In continuation from the first part of this story, I want to tell you first some more about the theory of Joseph Pine and James Gilmore, described in great detail in their book The Experience Economy, updated edition, Harvard Business Review Press, Boston, Massachusetts.

In the Experience economy theory, it is said that when you are somewhere you experience what happens in several basic ways:

1. Passive or active, according to your participation in what is happening[1]
2. Absorbent or immersive, according to your connection with this experience[2]

In the case of passive participation, you can just have fun without being involved directly and personally in what is happening. You can perceive things around in an esthetic manner, enjoying the experience. Like when you look at a nice picture or listen to a piece. Unlike it, with the active experience, you are involved in it. One option is instead of just having fun, learning a lot of exciting new things, educate yourself. The other one is instead of just enjoying the esthetics of what’s happening, getting involved personally, and immerse yourself in the experience, forgetting the rest of the world, which Pine and Gilmore named escapist experience.  With the absorbent connection to the experience, you have fun and you learn new things and allow the event to enter you through your senses. As a counterpoint, you experience esthetic pleasure in immersion, being involved in what is happening, you realize you are escaping from reality.

Graphically these things look like this:

The most interesting experiences and most memorable are a mix of these variants. For such an example I started to tell in the first part of this article- the cooking class of Chef Heinz von Holzen, owner of the holiday village Rumah Bali and restaurants Bumbu Bali, distinguished Chef who worked for 5 stars hotels  Ritz Carlton, Grand Hyatt and Hilton, a very charismatic personality.

He organized a great culinary spectacle in which we were both an audience and actors. We were mixing, stirring, tasting stuff and we laughed a lot with his subtle sense of humor. But apart from the pure entertainment from the heart, we received very interesting information about the life and culture of people on Bali Island, about the traditional cuisine, about various cooking techniques and tricks. Extremely entertaining experience enriched with educational value.

We’ve learned about something with a greater, social significance. Mr. Holzen has a charitable project dedicated to a very important cause. He is trying to help sulfur porters from Java island.

Sulfur and sulfur compounds are widely used to produce any everyday products- for matches, for whitening paper, for detergents such as preservatives, for cement production, insecticides, glass, medicines, gunpowder and many other. One of the largest deposits is a crater of volcano in Java, where workers acquire it in the most primitive way, damaging their health significantly. Whole generations are trapped in this type of professional occupation, which dooms them to a short life full of pain and suffering.

Chef Holzen is looking for the support of various people and organizations to develop innovative ways to alleviate their work without taking away the opportunity to make a living. He spoke to us passionately about what he had accomplished so far and where he would want to go.  In its villa settlement there were several places of baskets, such as those of the sulfur porters, filled with sulfuric blocks, so that we can make sure how heavy they are.

If you are more interested in this charity project, visit the site https://www.ijenassistance.com

Another curious thing that Chef Holzen told me was that the big as watermelon pear shaped fruit and crust with soft spikes is Jackfuit. I’d only seen him sliced in a plate and knew it was delicious. I hadn’t seen it in nature, and I didn’t know that by cutting it off while cleaning it to get to the edible soft part you have to go through a thick shell that sticks like glue. The more you try to wash it with water, the more sticky it gets. Only cooking oil can clean it. While we were having lunch with the delicious dishes we had cooked, he asked someone from his assistants to bring a whole fruit. He cut it in front of me and I personally had the pleasure to satisfy my curiosity about these facts. I stuck all my fingers with the Jackfruit glue! We had a lot of laughs about it! What greater active participation than the experience of this? 😊

Besides we absorbed interesting educational information from our host, we learned many things about each other. There were people from Australia, China, USA, Switzerland, I was from the most exotic country according to the others. They had not met another person from Bulgaria until that class. The professions of these people were of the most diverse fields- insurance, finance, design, IT. We were a colourful, entertaining company telling funny stories about events and places around the world.

Pine and Gilmore are advising, if you want the service you are offering to be a remarkable and memorable experience for customers, to eliminate all the causes of negative events and memories.[3] This recommendation was followed here. No risks were allowed for the safety of the guests. Chef Holzen quietly explained to us that he would not let us use knives, since none of us was a professional chef. Besides, we did not touch any hot pots, dishes and cutting appliances.

All the products were pre-cut, we mixed them by his recipes, mashed and stirred them. The skillful staff of  Bumbu Bali restaurant boiled, grilled, cut, roast when necessary. We even folded banana leaves and stuffed them with fish filling. It seemed easy, however a lot of leaves came out pretty crooked. 😊 It was not like making the traditional Bulgarian stuffed cabbage or vine leaves. 😉

While our instructor was pushing with two fingers the meat in the grinder, to assist in the rapid and quality push of the products through it, he explained that some time before, these two fingers were longer, but as a result of this exercise they were shorter now. Naturally his fingers were quite fine- just another one of his cute jokes. 😊

Was this cooking class an esthetic experience- definitely! So many colors, shapes, tastes and flavors, which you cannot find in Europe were before our eyes, in our hands, on our palate, in our nose for several magical hours. Did we escape from reality? We lost sense of time. While we were joking, mining, stirring, tasting, dining, drinking and enjoying our new knowledge, it became 4 p.m. Full 10 hours of memorable pleasure and fun!

Finally, anyone who wanted to cook at home Balinese cuisine by the recipes provided kindly to us by our teacher, he/she could buy ready-made mixtures, which were especially done by him, so that we could take the authentic Balinese taste and aroma at home- in Europe, America, Australia, Asia. We had the opportunity to get some cooking souvenirs from this event or as they are called in The Experience Economy book, we were offered memorabilia from our experience.

Assessment of the 5D Sensograph for the cooking class of Chef Heinz von Holzen, in all 5 senses is definitely the maximum 5 hearts ❤❤❤❤❤! Thank you, Chef Heinz, for the memorable experience!

If you’re already itching your hands to book a villa at Chef Heinz’s Rumah Bali villas, book right here in the box below. I guarantee you that you retain all genius discounts and privileges. I do that all the time and usually get good discounts.

Booking.com

[1] Definitions from the book The Experience Economy, updated edition, Harvard Business Review Press, Boston, Massachusetts, by Joseph Pine and James Gilmore

[2] Definitions from the book The Experience Economy, updated edition, Harvard Business Review Press, Boston, Massachusetts, by Joseph Pine and James Gilmore

[3] The Experience Economy, updated edition, Harvard Business Review Press, Boston, Massachusetts, by Joseph Pine and James Gilmore

In case you want to learn more about the Experience economy, for your convenience I put the links to my articles dedicated to it:

1. Is the customer always right?
2. What is Experience Economy and where can you find best examples in Bulgaria?
3. The Experience Economy in action with the cooking class of Chef Heinz von Holzen on Bali- Part 1

How to get there?

Check-up for promotions of Qatar Airways with the QR code below. This is how we booked our tickets at very affordable prices.

Once on the island, to make it easier for you to find the places I’m telling you about, view the map and hit the pins if you want to get directions.

To get to Bumbu Bali 1, Bumbu Bali 2 and Rumah Bali, onBali, Nusa Dua, use the map by hitting the red pins on the map and then clicking Directions:

For more reviews about restaurants, hotels, and other places in Sofia, Bulgaria and the world, check out all categories of placescases.com