These days, you may be just as likely to find famed chef Joyce Goldstein in the kitchen at the Jewish Home in San Francisco as on tour with her newest cookbook. The author, instructor and restaurateur of the former Square One is sharing her passion for tasty Jewish cuisine with the staff and residents. As a consulting chef to the Home, Goldstein is upgrading menus, offering recipes and helping to create authentic Jewish cuisine.
Of course, the nutritional needs of seniors are paramount. But food is also an important part of the social and religious fabric of life at the Home. Sue Fung, director of nutritional services, says the Home is making a concerted effort to upgrade its food service and to promote the Jewishness of its cuisine.
“Residents had complained that the food didn’t taste Jewish enough,” Fung says. The answer: bring in a top chef, who celebrates the melding of Jewish and Mediterranean cooking in such best-selling cookbooks as “Cucina Ebraica” and “Sephardic Flavors.”
Goldstein isn’t just offering advice from her office. The San Francisco resident has wielded a ladle, working side-by-side with kitchen staff to prepare a Shabbat dinner. She upgraded the Passover menu; her recipe for chicken with matzah stuffing was a hit. And she’s invited the Home’s cooks to attend her cooking classes to learn more about her process and style.
In July, Goldstein met with the Home’s food committee, a group of residents who are not shy about voicing their culinary opinions.
“It was hard to get them to be specific about their concerns,” she says. “Someone wanted blintzes, another person didn’t. But we are making simple changes, such as offering more fresh fruit for dessert and varying the menu.” With Goldstein’s help, the Home also obtained a new kosher meat purveyor.
Goldstein believes in staying current with culinary trends. Kitchens, like the rest of society, are not static. “Residents who are now in their 80s and 90s ate a lot of frozen food in the 1940s. The next group will want bigger flavors. As the baby boomers grow old, they’ll be seeking spicier food.”
While Jewish food may conjure images of holiday meals and recipes passed from one generation to the next, Goldstein had a different experience. “I came from a family of terrible cooks,” she says laughing. “I learned to cook in self-defense.”
As a board member of Meals on Wheels, Goldstein developed an interest in the food needs of seniors and others who are homebound and those living in residential facilities. She is so passionate about the importance of quality cooking for seniors that she is launching a line of commercial kosher products. Grandma Goldstein’s Garden features sauces and condiments created to complement food provided by wholesale suppliers. Soon, seniors in nursing homes and assisted-living facilities will be able to enjoy Goldstein’s Casa Blanca Red (“like ketchup but more sophisticated”), Apricot Mustard, Horseradish Dill Cream (“excellent on salmon or a latke”) and Ginger Lemon Applesauce. The wholesale line will be available for large facilities and contractors after the first of the year.
The Home was one of the test sites for her products. “The residents loved them,” Goldstein says. “They were very enthusiastic.”
The Home’s five cooks are responsible for preparing 1,600 meals every day for more than 400 residents in 11 dining rooms. Goldstein acknowledges the challenges of cooking for such large numbers. “You can’t simply take a recipe for 10 and multiply it by 40,” she says. “It’s important to make a small batch first, to know what the dish is supposed to taste like.”
Another challenge for the staff, she notes, is the limitation of a kitchen that was built in 1923. “It’s an old kitchen,” Goldstein says. “It could certainly be refurbished and they need new equipment, more steam tables, a grill.” The space constraints of the 940-square-foot kitchen make it a challenge to maintain proper kashrut while meeting the complex dietary needs of the residents.
The Home is planning to completely redesign its kitchen facilities as part of a major site expansion and renovation, under the leadership of William Lowenberg and David Friedman.
For now, though, the Home will continue to make the best of its resources. An executive chef, who did the cooking for Mollie Stone’s Markets, was recently hired. Goldstein will continue to nudge the staff toward more adventurous Jewish cooking. After all, she says, food is really designed to feed the soul.