked to join, or be part of, existing umbrella organizations, but the aim was to have the least administrative obligations and have the most amount of fun while learning from and with each other.
Thursday, June 16 – Kick-off
The kick off for the club will take place on Thursday, June 16th at 3 pm at the liquor store, Bottles.
Members, future members and media are invited to get to know each other, the club, network and talk to the supplier while enjoying a drink and some finger food.
Klub di Koki di Boneiru
The get togethers are planned to take place around every 6th week. The yearly contribution is $35 and will be used for any club expenses.
Workshops
For the future, workshops are planned with some well-known professionals who are willing to share some of their knowledge.
Suppliers
Getting to know all the suppliers is crucial to ensure stable quality in hospitality. New produce and production presentations will be part of the club's activities. More possibilities of cooperative orders could be the result of talking to other businesses in the industry.
Buy local
The development in local products is growing and is very positive for hospitality. The produce is fresher, of higher quality and, hopefully, less costly without the transportation cost, and therefore a must to know for any island cook.
Transport
The delivery of product to the island has been a cause of heart attacks, not only for cooks, we all know the feeling. Getting to know the logistics, procedures and cost might help bring more understanding to the issue.
These are just a few of the plans and ideas for the club’s future. In case you are interested you can contact Corjan by email (info below).
Corjan
Corjan, who started at the beginning of December, 2018, at Red Palm, chose Bonaire as his favorite island after traveling and working on Curacao, Aruba and Statia.
Corjan originated from Zeeland in the Netherlands, a Dutch province that consists of many islands. He started in the restaurant business when he was 16 years old and he was inspired by the chefs he watched who made a beautiful, tasty meal out of the simplest ingredients.
He competed and won many national cooking championships; was chairman of a cooking club in Zeeland for 15 years; wrote his own cookbook, “de helft is liefde“ (half of it is love), and was a well-known TV chef at Easy Cooking, a regional TV program.
On Bonaire he produced the local tv series, “Brunch & Babbles “, together with the former Dutch tv personality and Red Palm owner, Leo Dijkgraaf.
INFO
Klub di Koki di Boneiru
Facebook: Klub di koki di Boneiru
Contact: koksclubbonaire@gmail.com
