FAIRBANKS — Fairbanks Memorial Hospital’s senior culinary manager gets to be creative with the menu.
Ray Flores, 51, likes to make new recipes. Recently, he’s been thinking about adapting a chicken Margherita pasta recipe he makes at home. To see if it works at the hospital, he’ll make a small batch and see what the rest of the staff thinks, the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner reported.
His creativity has more bounds than conventional food service work. With a few modifications, hospital patients eat the same menus that hospital staff and visitors get at the café. Flores tries to focus on recipes that are tasty but not overly complex. His favorite hospital café food is the spinach bread, a focaccia bread with spinach, garlic and cheese.
“I’ve got the best test kitchen here. If I don’t have something here, I can get it the next day,” he said. “I want something that tastes good, that has a good appearance and is simple to make.”
In mid-May, Flores was named interim senior manager of the hospital’s main kitchen with the upcoming retirement of his former boss, Jane Walsh. He’s been at the hospital for 19 years, working up to his current job from his start as a prep cook. The hospital also named him its 2015 employee of the year.
Fairbanks Memorial Hospital’s kitchen serves the hospital’s café, catering events, patients in the 152-bed hospital and as many as 90 residents at the Denali Center long-term care facility.
About 60 percent of the food goes to the café, which serves the 1,300 hospital employees as well as hospital visitors. Some people visit the hospital specifically for the food, Flores said. The café includes entrees, snacks and a large salad bar. The restaurant likely has the most expansive hours for a Fairbanks restaurant. It opens at 6 a.m. and closes at 2 a.m. 365 days per year.
Originally from California’s Bay Area, Flores moved to Fairbanks when the Army brought him to Fort Wainwright. He worked as a cook at Gambardella’s Pasta Bella for 12 years before starting at the hospital.
Flores oversees a staff of 60 people in his office behind the hospital café. He still spends most of his time doing food preparation and helping his cooks get ready for the busy meal times, he said.
To get the recipe approved for the hospital, Flores submits it to a hospital nutrition office coordinator to see if it meets recommended dietary allowance standards. The recipe’s ingredients then get put into a database that will compare them to patient food allergies.
Many in-patient diners will drink their dinners as a smoothie. A set of industrial blenders and food processors chop up food for patients who aren’t able to chew it themselves.
Cooks have more options for the recipe variations cooked for the café.
“We follow the recipe for the hospital and the Denali Center. In the café, we can season it up a little more. If we want to make it spicy, we can make it spicier. We can add a little more fat or salt,” Flores said.
