Chef's Table Article

Hello Friends,
Welcome to the Holiday Edition of the Chef's Table. Before we get into the Christmas spirit, let me take a minute and look back on our Thanksgiving Dinner. It was worthy of all the hype and fanfare. The dining rooms were absolutely beautiful. The harvest gold table cloths and napkins brought a festive, yet elegant appearance. The meal was prepared and served with both style and grace. It takes coordination, preparation, culinary talent, and workmanship prepare a Thanksgiving Feast. We have all of that. So, a heartfelt thank you to my entire staff for all of their hard work both on the scene and behind the scene. Thank you.

Now, off to Christmas. The Santa Chef is all about bringing tidings of cheer and joy to our residents. On Donner, on Dancer, on Stormy, on Nixon. Our Christmas dinner this year will be Baked Stuffed Shrimp with roasted red potatoes, and fresh snipped green beans. Of course we will serve our very own (now famous, according to our many food article reviews) apple pie for dessert. The Santa Chef will also wow everyone with our yearly resident and family dinner. The reindeer will be quite busy preparing baked stuffed holiday chicken, with sausage and apple stuffing. Have you ever tried to put an apron on a reindeer? (Glad this happens only once a year). Trying to get them to wash their hooves and wear gloves is no easy matter either but, ho ho, ho, I digress. We will also serve a wonderful variety of in shop desserts, candies, and petite fors. For those family members who are unable to join us for this holiday gathering on December 11th, or for those who would like to attend both events, the Santa Chef will be serving an evening hors d' oeuvers hour on Monday December 15th.

We hope that your Holiday Season is both memorable and enjoyable. Happy Holidays from our wonderful staff to you!

It is great to be king.

It really is great to be king. At the very least no one criticises you to your face, and at best you get a chance to put ideas, and visions into effect. There probably is no greater industry than food service that allows such lattitude to be creative. It can come from the obvious such as food preparation, and presentation. It also can come from marketing your services. I am just beginning to realize how great a tool it is to get what you do out to the people you serve. In this case I am talking about our residents and thier families. I am convinced that what is prepared and served here @ Orchard View Manor is consistently great. I know it, my staff knows it, but do the residents and thier family members know it. I have a saying, you are only as good as your last meal. So put your heart into it. Serving something less than what was expected opens you up for critisism for the entire day. If you buy into this concept, then the rest is easy. Now what you have to do is market this approach to every one. If your nursing home has a monthly newsletter, take the time to put an article in it. Tell the readers what you are doing with food, write about special functions. Keep hammering away at what a wonderful food service operation you run. Be persistent. Put a recipe in the newsletter, could be as simple as a meatloaf. Family members love to be informed about what thier loved ones are eating. They want to be know what goes on behind the scenes. This is a great way to get the gospel out to them.

Why a blogg?

I started to write this blogg titled Culture Change, Foods, and Concepts for Nursing Homes with two ideas in mind. One was to challenge my peers in the nursing home end of food service for ideas that will continue to improve the day to day life for our residents. Two, was to challenge myself to continue to be ahead of the curve when it it comes to concepts that will set Orchard View Manor apart from the norm. As you read my blogg, I will inform you of visions, concepts, and ideas that have worked for me. You will be able to read Chef's Table articles that are published in our in house newsletter The Apple Blossom Times. Feel free to comment, and critique.

I will also link this blogg to the Orchard View Manor website.

Chef's Table Article

Hello Friends,

Welcome to this edition of the Chef's Table. Most of the cookout season is now behind us. We do have one more before the season draws to an end. It is the 50"s cookout. The main feature as always is clam cakes and chowder. We make one of the best chowders in New England. Our very own chef Mr. Serbst is a 3 time award winner for his white chowda recipe at the Newport Rhode Island Chowder Festival. Gerry Serbst has developed this recipe many years back, and as always it is simply outstanding. Lots of cream, clams, onions, stock, and potatoes mixed with quite a bit of TLC (tender loving care). Chef Serbst will also be responsible for the clam cakes. We know you will enjoy this festive event.

