Diversity in Food at Christian Rest Home

Our second diversity in food moment this month came about unexpectedly.  One of the Assisted Living Aides approached Dining Services for rolling pins:  For a cooking class she was holding with the residents for making "Banket" (pronounced Bon-ket).  This is an old word, Dutch treat, of almond paste filling wrapped with a flakey dough.  After participating in the class with the residents, Chef Grant began creating over 100 pounds of the taste memory for all our residents to enjoy, with many claiming it was "the best" they had ever had!  Good job to the whole team for going that extra mile for our residents.

Christina Bodanza, CDM, CDP
Director of Dining Services
Christian Rest Home

Diversity in Food at Christian Rest Home

Our November Diversity activity involved all staff from all departments within Christian Rest Home, from Nursing to Environmental Services.  Associates were encouraged to enter a recipe for their favorite holiday dish, and our winning entry came from a native of Poland!  Piragi, delicious bacon and onion stuffed yeast rolls, were such a hit with our Employee meal on Thanksgiving, Chef Grant re-created them again for the staff Christmas Party. 

Christina Bodanza, CDM, CDP
Director of Dining Services
Christian Rest Home

Villa St. Benedict Helps the Salvation Army

This year VSB adopted two children from the Salvation Army's Angel Tree. Gifts and money were donated to make sure these two children had a Merry Christmas!

Brooke Roth

Assistant Director of Culinary Services

Villa St. Benedict

Diversity in Food at Oakwood

Our culinary team produced a spectacular Indian buffet lunch to delight our sales department and thirty guests from the local Asian Indian community. The lunch was a vegetarian event, the menu,samosas with tamarind sauce,eggplant and lentils,basmati rice with spinach,tandoori roasted vegetables, masoor dal with chic peas, nann and paratha. A seperate dessert buffet displayed pumpkin ice cream, pineapple upside down cake with candied ginger and gulab jamun. It was a great diversity lesson for those of us not familiar with Indian food and a great vegetarian treat for our Indian guests.

Pictured, tandoori roasted vegetables, gulab jamun with pomegranite and fennel tops.

Pearse Tormey

Regional Executive Chef

Midwest Hospice 1st annual Food Drive

Today concluded our first annual food drive here at Midwest Hospice. Over the last 3 weeks we posted flyers and got the word out about donating food to a local food pantry. I was so pleased with the amount of food the staff and families donated. This was truly a HUGE success. My truck was packed with much needed supplies. 
 

                When I was dropping off the food the staff at the Northfield Pantry was so excited and grateful for the amount of food I was dropping off, they offered me a tour of the facility and gave me a little background of who and where the food goes. 1 in 5 children in the northern suburbs goes to bed hungry. 1 in 6 families are unable to provide a meal at dinner time. This particular food pantry feed’s almost 700 families a week. Seeing families coming in to the food pantry was such a humbling experience for me. I’m happy to share that Morrison assisted in feeding almost 700 families with our donations.

Villa St Benedict Christmas Party

To get into the spirit VSB celebrated Christmas a little early this year.  We all dressed up in our best Christmas sweaters, enjoyed pizza and some bowling. Merry Christmas from VSB!

Moment of Thanks

The associates at the Felician Sisters Michigan in Livonia took a moment out of our busy day to reflect upon what we are thankful for during this season of thanks.  We all gathered around and filled out a feather with what we are thankful for and placed upon our Thanksgiving Turkey.  A colorful way to give thanks to those around us.  Thank you all for making us successful.

Thankful Tree at Villa St Benedict

Here at VSB we're showing what we are thankful for this holiday season.  Each of the staff traced their hands and put five things they are thankful for on each finger. We made the hands into turkeys in celebration of Thanksgiving.

Brooke Roth
Assistant Director of Culinary Services
Villa St. Benedict

Spooktail Hour at AM McGregor

Attached are some pictures of our annual Halloween event, "Spooktail Hour".  Our appetizers were "witch hats" made with Hershey kisses, and eyes with brains (colored feta cheese with some olives).  Our drinks came with a worm, and our residents enjoyed activities (puzzles) as well as the movie of Halloween shorts made by our supervisor cook, Robert Wade.  Genna White (assistant director) went all out with the decorations!

Jon R. Smith

General Manager

DISC at Villa St Benedict

During a recent team meeting we had the staff complete the DISC profile to help communication. The staff enjoyed getting to learn about themselves and their coworkers.  Our board show the different personality types and has the employee attached to their personality. The ribbons intersecting show that we all have a little bit of each personality in us.

Brooke Roth
Assistant Director of Culinary Services
Villa St. Benedict

October Diversity

Schoolcraft Medical Care Facility focused on Breast Cancer for October- we put up a bulletin board for all staff to acknowledge anyone who has had breast cancer, we picked October 19th to encourage all staff to wear pink and our Cook decorated a cake and cupcakes in honor of breast cancer.

