The new fresh cook kitchen at the Gibson Street Complex is now in full swing. Employing four chefs and one assistant chef, the kitchen provides fresh cooked meals for the 160 residents of Joan Pinder, Stella Anderson and Simpkin House.
Director of Nursing Gibson Street Complex, Suzie McNamara, said residents are enjoying the familiarity of home-cooked style meals, and having a kitchen on-site means more flexibility when it comes to the food options.
“The benefit of cooking on-site is that we’re able to meet individual preferences and dietary requirements. Being able to adjust recipes and provide alternatives has been wonderful for the residents,” she said.
Working with a four-week rotating menu, the chefs provide a range of main meals and desserts – including home-cooked pies, pasta bakes and puddings – as well as morning and afternoon tea.
To ensure safety and quality, the food is delivered to different areas of the complex via a purpose-built lift, which was included as part of the upgrade.
Joan Pinder resident, Lindsay Towner, has enjoyed having a kitchen on-site and the variety it offers, but was most impressed by how accommodating staff have been should he request a different menu item.
“I’m the fussiest old bloke in the place to feed. I don’t like tomato soup with thyme in it, but one of the servers saw me with [it] and said ‘you’ll get the plain tomato as you like’,” he said.
Lindsay said his favourite meal from the new kitchen is the roast beef, but is also partial to a sandwich – or ‘sangas’ as some residents call them – when staff make them.
“I feel that since we’ve had the chefs it has made a difference for [everyone],” he said.
The fresh cook kitchen was made possible by a $1.8 million investment from the Victorian Government’s Regional Health Infrastructure Fund.