Jenel Gray is the executive chef for Cura Hospitality at Indiana Regional Medical Center.
She oversees the retail servery, patient feeding and catering operations at the 140-bed IRMC, which puts out 800 to 1000 meals a day. Gray also oversees the production of the BeWell menu, an Elior North America program, as well as BeWell Kitchen, a pop-up teaching kitchen concept.
Q: How important is healthy options to your customer base?
A: Plant-based options is something our client at IRMC is very adamant about seeing on menus. About 20% of our retail menu is vegetarian. We also have a daily BeWell option that’s low calorie and low fat and oftentimes plant-based. Sometimes we showcase lean proteins and fish. We also showcase healthy cooking through our BeWell Kitchen program. Each month we conduct a cooking demo in our cafeteria during which people sample healthy foods like citrus fruits, sweet potatoes, and lots of super foods, like blueberries. In fact, a blueberry is the symbol on our menus for the BeWell offerings. This month, we’re featuring avocado, so we did a pop-up talking about the health benefits and also feature the ingredient on our retail menus about two to three times a week in various ways. For example, this week we’re featuring a Cajun-baked salmon with avocado-corn-black bean salsa and we’re doing a green smoothie with avocado, spinach, grapes, apples, pineapple juice and Greek yogurt that we offer in the morning and afternoon. Our avocado toast bar is very popular. We run that out of our grill station, which has a hot side and a cold side. We toast the heavy-seeded, multigrain bread in our [rapid-cook oven] and then [the customers] can choose from toppings like hard boiled eggs, sunflower seeds and other sweet and savory toppings.
Q: Do you run other healthy options out of that station?
Yes, that’s our busiest station. We do a lot of rice noodle bowls and ramen bowls and we always make sure there’s a vegetarian broth option along with plenty of toppings like sliced scallions, sauteed mushrooms and other precooked vegetables. I use steam kettles because I can best control the simmer that way and release the most flavor and meet our volumes. Once, when our steam kettles went down, I used some induction burners and large stock pots and was still able to make different kinds of broth, like a coconut curry broth or lemon-garlic-ginger broth. We use large 32-ounce containers and the customers can pick their broth, protein (sometimes it’s chicken, sometimes tofu or pork or beef), and any toppings they want for the bowls, but everything is full-service. Ever since COVID and being a hospital, we’re under some pretty strict regulations where we try to have as few hands touching the food as possible, especially during this time of year with cold/flu season upon us. Only six months ago were we allowed to open up our salad bar again – partially – for self-service. We still keep it open only on one side in case we have to go back to full-service at any moment.
Q: What is your favorite piece of equipment for making healthy dishes?
A: Our rapid-cook oven is our newest addition to the cafeteria at the grill station and it’s a great way to cook healthier because you’re not adding oils or frying, but you can still get things crispy. We can make flatbread pizzas to order using it, and if someone wanted a vegetarian black bean burger on the fly we can just use the rapid-cook oven for that and it’s done much quicker than cooking it like a conventional burger. I’ve used the oven to cook everything from salmon to individual baked mac n’ cheese to toasted subs, and we also use it to the avocado toast bread and any toppings customers might want heated up. My favorite kitchen gadget for healthy cooking is my spiralizer. It’s great for making noodles out of carrots, butternut squash or zucchini as a low-carb, gluten-free and vegetarian-friendly option — especially during this time of year. Now, if someone were to make an electric spiralizer so I didn’t have to do it by hand, that would be awesome!
Q: What about allergens? I imagine you have to deal with that as well as a healthcare facility.
A: Every day we have at least one customer with an allergen and those are red-flagged on the patient feeding side. In the kitchen, we have designated appliances in our kitchen just for gluten-free and specific allergens. There’s a separate section in our kitchen with purple ServeSafe kits that include separate, purple-colored cutting boards, knives and other tools and everything is practically bubble wrapped in that area so there’s no cross-contamination. We also have a separate, three-compartment sink in that space for washing those items separately. And then on the line we maintain separate fryers for fries and seafood so if someone were to have a shellfish allergy they can still have french fries. But even if we’re frying fish that day we’ll always change the oil out for the next day. Allergens are something that we take very seriously; it’s no fun to be in a hospital already so the last thing anyone needs is an allergic reaction to our food.