Denise Greff, DDS, RD

Halloween and Diversity at Lake Forest Place

This year the dining services team celebrated Halloween at Lake Forest Place by participating in a community wide pumpkin carving contest. Two pumpkins were carved by the culinary or BOH team and two pumpkins were carved by the dining servers or FOH team. The four pumpkins entered into the contest consisted of a Black Bat, a witch eating a skeleton, a ninja made out of food, and a chef who cut his hand carving meat.

 

The pumpkins were voted on by the residents of Lake Forest Place in which the ninja made out of food took second place! The winners of the pumpkin carving contest received a pizza party for their department. The staff also celebrated the holiday by dressing up in their favorite costumes displaying unique and versatile style. The management team dressed up as a Crayola Crayon. The residents really enjoyed and appreciated how much the employees got into the holiday making it a fun day for everyone. 

Pumpkin Decorating Contest at AM McGregor

Above are some pictures of our pumpkin decorating contest, held at AM McGregor.

We had some very cool entries!

Our staff and residents voted, and the winner this year was dining services (center)!

October Diversity Activity for Central Baptist Village

Culinary Services participated in the second annual Trick or Treat Table contest.  The contest included each department creating a table for residents to trick or treat at.  Culinary Services created a table with edible decorations and treats.  The residents really appreciated getting something other than just candy.  We also held and employee costume contest which the residents enjoyed voting on.

Pictures Include:

Employee Costume Contest: Employee Winner and Diversity Ambassadors EVS (Pearl Ortega) and Culinary Services (Terri O'Reilly)

Pumpkin Decorations for Trick or Treat Table: Yes that is a cheeseburger Pumpkin!

Treats for Residents: Pretzel & Cheese Broomstick and Pumpkin Rice Krispie Treat

Oktoberfest at the Felician Sister Motherhouse Michigan

On October 17th the Sister's began their trip around the dining world, in Germany.  Our Oktoberfest menu consisted of homemade Sauerbraten, sweet and sour cabbage, hot german potatoes, and two delicious housemade desserts: Fresh Baked Apples & a Black Forest cheesecake.  The sisters really enjoyed the menu, but the marketing really took the show.  They loved the passports and the whole concept!  We are all looking forward to Home for the Holidays next month.

Cardinal Stritch October Diversity

This month the staff at Cardinal Stritch took the opportunity to learn a bit about the traditional food and culture of one of the retreat groups that stayed with us for a week.  In anticipation of the arrival of the group of 30 Ukrainian priests, one of the staff members brought in a book of Ukrainian recipes.  We all looked through it and decided to surprise them with a couple of the salad recipes  - Cabbage Salad and Leek and Apple Slaw. 

The priests appreciated our efforts, the staff had fun with it, and the project contributed to the overall sense of community and family atmosphere we strive to create for each retreat guest.

Fun Halloween Recipes

Picture from OurBest Bites.com

From Fake Ginger

Spooky Snack Mix 

From Skinny Taste

Skinny Mummy Balls

From Baking Bites

Bloody Brain Cupcakes 

From Kraft

  Boo Cups 

 (perfect for resident tray service or memory impaired)

From Spoonful

Funny Bones

Oktoberfest at Masonic Homes of Shelbyville

We celebrated Oktoberfest at the Masonic Homes of Shelbyville on October 16th by featuring a variety of Oktoberfest specialties! Our menu included: German Pot Roast, Bratwurst, Spaetzlers (German Noodles), Potato Pancakes, Braised Red Cabbage, Sauerkraut, Pretzels and Cheese and Bavarian Chocolate Cream Pie! Our residents loved our first passport journey to Germany and are excited for more to come!

Oktoberfest at King Home

Travel the World: Oktoberfest

AL residents, IL residents, and guests had the opportunity to sample authentic German dishes at the James C. King Home from October 1st-3rd. The festivities included music, beer hall style seating, and fun Oktoberfest information/trivia. During the 3 Oktoberfest dinners, over 135 people registered for the event.

Featured Menu Items:

10/1/2013
Tomato Salad
Riesling Chicken
Pork Schnitzel
Braised Red Cabbage
Potato Salad
Homemade German Chocolate Cake

10/2/2013
Carrot Salad
German Sausage Duo
Gulaschsuppe Over Egg Noodles
Roasted Potatoes
Sauerkraut
Apfelstrudel

10/3/2013
German Cucumber Salad
Chicken Paprikash
Sauerbraten
Spaetzel
Karotten Im Bier
Black Forest Cupcakes

Health Fair at AM McGregor

Some engagement activities at McGregor:  Our health fair featured a smoothie contest with recipes submitted by staff & residents.  During the fair, staff voted for their favorite of the three featured.  Our prep cook was the winner (Teresa Washington), and she won a smoothie cookbook as well as a blender.

During the health fair, Morrison sponsored one of the raffle prizes.  This was won by one of our nurse managers.  She received a tote full of books that went with the health fair theme.  "Cook This, Not That", a gluten free cookbook, a couple of fall harvest magazines, and two Metro Park hiking trail books.