{"id":22385,"date":"2016-05-23T08:01:17","date_gmt":"2016-05-23T15:01:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spijue.wpengine.com\/news\/hospital-culinary-manager-balances-tastes-nutrition\/"},"modified":"2016-05-23T08:01:17","modified_gmt":"2016-05-23T15:01:17","slug":"hospital-culinary-manager-balances-tastes-nutrition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/news\/hospital-culinary-manager-balances-tastes-nutrition\/","title":{"rendered":"Hospital culinary manager balances tastes, nutrition"},"content":{"rendered":"

FAIRBANKS \u2014 <\/strong>Fairbanks Memorial Hospital\u2019s senior culinary manager gets to be creative with the menu.<\/p>\n

Ray Flores, 51, likes to make new recipes. Recently, he\u2019s been thinking about adapting a chicken Margherita pasta recipe he makes at home. To see if it works at the hospital, he\u2019ll make a small batch and see what the rest of the staff thinks, the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner reported.<\/p>\n

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 caf\u00e9. Flores tries to focus on recipes that are tasty but not overly complex. His favorite hospital caf\u00e9 food is the spinach bread, a focaccia bread with spinach, garlic and cheese.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve got the best test kitchen here. If I don\u2019t have something here, I can get it the next day,\u201d he said. \u201cI want something that tastes good, that has a good appearance and is simple to make.\u201d<\/p>\n

In mid-May, Flores was named interim senior manager of the hospital\u2019s main kitchen with the upcoming retirement of his former boss, Jane Walsh. He\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

Fairbanks Memorial Hospital\u2019s kitchen serves the hospital\u2019s caf\u00e9, catering events, patients in the 152-bed hospital and as many as 90 residents at the Denali Center long-term care facility.<\/p>\n

About 60 percent of the food goes to the caf\u00e9, which serves the 1,300 hospital employees as well as hospital visitors. Some people visit the hospital specifically for the food, Flores said. The caf\u00e9 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.<\/p>\n

Originally from California\u2019s Bay Area, Flores moved to Fairbanks when the Army brought him to Fort Wainwright. He worked as a cook at Gambardella\u2019s Pasta Bella for 12 years before starting at the hospital.<\/p>\n

Flores oversees a staff of 60 people in his office behind the hospital caf\u00e9. He still spends most of his time doing food preparation and helping his cooks get ready for the busy meal times, he said.<\/p>\n

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\u2019s ingredients then get put into a database that will compare them to patient food allergies.<\/p>\n

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\u2019t able to chew it themselves.<\/p>\n

Cooks have more options for the recipe variations cooked for the caf\u00e9.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe follow the recipe for the hospital and the Denali Center. In the caf\u00e9, 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,\u201d Flores said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

FAIRBANKS \u2014 Fairbanks Memorial Hospital\u2019s senior culinary manager gets to be creative with the menu. Ray Flores, 51, likes to make new recipes. Recently, he\u2019s been thinking about adapting a chicken Margherita pasta recipe he makes at home. To see if it works at the hospital, he\u2019ll make a small batch and see what the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":4,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[230],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-22385","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-state-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22385","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/107"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22385"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22385\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22385"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22385"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22385"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=22385"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}