Mugaritz Fire - Stagières' Knives Appeal

Early last Monday fire severely damaged the kitchens at Mugaritz, the world-famous restaurant in Spain's Basque Country. Luckily, no-one was hurt. For the management and staff of Mugaritz, the destruction of their workplace was a tragedy. But for three other young people, this was also a calamity.

Stagières are unpaid apprentices, usually young, without whom no top restaurant can function. Driven by a common passion to learn from the world's best chefs, they travel from all corners of the globe to train at world-class restaurants. When the dust settled on Mugaritz after last Monday's inflagration, Mattias from Sweden, Diego from Guatemala and Greg from the US found themselves without their most valued possessions. Their precious knife sets, not covered by the restaurant's insurance, had been incinerated. Read Greg's story here.

This is something I understand well - two and a half years ago I set off for Spain as a novice stagière myself. It's taken me years to put together my knife set, so I know exactly how devastated these lads now feel and I want to help set up a fund to help them recover their combined $2,500 losses and re-equip themselves for work. They lost some great tools, including knives by Forschner Victorinox, Kasumi, Porsche, Nenox, Misono, Kikuichi and Wüsthof. Many of you will be familiar with John Sconzo of Docsconz - The Blog. John is a food blogger widely known across the world of hospitality and he has kindly volunteered to set up and administer the fund. Can you please help with a personal pledge? Donations will be so welcome, no matter how large or small. Email John at docsconz[at]gmail[dot]com with your pledge and he will get back to you as soon as possible with details of exactly how you can contribute to the fund. Would food bloggers please copy this post and publish similar appeals (email me for text and picture). Together we can make so much difference to a group of people who really deserve our support. UPDATE: We now have a donation page on firstgiving for anyone able to contribute by credit card. Other methods of contributing to the fund can be arranged by emailing John Sconzo or myself.