how it came to be

I am a cook, professionally trained in the culinary arts, and have over a decade of experience in the food industry.

In the last 3 years I discovered something about myself; I love working with the elderly. While in college, I took a part-time job preparing breakfast and lunch for seniors at an assisted living facility. That's all I thought it would be, a part-time job to supply me with some extra cash while studying mathematics and physical sciences. It turned out to be a lot more than that. Turns out, cooking for old people is actually my passion, who would have thought?

My mother is a chef, she went to pastry and culinary school, and she instilled in me the love of good food. I grew up working in her catering kitchen, helping to decorate wedding cakes and preparing platters of mini quiches and savory tartlets for events. I have always loved to cook, and have always worked in the food industry, and even suspected someday I too would attend school for a culinary education. But I never thought the elderly would be my target audience.

So I picked up and left school and my home in Washington, all my friends and my old people, to study at the Culinary School of the Rockies, to get a diploma in culinary arts, and to pursue my dream. My boyfriend and I moved to Boulder, Colorado, where the farm-to-table movement is huge and the restaurant scene is growing-though it's not the restaurant scene I'm interested in, it's the assisted living community and retirement homes.

Once again, in a new place, I have found myself with a job cooking for seniors. I prepare breakfast, lunch and dinner on the weekends for a smaller facility of 25 residents. Someday I hope to make it my full-time career, but until then, I will continue to learn about the taste (and texture) preferences of our aging population, and gain valuable experience in this new industry.

Which brings me to this blog. I have general menu outlines for what I make- the protein for each dish is predetermined, but I choose the sides (a starch, a vegetable side, and sauce for each entree) as well as two different soups and salads to accompany lunch and dinner, and two daily featured desserts. It's a lot to come up with, trying to always bring in new creative dishes, with the residents palates in mind, as well as time restraints, the budget, and available equipment and ingredients.

So I went to the number one place for ideas: the Internet. I searched for senior-tested recipes, articles on what they like to eat, nutritional requirements- I bought books for diabetics, allergens, but no where could I find exactly what I was looking for. What I really want is someone telling me what works, what doesn't, the trials and errors of cooking for large quantities of senior citizens- a book or blog from a chef at an assisted living facility. Maybe I wasn't looking hard enough, or I just wanted an excuse to write my own, but I couldn't find it. So I started my own. And hopefully there is someone out there looking for what I was, and that they will find it here.

So I wish you luck, cooking for your seniors, whether they are your parents or grandparents, or you've been hired to care for them at home, or you're like me- cooking for the masses in a group living situation. I hope you create wonderful home-cooked meals for them, remembering that love really is the most important ingredient.