After this, dare I say, it is apple pie time. Where did the year go? Hundreds of apple pies, all with fresh apples. This is, as always, a favorite time of the year. You can't help but smell the cinnamon, spices, and apples as they are baked off, boxed up, and shipped to the orchard for sale. I want to take this time to thank Maureen Harrop for all of her hard work in making these pies. It is really quite a production. Maureen starts that say at about 4:00 am. She has been the key person for over 20 years of our apple pie festivals. Every year I say to Maureen, "how do we manage to produce these pies every year". Well the answer is quite simple, we have a tremendous support staff for this event. Every one in the kitchen has a hand in this production. Tony keeps up with the sheet pans. This is a monumental task. Elaine keeps the line going making sure that all of the residents receive their food while the pies are being baked. Stephanie takes care of the activities in the 2nd floor dining room. Amanda directs the traffic on the tray line and continues to support anyone that needs help. Rob controls the continental breakfast, and lunch in the first floor dining room. And somehow, Harry manages to put out another great meal throughout all of this commotion. It is really quite amazing to see all of this take place.

Hope you had a great summer. Thank you for all of your support. See you at the festival.

John Ladish
Director of Food Service

Try a continental breakfast approach

A tremendous culture change concept is to have a daily continental breakfast. Key word is daily. Don't start by having a continental breakfast on weekdays only. Don't subscribe to the thought that things are different on weekends. Nothing is different. You still need to feed the same number of residents, at the same time, with the same quality, zest and zeal that you would during the week. Admit it. Once you come to grips with this idea the rest is easy. Oh, you may have to show up on a few weekends for support, but you should be doing that anyway.

The continental breakfast is in the main dining room. I set the hours of operation from 6:30 am to 9:30 am. So in effect the continental breakfasts starts about 30 minutes earlier than the breakfast tray line starts, and concludes about an hour after the breakfast tray line ends.

The continental breakfast by nature is an easy set up. It accomplishes a variety of culture change initiatives. It helps to support those residents that like to get up early and have a cup of coffee, perhaps a danish, or a muffin, that might not have been available for them in the past. Just as well, it supports those residents that may wish to sleep in a little later and not get a breakfast tray at 7:00am.
It also strongly reinforces the concept that food and drinks are readily available at what was once considered off hours.

You can set up a cereal station, a hot and cold beverage station, a basket up muffins and danish. The list goes on. I set up my continental breakfast like you would find at a hotel. Just a few individual stations. Once you get a system going it just starts to flow smoothly.

When you get ready to start this, get a little fan fare going. Perhaps ballons for a grand opening week, flyers, posters, and signs in the lobby. Get the staff and residents talking about this new continental breakfast concept. Trust me you will feel the excitement of something new.

Take back the dining room

The very first step to changing the culture of eating, and dining in a nursing home setting is to realize that the dining room is a dining room. It is not the activities center, it is not the chapel, it is not the tv room, it is not the host of so many other things that over time have turned the dining area into whatever every one else wants it to be, and oh, by the way lets herd our residents in there for 20 minutes so they can eat. Sound familiar. Don't lie, you know this is, or has been the way your home works. Take a deep breath and start to take back the dining room. Now don't be obnoxious about it. Your dining room was stolen from you over time. So over time steal it back. First step, set up a culture change dining room commitee. Involve all of the key people. Administration, (they will love it) nursing, (they will embrace it) social services, (they love everything) and activities, (could be your toughest sell). Because in many homes space is at such a premium, the activities departments tend to use the dining room for so many of thier events. It is the only area large enough to host a group.

Culture Change Food Concepts

This is my first attempt at blogging. I guess I will welcome myself. I feel like I am walking around in a room where no one knows me. Pretty soon I figure I will be some center of attention. Perhaps because I have spilled something on my shirt, or because I have some interesting thoughts to share about culture change with regards to food in a nursing home setting. See, I already have your interest and there is nothing spilled on my shirt.



I direct the food service at a 180 bed nursing home in East Providence RI. I have been here for almost 20 years. When I first heard of the culture change initiative it caught my attention like a bat to the back of my head. I said what a great idea. Treat residents like they would be treated at home. Outstanding concept. Ideas started flowing like water. Now all I had to do was put these concepts into motion. I had to get others to agree. In short I had to become a salesperson for culture change.The beauty part of being a salesperson for culture change is the inventory is endless, the cost can be minimal, and you recruit your own sales team from your existing staff. At no extra charge.