Huntington Gate Chateau, Author at Huntington Gate Chateau

Delicious food!

Eating is one of the few opportunities to enjoy life still available to many frail elderly people.

They may have difficulty walking, must use a wheelchair or walker, or be confined to a bed.

Hearing may be limited, eyesight diminished, and memories of faces, names, dates, places, or events forgotten, but most seniors can still enjoy a ‘good meal.

At Huntington Gate Chateau, we strive with every meal to follow my “Four ‘Goods’ of Good Cooking. Our meals should always look good, smell good, taste good, and be good for our residents.

Because of the health conditions of our residents, we cook with very limited amounts of salt, using other flavors to enhance our offerings, such as fresh ginger, fresh mint, lemon juice, flavored vinegar, and aromatic herbs. We make our own sauces, salad dressings, and broths, and limit our use of frozen or prepared items.

Breakfasts are cooked to order and at any time, featuring pancakes, french toast, hot and cold cereals, yogurt, eggs any style (fried up, fried over, scrambled, hard-boiled, or in an omelet), along with toast, fruit, and various juices.

Our main meal is served between 11:00 am and 12:00 noon, and offers old fashioned, American style ‘comfort food’ with a protein, carbohydrate, and vegetable, accented with an appetizer before and a dessert afterward. Recent selections include spaghetti with a vegetable ladened marinara sauce topped with Italian mild sausage, chicken teriyaki on a bed of noodles with our own special sauce, meatloaf splashed with our accented tomato sauce on a bed of mashed potatoes, and beef stew with potatoes, onions, celery, and carrots.

A light supper of soup, salad, sandwich selections is offered between 4:00 pm and 5:00 pm. Snacks, such as fruit, cookies, and ‘nibbles’ are available at any time.

We encourage families to share their time-proven recipes and make suggestions for ‘favorites’ to be offered to our residents.

by PHILIP J. BUTZEN, CHEF

1. The food on the plate should look good, be pretty on the plate.

Presentation is important, including the amount of each item, the placement on the plate, and the color combinations and accents. Spills and misplaced food on the plate should be wiped off and removed.

The food items should be proportionate in size, with the color of the different foods balanced with each other. Frequently, a small serving of something red or orange in color, such as sliced tomatoes, radishes, watermelon, or oranges, can accent and give eye appeal to the presented meal.

However, I think that presentation is sometimes overdone at high-end restaurants, with tiny portions of unusual proteins, carbs, and vegetables stacked on the plate into unusual shapes and then dotted and dusted with flourishes and tiny garnishes, a piece of artwork to be looked at and appreciated, not delicious food to be eaten and savored. In my opinion, food should be prepared, portioned, and presented so that everyone looking at the food on the plate says to himself/herself, “That looks so good, I want to eat THAT!”

2. The food should smell good.

Many tastes we experience are in fact odors that we smell. The cinnamon wafting from an apple pie, bacon sizzling in a frying pan, and coffee perking in a maker all have distinct smells which enhance the eating experience.

Others may be more subtle but are just as important. Good cooking should accent savory elements to enhance the culinary experience.

3. The food should taste good. Taste in the mouth covers taste, texture, and temperature.

A.Taste. Our taste buds can detect sweetness, sourness, bitterness, saltiness, and umami, a Japanese concept roughly translated as ”fullness of flavor in the mouth.” Properly seasoned food should trigger reactions in all or most of these favors, such as sweet and sour dressings and barbeque sauces (sweet and sour), sour cream (sour), cakes and cookies (sweet), pretzels and chips (salt), and strong coffee (bitterness).

The absence of umami is usually detected when something is “missing” in sauces, soups, and stews. This “fullness of flavor” can sometimes be reached by adding salt, soy sauce, and/or certain fats, such as bacon fat, butter, or mayonnaise. If you are cooking a dish that is tomato-based, such as spaghetti sauce or tomato bisque soup, add a beef base to deepen the taste. And with beef-based foods, like stews and soups, add tomato paste to “kick it up a notch,” as Emeril Lagasse likes to instruct us. Some cream sauces can be enhanced by adding a dollop of “real” mayo, made with egg yolks, not the “low fat” kind.

B. Texture. It is not just the combination of layers of flavors in the mouth that is important. The texture of the food should also ‘feel’ right in the mouth. For instance, the gravy should be smooth and not “lumpy.” Bacon and lettuce and most dry cereals should be crisp, not “rubbery.” Pears and apples, firm, not “mealy.” Steaks, buttery, not “tough and chewy.” Ice cream, soft, not “crystallized.” Fish, flakey, not “dry and hard.” Fried eggs set, not “runny.”

C. Temperature. Hot foods must be hot and cold food must be cold. Most people do not like lukewarm coffee or beer. Coffee should be hot and beer, cold.

Anyone prefer cold, greasy eggs? Warm soft drinks? Frozen spaghetti sauce? Melting Popsicles? Soupy ice cream? Limp french fries?

The real test of a competent cook is not to prepare one or two items that taste great, but to have all items on the menu for a meal cooked “to perfection” at the same time, so that each item on the plate is at the proper temperature, when savored by the hungry eater.

4. The food should be good for you.

The food should have a balanced amount of proteins, carbohydrates, and vegetables, with limited amounts of salt and simple sugars. Most prepackaged foods and fast food offerings overuse salts and simple sugars. Replacement flavor enhancers include fresh herbs and spices, such as garlic, ginger, rosemary, basil, and cilantro. Sweetness can be added by using a complex carb like agave syrup, replacing corn syrup and white sugar.

Fine dining, properly cooked and beautifully presented, should nourish both body and soul.