COMMUNIQUÉ
PAGE 4
Day in the Life – Food Service to the Cottages
Providing good, wholesome food for the children in care on Boys & Girls Homes campus has been a central focus since its founding in 1954. Originally, each cottage had one or two cooks and industrial kitchens to handle the rigor of cooking three daily meals plus snacks for up to 20 hungry boys per cottage. Over time, cottages shared cooks. When Flemington Academy opened with its own cafeteria in 2013, cottage cooks worked there instead. Each cook had her signature dishes that BGHNC alumni still remember today –cinnamon rolls or potato salad or a famed broccoli salad, a recipe passed from cook to cook. “Before the cafeteria, Optimist and Rotary were cooking cottages, and they cooked for the school too, and kids came from school to those cottages to eat,”said Residential Director Jonathan Crawley. “When the civic clubs came to campus, everybody came for the fried chicken and blueberry cheesecake from Miss Kat and Miss Fay.” Today’s BGHNC Food Services Manager Stacey Green and cooks Tiffany Lewis and Ken Brewer, prepare weekday meals for our 43 residents. Each summer day, Tiffany cooks breakfast for Solomon Emergency Youth Shelter around 7:30 a.m., and the cottages make their own breakfasts. The cooks follow set menus from the state with a little wiggle room for kiddo tastes. Breakfast was waffles, syrup cups, sausage patties, applesauce, milk and juice. By 8:30 a.m., Stacey is hard at work in Lang Building preparing to order food and supplies as well as toiletries for the cottages for the next two weeks. She has worked in BGHNC Food Service for a decade. “We just don’t stop, but of course this place doesn’t stop either. It’s 24/7,”Stacey added.
“When I cook, I like to choose recipes that are a little different, so the kids don’t eat the same things all the time,”Ken said.“Yesterday, the menu said smoked sausage, and we usually have that on buns. So, I cut the sausage and served it over jambalaya rice instead.” At the end of each food prep, all the cooks scrub all surfaces and wash their hands, upholding the 100 percent food safety rating the kitchen has maintained the last two years. For special events like a quarterly all staff Town Hall, Stacey gets creative, carving a pineapple snake and a pineapple palm tree shading a fruit plate.
Before lunch is ready at 11:30 a.m., Tiffany prepares sweet tea and lemonade for the next day’s event. As she rolls the cart across campus to the Fellowship Hall, Tiffany shared that she currently has:“200 chickens, 4 goats, 9 pigs and 1 grandbaby,”she said, laughing.
By 10:30 a.m. Ken is working on lunch and prepping for dinner with a block of frozen chicken breasts defrosting in the cafeteria kitchen for lemon pepper chicken. Two of the Lake House teen moms unload buggies of food from a recent food truck delivery. Lunch is spaghetti with meat
During the school year, residential kiddos come to the cafeteria for lunch with their classmates, but at night, they eat family-style supper around the large dinner tables in each of their cottages. At 4 p.m. each day, Ken or Tiffany write a note in the Residential GroupMe app that says:“Dinner carts are ready to pick up.”Each cottage sends a food ambassador to roll the cart of food pans back home. On the weekends, the cottages cook meals in their kitchens or eat leftovers. “I like to make the Rice Krispie treats because the kids love them,” Tiffany said. Some days in BGHNC Food Service are more hectic than others, but Tiffany said she returns each day for the kids.
sauce and a salad bar. The teen moms fill silver square containers with shredded cheddar cheese and chopped eggs. The moms say they like macaroni and cheese, steak fajitas, chicken wings, potato wedges and the Mexican street corn best.
Made with FlippingBook - Share PDF online