Smith: Imagine his knives, burned at sea

You know how a chef is about his or her knives? We mortals are never to touch them, nor question how so much expense, care and mythology could go into an implement designed to slice an onion or bone a fish.

Mark Stark took along three of his favorite knives on the Mediterranean cruise that the brilliant Sonoma County restaurateur and his wife/partner Terri hosted along with Adam and Dianne Lee of Siduri Wines. About 70 food-and-wine connoisseurs paid good money to hang with them.

As the ship set sail from Barcelona for Venice, everybody’s bags made it to their cabins, except Mark Stark’s. A concierge advised that he was to go somewhere below deck to deal with it.

Stark was met by three men who didn’t know who he was or why he was on the boat. They knew that three knives were found in his suitcase.

He recalls, “I start laughing and I say, ‘So you didn’t find my drugs.’?” The men with his suitcase showed no sign of finding that was funny.

Stark explained that he was a host-chef and he brought the knives for his cooking classes. He was informed that there is a no-weapons policy on the boat, so his knives would be locked and delivered to the classes.

That happened. But when the classes ended, Stark wasn’t allowed to take the knives to his room to pack them. And as everyone was disembarking, he couldn’t find anyone to unlock and retrieve them.

So he came home without the three knives he figures cost about $600 new.

He tried to get Oceania Cruises to return the knives and Larry Martin, whose Food & Wine Trails arranged the cruise, tried to help him. Wednesday, he received an email from Oceania’s chief of Culinary Enrichment, apologizing.

“I know how precious knives are to a chef,” she wrote. But, “We had to incinerate them as they are technically weapons.”

Stark’s knives were burned at sea? It was tragic in so many ways, not the least being what the fiery outcome would do to the already overheated mystique of the chef’s knife.

But wait, Martin received a subsequent email from another officer of Oceania.

“Great news!” she wrote. The knives were found on board, still safely locked up, and soon they will be sent to Chef Stark.

If you ask, he may one day show them to you. Don’t even think about touching them.

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MEMORIAL HOSPITAL braces for the loss of the great magnolia tree that’s long graced the entrance to the ever-changing medical center.

Memorial officials reluctantly concluded the tree must be removed because the circular driveway has to be widened now that drivers pull up into it to deliver or pick up patients at the doors of both the main hospital building and the newly expanded and modernized Emergency Department.

The tree occupies an island in that driveway. A tree consultant concluded that though it is “relatively healthy,” it likely would not survive being transplanted elsewhere on the Montgomery Drive property.

So it is set to be felled Aug. 22. A gathering there beside it at 4 p.m. the previous day will allow Memorial staffers and volunteers to reflect on all that the magnolia contributed to the hospital through the decades that it bloomed and cast a cooling shadow there at the front door.

Chris Smith is at 521-5211 and chris.smith@pressdemocrat.com.