6 minute read
Shaking things up
After transforming the menus at the Rotunda last year, Joyce Timmins has moved onto a new challenge
Last summer, a video posted on social media of lunch being served to patients at the Rotunda Maternity Hospital went viral. Surprisingly, the video’s popularity wasn’t down to the poor quality of the food but how good it looked. The Chef responsible for the meal being served that day was Joyce Timmins, the then Executive Chef at the Rotunda. “To be honest, I just thought I was doing normal food. Cooking everything fresh on the day makes sense to me whereas cooking meat, slicing it and then reheating it is much harder than just putting a joint of beef into the oven when you actually need it. It’s a no-brainer,” said Joyce. It might be a no-brainer but it’s not standard practice in Irish hospitals. Coming from Michelin-starred restaurants like Le Manoir aux Quat’Saisons in Oxfordshire and Restaurant Patrick Guilbaud in Dublin, Joyce brought an entirely different perspective to how food is prepared and served in HSE facilities, challenging the ingrained, almost impossible to shift food culture.
A stint in the kitchens at Mosney Holiday Centre kickstarted Joyce’s passion for cooking. She completed her 7061 and 7062 in Cathal Brugha Street and went on to do a stage in Le Manoir. After working in Patrick Guilbaud’s, she joined the pastry kitchen in the Merrion Hotel which was followed by a Head Pastry Chef role in the Killarney Park Hotel and a nine-year stint at the Espresso Bar Café. “Around that time, I was after a more nine to five role so I went to KSG which was my first time working in industrial catering. It was a massive change as I wasn’t used to batch cooking but an excellent learning experience.” After various roles at KSG, Joyce saw that the Rotunda was looking for an Executive Chef. “When I began working there, the food wasn’t bad. It was more that there was no structure to it. On my first weekend, I was doing up plates of salads with ham, cheese, an egg cut in half, a bit of iceberg and coleslaw. I asked who they were for and was told they were for anyone who wanted them. These salads were like something your mammy might have prepared for you in the 1980’s. The amount of waste was unbelievable.” Joyce’s decision to cut the salads from the menu caused uproar. “I think there was a fear around offering a hot meal as hospital food had such a bad name. I told my team that if someone wanted a salad they could have one but that we would start offering two hot choices at lunch and two at night. I said, I guarantee you that those egg orders will drop to just one or two.” The new lunch menu offered two main courses, one vegetarian and one meat or fish and the same in the evening, only slightly lighter. Patients, unsurprisingly, loved the new dishes. Other changes, like substituting a salad for chips served with lasagne, underlined the new Executive Chef’s commitment to providing healthy meals as opposed to conforming to the old guard approach. “On their rounds, the board of management would comment on how little was coming back on the plates. Wastage was at a minimum.”
The menu in the restaurant was also revised. “Before I changed the restaurant menus, all the food items were sitting in a bain marie. I stopped all of that and brought in four main courses. They were very well received and takings went up.” Creating nutritionally balanced, cost-effective dishes for patients at the Rotunda wasn’t a challenge for Joyce. So why wasn’t this approach adopted before now? “I think it comes down to a lack of motivation among chefs. They’ve lost their mojo. I also don’t think chefs are being recognised enough in hospitals. Generally, HSE kitchens promote from within. I think it’s important to bring fresh blood in, for someone to say actually no, there are better ways of doing this.” An across the board, integrated approach to food in HSE facilities may be the answer, says Joyce. “Maybe we need a HSE executive chef team to go into health facilities, spend a month with the chefs there and roll out the same costed, allergent and calorie counted menu across all hospitals. Inspiring your team is also key. When I went into the Rotunda, I sent my guys to different places that I had worked in, just to show them what’s actually possible.”
Joyce has since left the Rotunda but her legacy lives on; with the exception of one or two dishes, her menus have been maintained. “That role was definitely one of my career highlights. I’m proud of what we achieved there but I’m even prouder of the work I’m doing in my current role in the Marymount Care Centre, a retirement home in Dublin. I’ve never been so happy in a job.” Now the Catering Manager at Marymount, Joyce is preparing dishes for people with issues around dysphagia. “Before I started, the food being served to residents was great but we’ve tidied it up a bit and taken it to the next level. I’ve never had such job satisfaction. Throughout my career, I’ve worked in five star hotels and Michelin-starred restaurants but now, I’m giving something back.”
That sense of giving something back and foregoing the lure of awards glory is something Joyce is very clear on. “This is the first calm, stress free kitchen I’ve worked in. My mam gives out to me all the time for swearing but apart from my current role, it’s kind of what you have to do to survive in this industry. You hide your feminine side. You show your balls even if you don’t have any and you work harder than the men just to be considered as good. It can be an extremely aggressive environment; I once had a banana shoved down my throat because I put a speckled banana on a fruit plate! Cheffing is extremely male dominated and even more so today, I think. I ended up leaving one role as the male chefs were on 10 grand more than me, even though we were all doing the same job.”
Ambitions for the future include continuing to improve in her current role at Marymount. “I can’t believe it has taken me so long to work in this kind of environment. I’d also like to be taken on by the HSE to work in line with nutritionists or dieticians and get menus up to the standard that they should be at. It would be a lot of work but it would be so worthwhile. I don’t know if that team exists already but if it does, they’re not doing their job properly.”
